Virtue and Reward

It is sometimes said that 'Virtue is its own reward', but Kant is not an advocate of that Principle. His view is, instead, that, first, Virtue cannot be its own reward, and second, that Virtue ought to be rewarded. The former follows from his definition of 'Virtue' as the continuous attempt to adhere to impersonal Pure Practical Reason. But, because the latter emerges only as part of his further project of reconciling Reason and the popular Religion of his era, his defense of it noticeably flounders. His contention in one place that impersonal Reason has an interest in personal Happiness is question-begging, while his argument in another that personal suffering can weaken Moral resolve conflicts with his Principle that Moral motivation must be unselfish. The softness of the latter defense is perhaps best illustrated by its straw-man branding of Spinoza as an 'Atheist'. Spinoza, rather, is a 'Pantheist', a crucial point in the context, because his advocacy of 'Virtue is its own reward' is of a piece with his Religious position. In that System, 'Virtue' consists in one's joyful realization that one's action is itself a mode of Divine activity. So, in the process of misrepresenting Spinoza, Kant's challenge exposes how his own sundering of Virtue and Reward is a product of a Morality that, from the outset, separates Self and Other, Intention and Action. Furthermore, according to the Formaterial analysis of Action, Joy is not an extrinsic possible adjunct to the latter, but is itself the experience of the buoyant energy of nascent motion. Hence, in Evolvemental Phronetics, 'Virtuous' Action, i. e. best Conduct, needs no 'reward'. Also, as I have argued in a different context, Kant's failure to demonstrate that, according to Reason, Virtue deserves Happiness, fatally undermines his effort to reconcile Reason and Religion, an effort that is more a betrayal of Reason than a critique of it.