The Independence of Right from Ethics Allen Wood Right and ethics ...

6:231). “Right and authorization to use coercion therefore mean one and the same thing” (MS6:232).This is the basic reason why right and not ethics can be the source of duties whosefulfillment may be externally coerced. Ethical duties are based on ends – on the rationalrequirement that we set and pursue certain ends that are also duties --which Kant calls “duties ofvirtue” (MS 6:382-385). These ends belong to the categories: our own perfection, and thehappiness of others (MS 6:385-388). Because a rational being cannot be externally coerced to setan end, the fulfillment of ethical duties cannot be externally coerced: “Duties of virtue cannot besubject to external legislation simply because they have to do with an end which (or the havingof which) is also a duty. No external legislation can bring about one’s setting an end forhimself,…although it may prescribe actions that lead to an end without the subject making it hisend” (MS 6:239). But it would be wrong (contrary to right) to try to coerce the fulfillment of anethical duty by coercing the agent to fulfill an end that agent has not set. The fulfillment ofethical duties must always be through self-constraint, not external constraint or coercion (MS6:379). The attempt to derive duties of right from the supreme principle of morality musttherefore necessarily fail, since the only duties that can be derived from this principle are dutiesit would be wrong (contrary to right) to coerce anyone to fulfill.Right and universal law. It is not a requirement of merely prudential reason, still less ofmerely instrumental reason, that we should will to be free to choose actions that further our ownends. For this requirement applies not only to our self-interested actions, but to all our actions assuch. As far as reason permits, we will them to be chosen by us to serve our ends, rather thanbeing forced to serve the ends of others. Further, when we take the standpoint of reason,abstracting from all partiality to ourselves, we also see from this perspective that every rational9