Kant’s view of Good Will is a useful approach to ethics

Kant’s moral philosophy relies on humans acting in accordance with their duty. In order to achieve this Kant argued that the source to all moral behaviours is a Good Will.
Kant believed that acting morally is pre-programmed in all of us. He classified this belief with two main distinctions of knowledge, a priori and a posteriori. A priori knowledge is knowledge that comes without experience, for example anything a new born baby does is priori knowledge as they had not previously done this. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that comes with an observation of the world. An example of this is something that a child at school is taught through the actions of another student, this could be another student playing with a toy in a way that the first child had not previously seen. Kant also discussed analytic truths and synthetic truths, analytic truths are true by definition, for example a bachelor is a man who is unmarried. A synthetic truth relies on testing, for example a statement such as ‘I am a bachelor’.
Kant argued that our understanding of morality is based on a priori statement as it innate, but also synthetic truths because they can be either right or wrong depending on the world and are understanding of it.
Kant believed that when we are driven to act in a morally right way then we are said to act with a Good Will. He also said that good will is an innate human capacity and the highest type of goodness we can have as we are not concerned with the consequences that these actions may bring or how the action may make the person be perceived, but we do the act with intention of being moral. Kant also stated that it is the inner motive that is important, as any outward behaviour we produce does not necessarily reveal a true good will. True good will is when a person acts morally with the intention of acting morally, not for other gains such as one’s own inner selfish gains.
A lot of Kant’s view on Good Will is heavily based upon intention and making choices, this led Kant to argue that people are free and independent. He also argued that if people were controlled by another force then their actions could never be morally praise worthy as they would be unable to act with a true good will. Due to this Kant concluded that all people act with moral freedom and live with freedom from things around us.
The statement of ‘Kant’s view of Good Will is a useful approach to ethics’ is true as his work fully reflects on the act of doing something with Good Will as it gives an explanation on both sides of acting with the intention of being morally right and also acting with Good Will for self-gain.