Doing a Good Will
Kant says that when you act
out of “good will” you act out of a moral obligation or duty. He says that your
action should not go hand in hand with the consequences that it produces. I
believe that to be true. When you decide to do a good will, it should be done
entirely without any kind of expectation of the product of that action. The
action in itself is only one part of the “good will”. The second part should be
its detachment or expectation of the action. Only after having done both parts
of the action can it be consider a “good will”.
A recent example of a “good
will” was done by a twelve year old boy that caught a foul ball at a Red Sox
game. He immediately turned around and
gave it away to a young girl sitting behind him. Although we cannot be sure of
the expectations behind his action, we could see how happy that action made the
girl. The consequences of that action were that he got to feel good about the
action done and that he got a whole lot of media coverage and recognition. So
the question is did he do a good deed out of moral obligation or duty? And did
he do it without any expectation for reward?
Personally, I would like to
think that most of us fall under the category of “good will” people the
majority of the time, that we all have a personal duty to act in the best
interest of others and without any type of expectations. I believe that good
things come to those who wait and do good deeds. Both parties definitely benefit
from a good deed so why not do it more often and without any type of
expectations.
Firstly, I think it's safe to assume the little boy had some type of expectation in giving that girl the foul ball. As far as your question I think we are taught to expect something for doing good. Like when your parents give you money for doing good on your report card. Or when you get a whooping for doing bad. Every time you do good from now on you will expect to get money or at the very least not get a whooping. You might even expect to get a worm fuzzy from doing a good deed. From what our parents teach us or from what we experience when do good things, good things happen. So it's a hard thing to do things without expectations, since that's like a proven fact that you always believed in.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think that the little boy gave the ball to the girl for any type of expectation. He may have just been doing good just because he wanted to do good. I'm sure a lot of us were raised in which if you do good then you get rewarded and if you do bad then you face the consequences but after a certain age you start to realize that every good thing you do doesn't result in a reward or any type of praise. There are a lot of good deeds that go un noticed everyday and some of those people who do good things on a regular basis don't expect any reward or any praise but they do it just because they feel the need to or just because it makes them feel better.
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