An Exploration of the Connection between Willing Morally and Willing Freely in The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher, credited for many arguments on the concept of personhood, morality, reason, good will and metaphysics. In his prominent work, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explores the connection between willing morally and willing freely, stating that they are the same thing. In Kant's view, acting morally is the height of our freedoms; he disagrees with the concept of freedom that entails doing something you feel like doing, and who you really are derives itself from reason and not how you feel.

The aim of this commentary on his arguments is to explain why he believes free will is necessarily moral, and whether it is an absolutely accurate view.

According to Kant, true freedom is following your reason, and reason is doing only what you necessarily have to do to. He labeled his morality as autonomous, and given to oneself, because, the will is not a mere subject to moral law but instead the will prescribes the law to itself, and is the source of this moral law.

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In Kant's view, freedom and morality together are a categorical imperative. He believes this because of our nature as rational beings, our ability to reason gives rise to a will that gives itself moral law. With this view, he believes that human freedom is still intact, because this morality is not heteronomous, we have imposed it on ourselves, and act in accordance to it freely because is our own, and is not extrinsic and is not imposed by any outside force.

He summarizes this in the 'principle of every human will as a will giving universal law in all its maxims. ' (Chapter 2, Page 31)

He believes that the will itself is a giver of universal laws, therefore the will freely awards itself with freedom and moral law together, which in turn does not violate his sovereignty as an autonomous being. He feels he has succeeded where others failed- in realizing that man is not bound to duty by laws, when he has prescribed these laws to himself. A person binds himself to his freedom, which in itself is bound to his morals, which is in turn bound to his obligations.

This brings us to Kant's view of freedom, and personal interests. For Kant, freedom is not linked to following one's own interests. The term willing morally is intricately linked to duty, and hence willing freely too, becomes performing one's duty. Doing one's duty, is the basis of many of Kant's arguments, and even freedom involves performing one's duty. Being rational beings lead us to perform our duty, and hence freedom is also doing the right thing, not for any other purpose except for the fact that it is the right thing to do.

However, I disagree with Kant. His argument may stand in theory but in practicality it is too black and white. Willing freely necessarily includes the freedom of choice, and in Kant's view, freedom is limited to our moral obligation alone. Exercising free will cannot always mean acting morally, because in reality, as rational beings with free will we are faced with choices that are not necessarily moral. An example of this can be, discontinuing studying chemistry, because it doesn't make you happy and you were only studying it to make your parents happy, to pursue art. This is an example of willing freely, but it is not necessarily immoral or moral. Kant would condemn this, as it is a disregard of one's moral duty, but doing what makes one happy, in today's world, does not make you morally reprehensible. It is very possible to make immoral choices while willing freely, and according to Kant, most actions are immoral, as his definition of what is moral is limited. It makes us question our supposed duty.

Kant previously mentions that moral action is always greater than your desires and that "I am to follow the law even if it thwarts my desires." (Chapter 1, Page 10) but a necessary factor of being human is having desires and aspirations, and if morality is so restrictive, even when we have imposed it on ourselves, willing freely and willing morally become irreconcilable. The simplest example of this can be found in the human mind itself - in Freudian psychology, the two structures of the mind that represent free will and morality are constantly clashing, the id, which functions on the innate human freedom and desire versus the superego which functions on the morality principle.

The definition of freedom is too arbitrary to be used practically, for example, a thief who has not been caught who clearly does not will morally is by all realistic definitions free. Humans are too complex to have their choices divided into 'moral' or 'immoral' and a freedom comprising only of doing the right thing for itself, is limited, and does not encompass what being human really is. Every person is born with an innate freedom and dignity, we can reversely infer that if a person is free he is also innately moral, which is a thought that is very utopian and impossible. In the same vein, slavery violates our freedom and dignity, but all slaves are not necessarily immoral. Their inability to will freely does not mean they cannot will morally.

I feel Kant's position is significantly weakened by the fact that if a person is considered to have free will because he is the source of the moral laws he imposes on himself, the moral laws are only relevant to an individual. Kant believes that moral law is valid because it arises from the reason of rational beings, but in following said law, we are pursuing what is morally right, even if it is not what we really want to do, which is not synonymous with the concept of freedom. His concept of freedom, then lacks the actual aspect of free will. Kant says 'Being sovereign in the realm of ends isn't a matter of choice, to be sovereign a rational being must be completely independent of everything else; have no needs and have unlimited power adequate to his will.' (Chapter 2, Page 32)

In saying so, Kant is divorcing free will from interest and aspiration and the essential force that animates us as humans. He is presenting an impossible ideal person. Kant's arguments strip a person of what really makes one a person, and address only the very extreme positions of good and bad.

Kant's argument about willing freely and willing morally being one is too idealistic, and it undermines the myriad factors of personhood, involving only the importance of duty. The ability to reason is characteristic of a rational being, and ability to reason leaves room for choices that cannot be immediately classified into moral or immoral. Being accountable for our decisions mean that we learn from them, good or bad. As sentient beings, we are complex in character and this reflects in our decisions and it is difficult to practice Kant's philosophy in a morally ambiguous world.