Kant’s perspective that consequences of an action are not what matters, but rather the “moral worth” of the action is important really resonated with me. Kant argues that if a person is doing something because they have the motivation to do good rather than bad, then how the action actually results is irrelevant. The most significant part of the action was the motivation itself and the attempt to try to do good.
When thinking about an action’s moral worth rather than the action’s consequence, I immediately thought about charities. We always see things on the news where large charities that get donated millions of dollars. You think how much good work they can do with all that money. I am part of an organization where we do fundraising so that we can donate to charities around San Diego. At a recent fundraiser, we only raised $300 and a lot of the members felt upset that we wouldn’t be making a big enough impact. However, once I read Kant’s philosophy on this, I felt better that though my organization couldn’t donate millions of dollars, we still were trying to do our little part to help out the community.
Through this, I realized that not everyone can donate huge amount of money to charity, but, if we all look at doing an action with moral worth, it doesn’t matter how much money you are able to donate, whether it is $1 or $1 million. It is the fact that people are trying, help even in the smallest way, to make the world a better place.
Below is an infographic on charitable donations in the US in 2018. As you can see, 70% of charitable donations was by individuals rather than the 5% by corporations.
I found the analogy you used to explain Kant’s perspective on good action really helpful with understanding Kant’s idea. I agree that charity should not be about how much people donate, but about doing an action with moral worth. It reminds me of some posts I saw online where rich people like celebrities or billionaires are judged for not donating as much money as they should or expected. According to Kant’s idea, an action shouldn’t be judged on its consequence, but rather the moral worth. It’s interesting that rich people are always expected to donate a lot of money, and they can get judged by doing charity.
I agree with your perspective that Kant was more focused on the merit behind the action rather than the volume of the action. Your analogy paints in a much simpler and more understandable way. That being said, I think it would also be beneficial to talk about the proportions of the amount given as well. For example, the companies are able to donate millions of dollars while individuals donate significantly less. But comparatively speaking, if the company makes a billion dollars and donates a million, they are donating 0.1% of their earnings. Similarly, if the individual makes $100,000 and donates $100, they are also donating 0.1% of their earnings. While the absolute values might be different, the merits (or percentage) is still the same.
I really like the fact that you used data to back up your claim. TIL that most donations were made by individuals and not by organizations! I wholeheartedly agree with your and Kant’s idea that intention is more important than the outcome, but in reality, not everyone holds the same value. Therefore, I think while doing charitable work with goodwill is the best-case scenario, when necessary, incentives can be provided as a way of solving inequality or major crisis.
While I agree that Kant would say that the good will behind actions is more important than the outcome, I would take it a step further and say that Kant might also say that a good will would spur someone to use their sense of reason to improve the methods they used to bring about positive change. In your example, the good will of the givers might inspire them to find ways to make more money in order to give more to the cause, or the good will of those holding the fundraiser may inspire them to come up with more efficient ways to raise more money for the cause. While the goodness of good will is not contingent upon the outcome, Kant may say that a genuinely good will inspires a sense of duty that continually seeks to improve the outcome.
I thought that your explanation of Kant’s perspective was very clear being that he was more focused on the motivations of the actions rather than their outcomes. I resonated with your post and agree that it should be about the magnitude of your results but rather that your actions were made with good moral intentions. Because I work in customer service, I see this a lot, especially when it comes to tips. It’s not about how much tip you leave an individual and how it will effect them but rather that you leave the tip at all. I feel this is the message that comes from your post being that helping someone meet your ends while meeting their own is of moral worth and it should be less focused on magnitude.
I would say that this can also be taken a step further by exploring whether actions such as charitable ones spur from our duties or whether we feel inclined to conform and donate. Being that a dutiful action is of moral worth, I can be argue that charitable acts with good moral intention are in a person’s duty but is it in everyones duty such as those that are maybe not able to? I feel this would be an interesting exploration on this topic.