| Summary: | 碩士 === 華梵大學 === 哲學系碩士班 === 104 === The motivation of this study came from the recent dispute about the necessity of
legislation for the usage rules of the Priority Seat. The proponents consider the
legislation and penalties tools to reduce inappropriate occupations, however, for the
opponents, the value of the Priority Seat seems to be implicit in the autonomous
performance of morality. What is actually the distinction between Law and Morality in
the mentioned issue? This research tried to find the answer based on Kant’s philosophy
of Autonomous Morality.
The study about the significance of the Autonomous Morality occupied the first
part of this paper. For Kant, only behavior motivated by one’s “good will” which has
been chosen through the free will and acted from duty possess the moral values.
Standing on the argument mentioned above, the author intended to explain the
law-making procedures and its’ characteristics and limits, in order to investigate the
feasibility of legislating the usage rules of the Priority Seat and attempt to legally
restrict the ethical conduct by law. After that, this study proceeded to clarify the cited
distinction between Law and Morality with Kant’s theories about “Duty of Virtue” and
“Duty of Right”.
“Duty of Virtue” means Autonomous Morality. It is a kind of internal legislation,
is also a morality rule made by an individual conforming to his free will, which led
him to choose the moral law as motivation. It is a self-legislation, a law of one’s own.
In Kant’s concept of the “Duty of Right”, Law is an external legislation, which
has been formulated according to certain procedures by the people in a State. And it’s a
rule to forcibly regulate all thoughts, actions and the interest-enjoyment distinction of
the human society. But there are some limits and conditions which make Law unable to
regulate all the behaviors of the humanity. For Kant, if the “Duty of Right” possesses
true moral worth, its practice must be considered as a Duty of Virtue. In that case, one should specifically offer lots of methods to increase such practice. This paper concludes that the worth of Morality lies in the act itself, which hasbeen inspired by one’s free will and completed as obligation, and is good regardless of
whether it accomplishes its purpose or not, and will never be affected by one’sinclinations. That is also the reason why people can voluntarily concede the PrioritySeat to others without any penalties and laws. The nobility of the Morality cancompensate the lack of Law. Morality and Law are two essential social norms in
human life. They are closely related, but with a subtle distinction between each other.
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