Freedom and practical reason › Respect as a moral motive

Kant treats respect for the law as central to moral motivation. This creates an apparent problem: if respect is a feeling, how can a theory emphasizing pure reason give it an essential role? His answer distinguishes a feeling caused by recognition of the law from an inclination that supplies the law's authority.

An anticipated pleasure can motivate someone to adopt a principle. Respect has the opposite explanatory order in Kant's account. The law's authority affects a finite rational being, checking self-conceit and determining the will. The feeling does not first establish what is right.

Consider returning something that belongs to another person. Returning it to avoid embarrassment can conform to a requirement while having a different determining ground from acknowledgment of what the owner is owed. An observer may see the same result. Assessment of moral worth concerns the reason from which the agent acts.

These cases also explain why it is difficult to diagnose another person's moral worth confidently. An outward action can have several possible explanations. The theory supplies a distinction between conformity and action from duty; it does not give an observer transparent access to every motive. A careful application should preserve that limit.