Virtue Ethics and Kant's Cold-Hearted Benefactor

Few passages in moral philosophy have been the subject of as much scorn as the passage in Section 1 of Kant's Groundwork where he describes the conditions under which actions have moral worth. There he gives an example of a sympathetic man who delights in spreading joy around him and contributing to the happiness of others. Kant notoriously says that under these circumstances, the man's actions have no moral worth, at least not until his mind becomes clouded by sorrows and for the first time he performs those sympathetic actions from duty. Kant then describes a second man, who is naturally cold-hearted and performs helping actions only because they are required by duty. The actions of such a man, according to Kant, do have moral worth, because they have their source in his commitment to morality. There is a respect in which the Kantian account of moral agency is deeply counterintuitive, and the cold-hearted benefactor example makes that clear.