THE CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS IN THE KANT’S GROUNDWORK OF MORALS

Abstract

In the Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant aims to establish a moral, valid, necessary and universal principle to guide human acting. This principle must be completely devoid of sensible elements. The morality can not be founded from any empirical principle, since one can not be universalized but only generalized. Then the problem of happiness as a moral principle is its determination by an empirical element and so it is formally indeterminate and indeterminable because the human being has not the necessary conditions to delimit the conjunct of necessary conditions to his/her perfect happiness. The happiness only can be a material conditions to determinate the subject’s action because it is an incentive (empirical) to act. The happiness is not a cause of morality but one of consequences. KEY WORDS: Will. Happiness. Categorical Imperative. Kant.