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Gratitude and resentment
If we want to understand gratefulness, we probably have to start with the distinction between gratefulness and gratitude. In English, strangely, there is only an adjective “grateful” for both. I cannot be “gratituded,” and being “gratified” is something else entirely. This confuses matters because, despite the missing adjective, gratitude is not the same as gratefulness.
Both are states of being thankful for something that we received, and generally we must have received that as a gift, not in exchange for something else. If I buy a chocolate cookie by paying through the nose for it in my favourite old-world artisan bakery chain, I have no reason to be grateful. I got what I paid for.
Even if I get three cookies for the price of one as part of a promotion campaign, I might be happy to get the deal, but I won’t, generally, feel that I have to be grateful for that. I can safely assume that this beneficence is not directed towards me, but that, in the end, it is going to benefit the bakery and that this is why they do it.
Gratitude then is only appropriate when I am the recipient of a benefit that is directed personally towards me and that I did not deserve or compensate the other party for.
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Kant’s Praiseworthy Motivation
A core feature of Kant’s ethics is his insistence on the value of one’s motivation for the morality of an action. As opposed to utilitarianism, Kant does not look at the consequences when judging actions, but only at what he calls the “good will.”
And then, there is the issue of goodwill. Gratitude is not only an attitude or a behaviour that we show towards a benefactor – it is also an emotion, a feeling of friendliness and goodwill towards the other person. Imagine someone who does not like receiving gifts – perhaps he is someone who feels himself to be undeservedly wealthy, and now, having participated in a charity lottery, he wins against his will. He is called up to the stage to receive that prize that he doesn’t want. After all, the whole point of participating in the lottery was to help others, not to walk away with the main prize himself. Will this person feel gratitude towards the lottery organisers? Likely not. He will resent winning the prize. So this aspect of friendly goodwill as a reaction to the benefit is really crucial to gratitude.
Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)
