Spielraum: Narrow and Wide Duties and their Consequences

Kant deals early on with the distinction between narrow and wide duties and with the associated further distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. The relationship between these two pairs of concepts is particularly problematic. If these pairs of concepts are related such that they at least imply each other, this results in an inconsistency: the concept of ethical and perfect duties seems to be contradictory. The article will point the way toward a new way of considering the problem, in which two dimensions of our moral life are at the stake: one, in which rules of action determine with precision what one morally ought to do; the other, in which moral agents have a certain amount of “leeway” (Spielraum) in which they can and should consider different options.