Kant anyone?

1780
THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS
by Immanuel Kant
translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

  V. Explanation of these two Notions (talking about duty)

                  A. OUR OWN PERFECTION

  The word perfection is liable to many misconceptions. It is
sometimes understood as a notion belonging to transcendental
philosophy; viz., the notion of the totality of the manifold which
taken together constitutes a thing; sometimes, again, it is understood
as belonging to teleology, so that it signifies the correspondence
of the properties of a thing to an end. Perfection in the former sense
might be called quantitative (material), in the latter qualitative
(formal) perfection. The former can be one only, for the whole of what
belongs to the one thing is one. But of the latter there may be
several in one thing; and it is of the latter property that we here
treat.
  When it is said of the perfection that belongs to man generally
(properly speaking, to humanity), that it is in itself a duty to
make this our end, it must be placed in that which may be the effect
of one’s deed, not in that which is merely an endowment for which we
have to thank nature; for otherwise it would not be duty.
Consequently, it can be nothing else than the cultivation of one’s
power (or natural capacity) and also of one’s will (moral disposition)
to satisfy the requirement of duty in general. The supreme element
in the former (the power) is the understanding, it being the faculty
of concepts, and, therefore, also of those concepts which refer to
duty. First it is his duty to labour to raise himself out of the
rudeness of his nature, out of his animal nature more and more to
humanity, by which alone he is capable of setting before him ends to
supply the defects of his ignorance by instruction, and to correct his
errors; he is not merely counselled to do this by reason as
technically practical, with a view to his purposes of other kinds
(as art), but reason, as morally practical, absolutely commands him to
do it, and makes this end his duty, in order that he may be worthy
of the humanity that dwells in him. Secondly, to carry the cultivation
of his will up to the purest virtuous disposition, that, namely, in
which the law is also the spring of his dutiful actions, and to obey
it from duty, for this is internal morally practical perfection.
This is called the moral sense (as it were a special sense, sensus
moralis), because it is a feeling of the effect which the
legislative will within himself exercises on the faculty of acting
accordingly. This is, indeed, often misused fanatically, as though
(like the genius of Socrates) it preceded reason, or even could
dispense with judgement of reason; but still it is a moral perfection,
making every special end, which is also a duty, one’s own end.

                 B. HAPPINESS OF OTHERS

  It is inevitable for human nature that a should wish and seek for
happiness, that is, satisfaction with his condition, with certainty of
the continuance of this satisfaction. But for this very reason it is
not an end that is also a duty. Some writers still make a
distinction between moral and physical happiness (the former
consisting in satisfaction with one’s person and moral behaviour, that
is, with what one does; the other in satisfaction with that which
nature confers, consequently with what one enjoys as a foreign
gift). Without at present censuring the misuse of the word (which even
involves a contradiction), it must be observed that the feeling of the
former belongs solely to the preceding head, namely, perfection. For
he who is to feel himself happy in the mere consciousness of his
uprightness already possesses that perfection which in the previous
section was defined as that end which is also duty.
  If happiness, then, is in question, which it is to be my duty to
promote as my end, it must be the happiness of other men whose
(permitted) end I hereby make also mine. It still remains left to
themselves to decide what they shall reckon as belonging to their
happiness; only that it is in my power to decline many things which
they so reckon, but which I do not so regard, supposing that they have
no right to demand it from me as their own. A plausible objection
often advanced against the division of duties above adopted consists
in setting over against that end a supposed obligation to study my own
(physical) happiness, and thus making this, which is my natural and
merely subjective end, my duty (and objective end). This requires to
be cleared up.
  Adversity, pain, and want are great temptations to transgression
of one’s duty; accordingly it would seem that strength, health, a
competence, and welfare generally, which are opposed to that
influence, may also be regarded as ends that are also duties; that is,
that it is a duty to promote our own happiness not merely to make that
of others our end. But in that case the end is not happiness but the
morality of the agent; and happiness is only the means of removing the
hindrances to morality; permitted means, since no one bas a right to
demand from me the sacrifice of my not immoral ends. It is not
directly a duty to seek a competence for one’s self; but indirectly it
may be so; namely, in order to guard against poverty which is a
great temptation to vice. But then it is not my happiness but my
morality, to maintain which in its integrity is at once my end and
my duty.