The evidence of history proves the necessity of morality in law. In my next article, I will discuss a second fundamental principle of law, the sovereignty of law over judges. I will conclude this essay by discussing how Christian universities can help restore the morality and sovereignty of American law. Sixth, virtue, while important, has no place of honor in Kant`s system in other respects. For example, he argues that the absence of virtue is compatible with the possession of good will (G 6:408). Acting out of duty, even repeatedly and reliably, can therefore be quite compatible with the lack of moral strength to overcome conflicting interests and desires. In fact, it may often not be difficult at all to fulfill one`s duty solely out of duty. Someone of good will, truly committed to duty for himself, simply could not encounter any significant temptation that would reveal the lack of strength to carry out that commitment. However, he also seemed to assert that if an action is to have real moral value, it must be motivated by the kind of purity of motivation that can only be achieved by a permanent and quasi-religious conversion or “revolution” in the sense of the will described in the religion. Unless a lasting change in the direction of the will in this regard is achieved, a revolution in which moral justice is the non-negotiable condition of its every effort, all actions compatible with duty are nevertheless morally worthless, whatever else may be said.
But even this revolution of will must be followed by a gradual and permanent strengthening of one`s own will to put this revolution into practice. This suggests that Kant`s thoughtful view is that a goodwill is a will in which this revolution of priorities has been achieved, while a virtuous will is a will that has the power to overcome obstacles to its manifestation in practice. Kant claimed that all these CI formulas were equivalent. Unfortunately, it does not say in what sense. What he says is that they are “basically so many formulations of the same law, each of which unites the other two”, and that the differences between them are “subjective rather than objectively practical”, in the sense that each aims to “bring an idea of reason closer to intuition (by a certain analogy) and therefore to feeling” (G 4, 435). He also says that one formula “follows” another (G 4:431), and that the concept underlying a formula “leads to a closely related concept” based on another formula (G 4:433). Therefore, his assertion that the formulations are equivalent could be interpreted in various ways. According to Dworkin, while lawmakers can legally enact laws that are justified by political arguments, courts cannot pursue such arguments when deciding cases. For a consequentialist argument of politics can never provide sufficient justification to decide the legal claim of one party and against the legal claim of another party.
According to Dworkin, the invocation of an already existing right can ultimately only be justified by an argument of principle. Thus, to the extent that judicial decisions necessarily rule on legal claims, they must ultimately be based on moral principles that contribute to the best justification of legal practice as a whole. Kant argued that ordinary moral thought recognizes moral duties both to ourselves and to others. Therefore, in addition to distinguishing between perfect and imperfect duties, Kant recognized four categories of duties: perfect duties to ourselves, perfect duties to others, imperfect duties to ourselves, and imperfect duties to others. Kant uses four examples in the preparatory work, one of any type of duty, to show that any type of duty can be derived from the CI, thus supporting his argument that the CI is indeed the fundamental principle of morality. Abstaining from suicide is a perfect duty to oneself; It is a perfect duty to others not to make promises that one does not want to keep; Developing one`s talents is an imperfect duty to oneself; And contributing to the happiness of others is an imperfect duty to others. Here too, Kant`s interpreters disagree on the exact way to reconstruct the derivation of these duties. We will briefly describe one way to do this, for the perfect duty to others not to make promises, and the imperfect duty to develop talents for ourselves. Kant`s account of the content of moral requirements and the nature of moral reasoning is based on his analysis of the unique power that moral considerations have as reasons for acting. The power of moral demands as reasons is that we cannot ignore them, no matter how circumstances may conspire against another consideration. Basic moral requirements retain their rational power in all circumstances, they have universal validity. Whatever may be said about fundamental moral requirements, their content is universal.
Only a universal law could be the content of a requirement that has the rational power of morality. This leads Kant to a preliminary formulation of the CI: “I should never act, except that I also want my maxim to become a universal law” (G 4:402). This is the principle which motivates goodwill and which Kant considers to be the basic principle of all morality. Traditionally, the main purpose of conceptual (or analytical) jurisprudence has been to provide a representation of what distinguishes law as a system of norms from other normative systems, such as ethical norms. As John Austin describes the project, conceptual jurisprudence seeks “the essence or nature common to all laws that are rightly so called” (Austin 1995, 11).