El artículo tiene por objetivo analizar ciertos pasajes fundamentales de la Wissenschaftslehre y de las Paradoxien des Unendlichen de Bernard Bolzano en cuanto al análisis conjuntista se refiere. En dichos pasajes, Bolzano desarrolla conceptos fundamentales tales como multitud, colección e infinito que anticipan el carácter conjuntista y del análisis matemático moderno. Asimismo, se presentará un breve estudio de las Contribuciones a una más fundada exposición de la matemática y el apéndice, Sobre la teoría kantiana de la construcción de conceptos a (...) través de intuiciones, textos donde Bolzano muestra su rechazo por Kant.The article addresses the treatment of certain fundamental passages from Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre and Paradoxien des Unendlichen. In these passages, Bolzano describes some of his key concepts such “Multitude”, “Collections” and “Infinite” in the context of mathematical analysis and Set theory. Therefore, I discuss at length the unknown Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics and the appendix On the Kantian Theory of the Construction of Concepts through Intuitions, texts where Bolzano shows his rejection of Kant. (shrink)

This article compares two groundings of ethics: the ethical postulates of Immanuel Kant with the existential thinking of S. Kierkegaard. To achieve this goal, first, it proposes highlighting the fundamental ideas of Kantian ethics; then, secondly, highlighting Kierkegaard’s ethical stance; and finally, contrasting both approaches to identify differences and similarities. Conclusively, we can say that the pure Kantian ethical formality of duty for duty’s sake necessarily dispenses with existential and concrete content; it is an ethics that is grounded (...) in itself, that refers to itself, to the rational nature of the human being and its universality. In contrast, Kierkegaardian ethics is a Christian ethics, it is the ethics of love for one’s neighbour and, above all, for God; it is a relational and existential ethics of the single individual. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a single question that highlights some of the most puzzling aspects of Kants disposition to duty, or strength of will? I argue that a dominant strand of Kant’s approach to moral striving does not fit familiar models of striving. I seek to address this problem in a way that avoids the flaws of synchronic and atomistic approaches to moral self-discipline by developing an account of Kantian moral striving as an ongoing contemplative activity complexly engaged with (...) multiple forms of self-knowledge. (shrink)

This paper discusses the philosophical issues pertaining to Kantian moral agency and artificial intelligence. Here, our objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Kantian ethics to elucidate the non-feasibility of Kantian machines. Meanwhile, the possibility of Kantian machines seems to contend with the genuine human Kantian agency. We argue that in machine morality, ‘duty’ should be performed with ‘freedom of will’ and ‘happiness’ because Kant narrated the human tendency of evaluating our ‘natural necessity’ (...) through ‘happiness’ as the end. Lastly, we argue that the Kantian ‘freedom of will’ and ‘faculty of choice’ do not belong to any deterministic model of ‘agency’ as these are sacrosanct systems. The conclusion narrates the non-feasibility of Kantian AI agents from the genuine Kantian ethical outset, offering a utility-based Kantian ethical performer instead. (shrink)

Poverty is a global problem that is not only about material deprivation, but also a lack of agency and power. A Kantian response, with its focus on supporting the conditions of agency and empowerment, seems well suited to providing individuals with normative guidance on what their obligations are. The problem is that the guidance one finds within Kantian ethics is focused on the individual duty to aid or the duty to rescue, both of which have limited application in (...) the context of a complex, wide-ranging and structural problem like poverty. Individuals, on their own, are unable to end poverty and they cannot adopt this as an end of theirs. But if they get together with enough others, things look a lot more promising. Even though a fully Kantian response to poverty requires exploring his legal philosophy and the role of the state, I focus here on the moral obligations of individuals, particularly the idea that by joining together we have increased capacity to respond and make a difference. If we start with certain assumptions about capacity and agency; namely that “ought implies can” and “only agents are duty-bearers”, it is not clear that collectives that are not (yet) agents—such as “humanity” or “the affluent” or “the poor”—are possible duty-bearers. The aim of this paper is to support a more expansive account of Kantian moral obligations in which unstructured collectives have moral duties and their individual members have duties both to help form effective collective agents, and also to fulfill their shares of the collective duty to end poverty. (shrink)

In this paper I do three things. Firstly, I defend the view that in his most familiar arguments about morality and the theological postulates, the arguments which appeal to the epistemological doctrines of the first Critique, Kant is as much of a fictionalist as anybody not working explicitly with that conceptual apparatus could be: his notion of faith as subjectively and not objectively grounded is precisely what fictionalists are concerned with in their talk of nondoxastic attitudes. Secondly, I reconstruct (...) a logically distinct argument to a fictionalist conclusion which I argue Kant also gives us, this time an argument to the conclusion that it is a good thing if our commitment to the existence of God is nondoxastic. And finally, I argue that this argument is of continuing interest, to Kantians and non-Kantians alike, not only because it raises interesting questions about the relation of morality to belief in God (which go in the opposite direction to most discussions, which focus on whether and to what extent belief in God can be an aid to morality), but also because this ‘Moral Hazard Argument’ seems to be available to religious realists and non-realists alike, thus suggesting that religious fictionalism is not by any means just an interesting version of religious non-realism. (shrink)

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful (...) in the debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s notion of weakness or frailty warrants more attention, for it reveals much about his theory of motivation and general metaphysics of mind. As the first and least severe of the three grades of evil, frailty captures those cases where an agent fails to act on their avowed recognition that the moral law is the only legitimate determining ground of the will. The possibility of such cases raises many important questions that have yet to be settled by interpreters. Most (...) importantly, should we account for the failures of weakness by appealing to the activity of reason or sensibility? I will discuss this question in light of a tendency to adopt an overly dualistic reading of Kant’s moral psychology. Focusing on Kant’s remarks on weakness from the Religion and the Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that we should understand weakness as arising from the unique difficulties of sense-dependent judgment, rather than from self-deception, flagging commitment, or overwhelming desire. The resulting account offers a unified moral psychology capable of accommodating the many features of weakness that are difficult to reconcile on other readings. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of moral action faces a serious difficulty concerning motivation: how do commands of pure practical reason solely move human agents to perform moral actions? In his response, Kant claims that human agents perform moral actions out of a feeling of respect for the moral law. However, attempts to accommodate a feeling of respect into Kant’s rigorously rationalist ethical theory have led to two diverging strands of interpretation in the secondary literature: intellectualism and affectivism. Against this context, this paper (...) proposes an interpretation of Kantian moral motivation with an appropriate place for the notion of respect within it to resolve the motivational problem concerning moral actions. According to the model of Kantian moral motivation that this paper develops, motivation to act morally takes place in two sequential stages, each involving the positive role of respect as a motive. By arguing for a positive role of the feeling of respect in the process of moral motivation, this model aligns with the affectivist school of interpretation. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Against the view of some contemporary Kantians who wish to downplay Kant's retributivist commitments, I argue that Kant's theory of practical of reason implies a retributive conception of punishment. I trace this view to Kant's distinction between morality and well-being and his attempt to synthesize these two concerns in the idea of the highest good. Well-being is morally valuable only insofar as it is proportional to virtue, and the suffering inflicted on wrongdoers as punishment for wrongdoing is morally good (...) so long as it is proportional to the wrongdoing. According to Kantian retributivism, punishment is warranted as a means to promote proportionality between well-being and virtue. (shrink)

The idea that moral imperatives are categorical is commonly used to support internalist claims about moral judgment. I argue that the categorical quality of moral requirements shows at most that moral motivation need not flow from a background desire to be moral. It does not show that moral judgments can motivate by themselves, or that amoralism is impossible.

The idea that moral imperatives are categorical is commonly used to support internalist claims about moral judgment. I argue that the categorical quality of moral requirements shows at most that moral motivation need not flow from a background desire to be moral. It does not show that moral judgments can motivate by themselves, or that amoralism is impossible.

Educational Theory, Volume 71, Issue 6, Page 703-716, December 2021.

This paper concerns Kant's view of the relations between an actions's moral permissibility and its moral worth. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant holds that only morally permissible actions can have moral worth. By restricting moral worth to morally permissible actions, Kant generates an asymmetrical account of how two kinds of failure affect an actions's moral worth. While failure to judge correctly whether one's action is morally permissible precludes it from having moral worth failure to attain the (...) end of one's action does not. I argue that this asymmetrical account is implausible. Kant, I claim, should acknowledge that morally permissible actions can have moral worth. After addressing objections to this claim, I consider Kant's position in a later work: the Metaphysics of Moreals. I argue that though he does not go far enough, Kant moves toward recognizing that some morally impermissible actions can have moral worth. (shrink)

This anthology, Defining Public Administration , is designed to assist beginning and intermediate level students of public policy, and to stir the imaginations of readers concerned with public policy and administration. The forty-five articles included in the text are all reprinted from the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration , and these accessible, interesting articles have been assembled to offer a sample of the riches to be found within the larger work. The articles provide definitions of the vocabulary of (...) public policy and administration as it is used throughout the world-from the smallest towns, to the largest national bureaucracies. Defining Public Administration is organized into twelve parts. Each part focuses on a domain pertinent to the study of public administration, including overviews, policy making, intergovernmental relations, bureaucracy, organization behavior, public management, strategic management, performance management, human resource management, financial management, auditing and accountability, and ethics. (shrink)

Kantian deontology is one of three classic moral theories, among virtue ethics and consequentialism. Issues in medical ethics are frequently addressed within a Kantian paradigm, at least – although not exclusively – in European medical ethics. At the same time, critical voices have pointed to deficits of Kantian moral philosophy which must be examined and discussed. It is argued that taking concrete situations and complex relationships into account is of paramount importance in medical ethics. Encounters between medical (...) or nursing staff and patients are rarely symmetrical relationships between autonomous and rational agents. Kantian ethics, the criticism reads, builds on the lofty ideal of such a relationship. In addition to the charge of an individualist and rationalist focus on autonomy, Kantian ethics has been accused of excluding those not actually in possession of these properties or of its rigorism. It is said to be focussed on laws and imperatives to an extent that it cannot appreciate the complex nuances of real conflicts. As a more detailed analysis will show, these charges are inadequate in at least some regards. This will be demonstrated by drawing on the Kantian notion of autonomy, the role of maxims and judgment and the conception of duties, as well as the role of emotions. Nevertheless the objections brought forward against Kantian moral theory can help determine, with greater precision, its strengths and shortcomings as an approach to current problems in medical ethics. (shrink)

The moral permissibility of organ transplantation is taken for granted by most biomedical ethicists and practitioners. Of contemporary concern is not whether, but by what arrangements, we ought to allow organ transplantation. Should we institute markets for organs, thereby increasing their availability and saving many lives? Should organs be sold to the highest bidder? Should we allow the post mortem taking of organs without prior consent? Among moral theorists, the Kantians are suspected of being the least enthusiastic with respect to (...) these and similar questions. I will show the elements in Kant's theory that account for this lack of enthusiasm and how contemporary Kantians might answer questions about the permissibility of various arrangements for organ transplantation. I will argue that Kant would have had a permissive position on organ transplantation post mortem and a restrictive position on organ markets. These results will be based on a broader Kantian view of obligations to the body which stem from a non-formal theory of value. This non-formal theory, I will argue, is at the foundation of Kantian ethics. (shrink)

Hegel attacks Kantian morality most often without stating an opposing moral theory, tending to subsequently take up discussion of religion or the state. Commentators have variously suggested the logical consequence of Hegel's position is "the dissolution of ethics in sociology" without "room for personal morality of any kind" or that Hegel's argument is against Kantian <i>Moralitat</i>, which allows the private individual to appeal beyond social mores to universal moral standards, with Hegel insisting that concrete values come (...) instead from <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, the social order. If thinking of morality as a purely private matter of the individual's conscience seems too abstract, the Hegelian criticisms should show that moral reflections are vacuous unless they take account of the social world in which they will be realized as concrete actions. From the Hegelian's perspective on morality as seen from the more inclusive context of <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, social action that is also moral will not need to be analyzed in terms of Kant's metaphysical dualisms between reason and inclination, intentions and consequences, or the sensible and the intelligible realms. Whereas Kant thinks moral theory leads directly to religious and metaphysical postulates, Hegel deliberately leads it in another direction. He can be understood historically as going beyond Kant's effort to secularize moral philosophy. Kant begins this process by grounding moral philosophy in reason alone, not in religion. Religious postulates may follow from moral beliefs, says Kant, but morality is not derived from religious premisses. In going from private moral conscience not to religious beliefs but to social, political, and historical considerations (which could include religion seen as a social institution), Hegel extends the process of secularizing moral philosophy." Marcuse and Knox could thus both be right, since Hegel's goal is not to replace Kant's moral philosophy with another, competing moral philosophy, but to accept it, while recognizing its limitations, as a special case of a larger theory of social action. In the Hegelian jargon, from a standpoint recognizing Sittlichkeit, Moralitdt is thus <i>aufgehoben</i>, that is, Kant's formal procedures will be both "negated" (criticized for their limitations) and "preserved" (embedded in a more inclusive philosophy). (shrink)

This article examines the possibility of a Kantian justification of the intrinsic moral worth of education. The author critiques a recent attempt to secure such justification via Kant's notion of the Kingdom of Ends. He gives four reasons why such an account would deny any intrinsic moral worth to education. He concludes with a tentative justification of his own and a call for a more comprehensive engagement between Kant's moral theory and the philosophy of education for purposes of understanding (...) what constitutes the moral core of education. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that Kant provides us with a plausible account of morality. To show that, I will first offer a major criticism of Kantian moral theory, by explaining Bernard Williams’ charge against it. I will explore his understanding of the Kantian theory, and then explain what he finds objectionable about it. This criticism will make up the first part of the paper. In the second part, I will attempt to defend the Kantian (...) theory by appealing to Christine Korsgaard’s alternative reading. This reading, I will argue, accommodates Williams’ worries and avoids the charge altogether. Finally, I will attempt to show that in avoiding Williams’ charge, this alternative reading does not lose sight of the greater task it claims to undertake, namely being a plausible account of morality. (shrink)

Samuel Kerstein argues that an asymmetry between moral worth and maxims prevents Kant from accepting a category of acts that are impermissible, but have moral worth. Kerstein contends that an act performed from the motive of duty should be considered as a candidate for moral worth, even if the action's maxim turns out to be impermissible, since moral worth depends on the correct moral motivation of an act, rather than on the moral lightness of an act. I argue that Kant (...) cannot consistently maintain that there are morally forbidden, though good, acts since one of the conditions of acting from the moral law should be that one has a true belief about what the moral law requires. My project, then, rejects the possibility of morally impermissible, worthy acts for Kant, and qualifies the conditions for moral worth Kerstein gives with an epistemological constraint on moral worth. (shrink)

Both Immanuel Kant and Moses Maimonides wrote lengthy treatments of the biblical garden of Eden. For both philosophers the biblical story served as an opportunity to address the genealogy of morals. I argue here that the two treatments offer deep insights into their respective philosophical anthropologies, that is to say, into their assessments of the human person and of moral psychology. Contrary to much that has been written about Maimonides as a proto-Kantian, I expose the profoundly different and even (...) opposed conceptions of human nature and of reason at the heart of the respective philosophies. For Kant, the first exercise of reason in the garden is an act of rebellion that jettisons the human person from the womb of nature into a post-natural freedom. The repudiation of the natural is the beginning of an ethical life, according to Kant—a life to be dominated by respect for a human dignity beyond the natural. For Maimonides, in contrast, reason is a philosophical torah li-shma . Rational understanding is an understanding of the laws of a nature fecund with the presence of the divine. Exposing the reason inherent in nature is the only path to knowledge of God and whatever communion with the divine is available to human beings. Such knowledge transforms the heart as well as fills the mind, embedding the human person as moral actor in a God-filled universe. (shrink)

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of (...) sublimity help a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them. (shrink)

Kant has little to say about moral frailty or weakness. But for his readers, the topic is a fruitful site of interpretive projection that deserves focus. How we approach it reveals much about Kant’s theory of motivation and his general metaphysics of mind as it relates to the practical philosophy. Prominent views on the subject range from affectivism, which holds that sensible incentives motivate weak action independently of reason’s activity, to intellectualism, which holds that weak actions are ultimately grounded in (...) reason, reflecting the subject’s true maxims. After briefly unpacking two well-known versions of each position, I will argue that neither can succeed. For in both cases, reason and sensibility are too dualistically opposed and insulated from one another to capture Kant’s view. I propose, instead, that we must completely reconsider the relationship between these capacities, and the role that sensible desire plays in light of our ability to reason. The result is a more desirable account of weakness that can both invoke the role that reason plays in determining human action, and appeal to strong sensible desires and their ability to disrupt our practical lives. (shrink)

Contemporary interpretations of Kant's ethics have tended to assume that he is unequivocally committed to the view that a priori insight into morality's demands is the sole condition of moral motivation; in other words, that the same rational concepts which inform moral judgments also fully motivate us to determine our willing accordingly. On such a view, the definitive rational activity of agents consists in the practice of moral judgment. In this study I contend that Kant's texts implicitly suggest motivation (...) to be rather more contingent than a simple internalist view presumes, and that they presume moral agency to include constitutive activities aimed at sustaining the worldview within which the possibility of moral willing is grounded. ;Drawing on the notion that an agent's moral motivation depends on her belief that rationally-commanded ends are attainable, I show that Kant expects this belief to be somewhat precarious in the subjective outlook of human beings whose practical rationality is significantly affected by empirical experience. The impossibility of self-knowledge, together with the manifestly evil and self-interested appearances of human conduct, means that doubt about the moral worldview is quite familiar to human agents. Out of this concern, Kant prescribes what I call 'disciplinary strategies' through which agents in real danger of succumbing to motivationally-corrosive despair or cynicism can see themselves as morally capable agents and can see the larger social sphere as a genuine arena of moral hopes. Kant's concern with these strategies for maintaining adherence to the moral worldview can be seen to underwrite some of his most contentious doctrines and duties. Insight into this subtle problematic of his moral thought, I contend, can provide new approaches in the ongoing interpretation of Kantian ethics. (shrink)

Does Kantian moral agency require phenomenal consciousness? More to the point, can firms be Kantian moral agents—bound by Kantian obligations—in the absence of consciousness? After sketching the mechanics of my account of corporate agents, I consider three increasingly demanding accounts of Kantian moral agency, concluding that corporate agents can meet each successively higher threshold. They can act on universalizable principles and treat humanity as an end in itself; give such principlesto themselves,treattheir own‘humanity’ as an end itself, (...) and act out of respect for the law; and to the extent necessary, draw on empathically generated information and insights to inflect their performance, all in the absence of phenomenal consciousness. I close by rejecting two further arguments that phenomenal consciousness is nonetheless conceptually or practically necessary for Kantian moral agency. (shrink)

In the eyes of many “classical” phenomenologists, Kantianism has seemed to invite individuals to leave the rich, complexly motivated environment of lived experience in favor of a shadowy, formal kingdom of abstract duties and rights. Yet there have been notable attempts within the phenomenological tradition to articulate a richer vision of Kantian moral consciousness and to exhibit, from a first-person perspective, the shape of mental life and the standing dispositions that befit membership in a Kantian kingdom of ends. (...) Here I offer two such competing paradigms of Kantian moral consciousness: on the one hand, the responsive, situational Kantian moral consciousness that recent commentators have reconstructed from Martin Heidegger’s work, and on the other hand, the very different, explicitly cosmopolitan Kantian moral consciousness traced in Hannah Arendt’s conception of an “enlarged mentality.” While each is arguably a legitimately Kantian view, these alternative models of moral consciousness offer considerably different spirits of Kantianism with different benefits and detriments, and each places very different cognitive and moral burdens on agents. (shrink)

Clinical psychologists remain puzzled about the diagnostic basis and therapeutic disposition of individuals who present with a clinical profile of psychopathy. Psychopaths have been characterized as lacking in conscience and presenting a mask of sanity, thus differentiating them from psychotics and neurotics. The clinical profile of the psychopathic personality seems at odds with Kant’s moral philosophy, in which Kant characterizes not only the central role of conscience in moral judgment, but in which Kant also insists that every person has a (...) conscience. In this paper the clinical assessments presented by Cleckley and Hare in particular are juxtaposed to Kant’s philosophical position, thereby to gain an understanding what is at the base of the psychopathic personality disorder. The clinical and the moral-philosophical assessments are reconciled, nonetheless leaving the clinical psychologist with the difficult task of therapeutic disposition. (shrink)

Care ethicists have long insisted that Kantian moral theory fails to capture the partiality that ought to be present in our personal relationships. In her most recent book, Virginia Held claims that, unlike impartial moral theories, care ethics guides us in how we should act toward friends and family. Because these actions are performed out of care, they have moral value for a care ethicist. The same actions, Held claims, would not have moral worth for a Kantian because (...) of the requirement of impartiality. Although Kantian moral theory is an impartial theory, I argue that the categorical imperative in the Formulation of Humanity as an End and the duty of respect require that we give special treatment to friends and family because of their relationships with us. Therefore, this treatment does have moral value for a Kantian. (shrink)

Although the best-known Hegelian objection against Kant's moral philosophy is the charge that the categorical imperative is an ‘empty formalism’, Hegel's criticisms also include what we might call the realizability objection. Tentatively stated, the realizability objection says that within the sphere of Kantian morality, the good remains an unrealizable ‘ought’ – in other words, the Kantian moral ‘ought’ can never become an ‘is’. In this paper, I attempt to come to grips with this objection in two steps. (...) In the first section of the paper, I provide an initial reading of the objection, according to which Hegel agrees with Kant's formulation of the realizability problem but disagrees with the specific Kantian solution, namely, with the Kantian idea of the highest good and the doctrine of the postulates. In the second section, I go on to argue that this reading is potentially too superficial and offer a more far-reaching interpretation whereby Hegel is ultimately targeting fundamental distinctions of Kant's moral theory. I end by employing these more far-reaching results of Hegel's objection to sketch some features of Hegel's alternative ethical view. (shrink)

Moral anxiety is the unease that we experience in the face of a novel or difficult moral decision, an unease that helps us recognize the significance of the issue we face and engages epistemic behaviors aimed at helping us work through it (reflection, information gathering, etc.). But recent discussions in philosophy raise questions about the value of moral anxiety (do we really do better when we’re anxious?); and work in cognitive science challenges its psychological plausibility (is there really such an (...) emotion?). Drawing on Kant and Kantians, I develop a model of moral anxiety (or ‘conscience’ in Kant’s terminology) that highlights both its empirical credentials and its distinctive value. Kant, it turns out, was an early—and sophisticated—dual-process theorist. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that certain nonhuman animals could be conceived of as capable of moral motivation and subsequent moral behavior, with the appropriate behavioral, psychological and cognitive evidence. I argue that a certain notion of morality—morality as the process of conscious, reasoned deliberation over explicit moral concepts—is excessively exclusionary, and that such a notion describes one mode of moral cognition, but not, as others have argued, morality's essence. Instead, morality and moral behaviors could (...) be viewed as natural phenomena that arose as a means by which social species could better cohere and survive, and one that consists of a spectrum of behaviors. Ultimately, I argue that the aforementioned notion of moral cognition has unfairly worked to exclude (certain) nonhuman animals from the sphere of morality as beings capable of moral behavior, and that instead we should be looking at moral behavior as a function of what I call ‘moral responsiveness.'. (shrink)

Despite all the attention given to Kant’s universalizability tests, one crucial aspect of Kant’s thought is often overlooked. Attention to this issue, I will argue, helps us resolve two serious problems for Kant’s ethics. Put briefly, the first problem is this: Kant, despite his stated intent to the contrary, doesn’t seem to use universalization in arguing for duties to oneself, and, anyway, it is not at all clear why duties to oneself should be grounded on a procedure that envisions a (...) world in which everyone wills the contrary of those duties. The second, more global problem is that if we follow Barbara Herman in holding that Kantian ethics can provide a structure for moral deliberation, we need an interpretation of the universalization procedure that unproblematically allows it to generate something like prima facie duties to guide that deliberation; but it is not at all clear that we have such an interpretation. I argue here that if we expand our limited way of thinking about universalization, we can solve the first problem and work towards a solution to the second. We can begin by recalling that Kant’s ‘Law of Nature’ formulation (FLN) of the Categorical Imperative obligates us to ‘act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature’ (G, 421). (shrink)