Founder of a Metaphysics of Morals 285It is the "good will" that is the "concept that always takes first place in
estimating the total worth of all our actions and constitutes the condition
of all the rest."^36 But insofar as maxims are subjective principles of voli¬
tion, that is, volitions "under certain conditions and hindrances," willed
by a will that is either good or not good, maxims are what need to be eval¬
uated. Good maxims, or maxims that have moral worth, are those maxims
that a good will would will, while bad maxims, or maxims without moral
worth, are maxims that a good will could not will. Kant goes on to argue
that this means that any maxim that involves motivations that are not mo¬
tivated by duty itself, but are merely in accordance with duty, are maxims
that a good will could not will. Indeed, he identifies an absolutely good will
or "a will good without any qualification" with a will whose principle is
"the universal conformity of its actions to law." That is, an absolutely good
will is a will whose volitions proceed from the principle that"/ ought never
to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become
a universal law."^37 As we have seen, Kant believed that this principle, which
he later identifies as the categorical imperative, is contained in common
human reason and is thus both accessible and accepted by every moral agent.
Not every philosopher would agree with that claim.
In the second section of the Groundwork — called "Transition from Pop¬
ular Moral Philosophy to Metaphysics of Morals" — Kant goes on to ar¬
gue that, even if "it is always doubtful" whether any given act is done from
duty, it is still the case that only acts done from duty have moral worth.
Only a pure moral philosophy that recognizes this can make sense of
morality.^38 Moral concepts cannot be derived from experience, but they
have their origin a priori in pure reason. They are, he claims, not derived
from human reason, but from "the universal concept of a rational being
as such."^39 A pure moral philosophy deals with a pure will, that is, a will
which has motives "that are represented completely a priori by reason
alone," and not with human volition, which is characterized by empirically
based motives.^40
This ideal of a pure will differentiates Kant's metaphysics of morals
from the Wolffian conception of a universal practical philosophy. Wolff's
thought dealt with volition in general, Kant's philosophy deals with pure
will. Wolff's approach can be compared to that of logic in general, which
deals with all kinds of thinking, while Kant's is close to transcendental
logic, which investigates "the special actions and rules of pure thinking,
that is, of thinking by which objects are cognised completely a priori."^41
Kant, in other words, does not intend to deal with the everyday situations