IV Practical Reason—The Ethics of Duty

Abstract

This chapter deals with deontological ethics. Its origins are in Stoic ethics. In his work De officiis (On Duties), Cicero combines recommendations for individual conduct with political considerations. He resolves the conflict between natural inclination and the duty serving the common good by pointing out that, in the long run, orientation towards duty also serves one’s own interests. Kant rejected this mediation in his deontological ethics and only called that action moral which is oriented towards the categorical imperative and takes place completely independently of natural motives. For him, the fulfillment of the natural striving for happiness can only take place in the hereafter. Johann Gottlieb Fichte radicalizes the Kantian approach and interprets the categorical imperative as the duty of the human being to realize a reasonable world order.