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Perfect and Imperfect Duty: Unpacking Kant’s Complex Distinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2022

Simon Hope
Simon Hope*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland UK
*
Email: simonjames.hope@stir.ac.uk
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Abstract

I attempt first to disentangle three aspects of Kant’s distinction between perfect and imperfect duty. There is the central distinction between principles of duty contrary to that which is contradictory in conception/consistent in conception but contradictory in will. There is also a distinction between essential and non-essential duties: those which cannot, or occasionally can, be passed over consistent with the requirements of morality. Finally, there is a distinction between duties that exhibit a scalar aspect – degrees of goodness or virtue – and duties that do not. My aim is to show how these distinct considerations can be reconciled as aspects of a single distinction, and I conclude that the remarkable complexity of Kant’s perfect/imperfect distinction is actually a strength, rather than a weakness.

Keywords

perfect dutyimperfect dutyjusticebeneficenceaid
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 63 - 80
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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