Online research in philosophy

This article offers a new interpretation of Adorno’s new categorical imperative : it suggests that the new imperative is an important element of Adorno’s moral philosophy and at the same time runs counter to some of its essential features. It is suggested that Adorno’s moral philosophy leads to two aporiae, which create an impasse that the new categorical imperative attempts to circumvent. The first aporia results from the tension between Adorno’s acknowledgement that praxis is an essential part of moral philosophy, and his view according to which existing social conditions make it impossible for moral knowledge to be translated into right action. The second aporia results from the tension between the uncompromising sensitivity to suffering that underlies Adorno’s moral thought, and his analysis of the culture industry mechanisms which turn people into happy, satisfied customers—an incompatibility which threatens to pull the rug out from under Adorno’s moral philosophy. My interpretation of the new categorical imperative focuses on two characteristics it inherits from the old, Kantian one—self-evidence and unconditionality—in order to present the new imperative as a response to these two aporiae.

Abstract: This article addresses a foundational issue in Kant's moral philosophy, the question of the relation of the Categorical Imperative to value. There is an important movement in current Kant scholarship that argues that there is a value underlying the Categorical Imperative. However, some scholars have raised doubts as to whether Kant has a conception of value that could ground the Categorical Imperative. In this paper I seek to add to these doubts by arguing, first, that value would have to be of a particular kind in order to be the foundation of Kant's moral philosophy. Second, I argue that Kant does not have such a conception of value, and that his arguments rule out that value could ground his moral philosophy. I then outline an alternative reading of how Kant uses ‘inner value’. My conclusion will be that Kant does not derive the Categorical Imperative from an underlying value. While some of his passages could also be read as if value were foundational for Kant, a close look at these passages and his arguments point away from this conclusion.

This paper demonstrates something that Kant notoriously claimed to be possible, but which Kant scholars today widely believe to be impossible: unification of all three formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Part 1 of this paper tells a broad-brush story of how I understand Kant’s theory of practical reason and morality, showing how the three formulations of the Categorical Imperative appear to me to be unified. Part 2 then provides clear textual support for each premise in the argument for my interpretation.

Introduction -- Part I: Willing as practical knowing -- The will and practical judgment -- Fundamental practical judgments : the wish for happiness -- Part II: From presuppositions of judgment to the idea of a categorical imperative -- The formal presuppositions of practical judgment -- Constraints on willing -- Part III: Interpretation -- The categorical imperative -- Applications -- Conclusion.

Here are two widespread responses to Kant's categorical imperative. On one hand, one might note the absence of detailed rational derivation. On the other hand, even someone who maintains some skepticism is likely to have a sense that (nevertheless) there is something to Kant's central ideas. The recommended solution is analysis of elements of the categorical imperative. Their appeal turns out to have different sources. One aspect of the first formulation rests on the logic of normative utterances. But others can be justified only in terms of their contributions to desirable functionings of a moral order.

The question has been raised whether Nietzsche intends eternal recurrence to be like a categorical imperative. The obvious objection to understanding eternal recurrence as like a categorical imperative isthat for a categorical imperative to make any sense, for moral obligation to make any sense, it must be possible for individuals to change themselves. And Nietzsche denies that individuals can changethemselves. Magnus thinks the determinism “implicit in the doctine of the eternal recurrence of the same renders any imperative impotent.… How can one will what must happen in any case?” At the other end of the spectrum, those who do hold that eternal recurrence is like a categorical imperative, for their part, tend to ignore or deny the determinism involved in eternal recurrence. This article explores the extent to which it can be claimed that eternal recurrence is like a categorical imperative without downplaying Nietzsche’s dterminism.