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Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
defined inclination in the first paragraph of ''
Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
'' with the statement "all men by their nature, desire to know."
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
proposed that humans have four natural inclinations - a natural inclination to preservation (life), an inclination to sexual reproduction (procreation), sociability, and knowledge. Inclination in the modern philosophy of ethics is viewed in the context of
morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
, or moral worth.


History

The definition of inclination has varying definitions in philosophy. Aristotle "holds it to be the mark of a good person to take pleasure in moral action," or what one wants to do.
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
made a study of whether inclination is of the highest moral worth, and objected to Aristotle's analysis, reasoning that "it is the person who acts from the motive of duty in the teeth of contrary inclination who shows an especially high degree of moral worth."


The Shopkeeper

Kant posits the example of a shopkeeper who continually charges fair prices to customers in order to build good will and repeat business. If the shopkeeper continued that practice due to a mere inclination (to obtain repeat business) rather than sense of duty (higher principles of fairness and justice), though the shopkeeper's keeping the prices fair may conform with duty it has "no true moral worth." If instead the shopkeeper kept the prices fair solely out a duty to justice then he is acting simply from that duty. And in that case, in so doing Kant argues that the act now has "genuine moral worth." But changing the facts of the example might lead to an altogether different conclusion. If instead the shopkeeper is nearly bankrupt and desperately needs money to feed his family, and still the shopkeeper keeps the prices fair less out of a sense of duty but rather a sense of pride (an inclination), then some may argue that it is more impressive to stay fair under those circumstances.


Criticism

Kant argues that acting out of pure duty has the highest value, in that the visitor is doing the right thing for the right reason, because it is the right thing to do. It is not always clear whether inclination is morally more worthy than duty, or vice versa. For example, if following one's moral duty to always tell the truth has the highest value, then telling the truth (the location of a person) where it results in the murder of that person may show that following pure duty may not have the highest moral value. But many criticisms of Kant do not take into account that he did not preclude other acts from having moral worth, instead Kant is said to have only valued acting from pure duty as having "true" or "authentic" moral worth. Philosophers tend to disagree on whether operating solely out of duty is always the most morally worthy thing to do, rather than operating via inclination.


The Hospital Visitor

One famous example illustrates the difference between inclination and duty while illustrating a criticism of it, as given by Michael Stocker in his paper '' The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories'' (1976). The visitor could be seen as lacking in moral merit. In other words, which scenario has more moral worth: one in which the friend goes to the hospital out of a cold sense of duty (what one should do) instead of wanting to do it (inclination)? Kant might argue that the former has the "true" or "authentic" moral worthiness where Stocker argues acting purely out of duty in his example is morally inauthentic.


References

{{Reflist Concepts in ethics