Objections to Kantian Ethics

Kant thought that one should never lie. Modern philosophers disagree, admitting its acceptability in various situations. I argue that one would have to admit it in many more.

Virtue ethics is frequently billed as a remedy to the problems of deontological and consequentialist ethics that Bernard Williams identified in his critique of “the morality system.” But how far can virtue ethics be relied upon to avoid these problems? What does Williams’s critique of the morality system mean for virtue ethics? To answer this question, we offer a more principled characterisation of the defining features of the morality system in terms of its organising ambition—to shelter life against luck. This (...) reveals the system to be multiply realisable: the same function can be served by substantively different but functionally equivalent ideas. After identifying four requirements that ethical thought must meet to function as a morality system, we show that they can also be met by certain constellations of virtue-ethical ideas. We thereby demonstrate the possibility of virtue-ethical morality systems raising problems analogous to those besetting their deontological and consequentialist counterparts. This not only widens the scope of Williams’s critique and brings out the cautionary aspect of his legacy for virtue ethics. It also offers contemporary virtue ethicists a more principled understanding of the functional features that mark out morality systems and lie at the root of their problems, thereby helping them to avoid or overcome these problems. (shrink)

In this discussion note, I aim to reconstruct and assess Korsgaard's recent attempt to extend her regress argument. I begin, in section 1, with a brief recapitulation of the regress argument. Then, in section 2, I turn to the extension. I argue that the extension does not work because Korsgaard cannot rule out the possibility--a possibility for which there is both empirical evidence and argumentative pressure coming directly from the original regress--that we value animality in ourselves qua animality of rational (...) beings. (shrink)

Kant maintains that the only thing that is good in itself, and therefore good without limitation or qualification, is a good will. This is an objectionable claim in support of a controversial position. The problem is not just that the good will is not the only thing that is good in itself, which indeed it is not, but more importantly, that the good will is not so much a thing that is good in itself as it is the good kind (...) of a thing that is otherwise neither good nor bad in itself. The goodness of a good will is no more intrinsic than the goodness of a good act, good outcome, good attitude, good character, or good person. Nor is it even any more so than something as commonplace as a good laugh or a good cup of coffee. A good will, whatever else it may be, is a will that is good, much like how a good act is an act that is good, a good outcome is an outcome that is good, and so on with the other examples, not one of which is good for any reason other than the goodness predicated of the corresponding subject. This paper thus challenges Kant’s position on ontological grounds. It questions the validity of claiming intrinsic goodness for a complex construct whose goodness is, in fact, extrinsic to its substance. The objection is not that the good will might not turn out to be good after all, which is impossible by definition, designation, or stipulation, but that its goodness is axiomatic and derivative rather than intrinsic or fundamental. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek writes: "Today philosophy is approaching a double end. Physics and brain sciences offer answers to the big metaphysical questions (is the universe infinite? Do we have a free will?), while what remained of philosophy is mostly getting lost in historicist relativism, reducing truth to a discursive “truth-effect.” But more and more people are tired of this game: the need for a new beginning, for authentic metaphysics, is felt everywhere. And Allinson does something that we all secretly knew it (...) has to be done, but nobody dared to actually do it so directly: he convincingly argues for the return to a philosophy that shamelessly addresses big questions. A great sigh of relief will be felt by the readers of Awakening Philosophy: The Loss of Truth: we are back home. If there is justice in our intellectual life, the book will become daily bread for thinking beings." -/- Brian Klug, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, the University of Oxford writes: "Awakening Philosophy is as original as it is ambitious. Allinson holds up a mirror to academic philosophy and shows how it has become fragmented into an eclectic set of specialisms. He seeks to get philosophy to question itself, thus reviving the spirit of Socratic enquiry: self-examination. In the process, he sets out to recover “the Great Questions” that have exercised philosophers from Plato to such figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Husserl. A timely and ground-breaking book." -/- Michael Slote, UST Professor of Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Member, Royal Irish Academy, former Tanner Lecturer, Stanford University, writes: "An elegant and timely appeal for philosophers and the educated public to make use of philosophy's historic roots for purposes of present-day enlightenment." In this original book, Robert Elliott Allinson asserts that philosophers have been lulled into a dogmatic sleep by Immanuel Kant, the slayer of metaphysics, who has convinced them (and the rest of humanity) that we can never know Reality. Allinson awakens global philosophers from their sceptical slumbers by diagnosing the reason why they have abdicated their traditional calling as leaders of inquiry into truth and wisdom. (shrink)

This article examines an appendix to the Doctrine of Virtue which has received little attention. I argue that this passage suggests that Kant makes it a duty, internal to his system of duties, to ‘join the graces with virtue’ and so to ‘make virtue widely loved’ (MM, 6: 473). The duty to make virtue widely loved obligates us to bring the standards of respectability, and so the social graces, into a formal agreement with what morality demands of us, such that (...) the social graces give the illusion of virtue. The existence of such a duty can answer Schiller’s persistent objection that Kant’s ethics scares away the Graces with Duty. (shrink)

Ever since Hegel famously objected to Kant’s universalization formulations of the Categorical Imperative on the grounds that they are nothing but an empty formalism, there has been continual debate about whether he was right. In this paper I argue that Hegel got things at least half-right: I argue that even if negative duties (duties to omit actions or not to adopt maxims) can be derived from the universalization formulations, positive duties (duties to commit actions or to adopt maxims) cannot. The (...) paper is divided into three main sections. In the first, I set out the procedures generally accepted among Kantians for deriving positive duties from the universalization formulations. In the second, I set out the arguments from section 1 in more detail and explain why they do not work. In the third, I examine a strategy that might be used to supplement the arguments from section 2 and I argue that it also does not work. (shrink)

In this paper I highlight and discuss a problem for Kant’s conception of the categorical imperative that arises from the possibility of a differently fine-grained individuation of act types in the formation of maxims. The “Problem from the Manifold of Possible Maxims”, as it might be called, further develops and exacerbates the well-known “Problem of Relevant Descriptions.” In particular, I argue that there are cases in which the same act can be performed both under a universalizable and under a non-universalizable (...) maxim. But then Kant’s moral theory implies, given the necessity of moral truths, that there are acts that are both permissible and impermissible. The discussion reveals that a limitation of the notion of maxims sufficient to rule out a heterogeneous evaluation of two maxims that can underlie the same action is impossible without ad hoc stipulations. Consequently, a modification of Kant’s moral theory is required to at least ensure it’s consistency. The investigation ends with a discussion of two such modifications: First, I examine the suggestion of determining the moral status of actions only relative to some maxim and abandoning the assumption that actions are permissible or impermissible tout court. Such a move, however, is too deep an intervention in Kant’s moral philosophy to count as a suitable modification and, as I will show, faces serious problems on its own. I then discuss the possibility of modifying Kant’s universalization formula so that it quantifies not merely over actual maxims, but over all possible maxims. Although this proposed solution is also problematic, it turns out to be the most promising approach in the context of this investigation. __________________________________________________________________ Zusammenfassung: Diese Untersuchung widmet sich einem Problem, das sich für Kants Konzeption des kategorischen Imperativs aus der Möglichkeit einer unterschiedlich feinkörnigen Individuation von Handlungstypen bei der Bildung von Maximen ergibt. Das hier präsentierte Argument aus der Mannigfaltigkeit möglicher Maximen entwickelt das bekannte „Problem of Relevant Descriptions“ weiter und verschärft es. Ich argumentiere, dass es Fälle gibt, in denen dieselbe Handlung sowohl unter einer universalisierbaren als auch unter einer nicht universalisierbaren Maxime vollzogen werden kann, sodass Kants Moraltheorie, unter der Annahme der Notwendigkeit moralischer Tatsachen, impliziert, dass es Handlungen gibt, die zugleich erlaubt und nicht erlaubt sind. Die Diskussion ergibt, dass eine hinreichende Begrenzung des Maximenbegriffs für das Ausschließen eines heterogenen Auswertungsergebnisses zweier Maximen, die derselben Handlung zugrunde liegen können, ohne ad hoc-Bestimmungen unmöglich ist. Folglich ist eine Modifikation von Kants Moraltheorie erforderlich, um zumindest ihre Konsistenz sicherzustellen. Die Untersuchung endet mit der Diskussion zweier solcher Modifikationen: Zunächst untersuche ich den Lösungsvorschlag, den moralischen Status von Handlungen nur Maximen-relativ zu bestimmen und die Annahme aufzugeben, dass Handlungen tout court erlaubt oder verboten sind. Ein solcher Schritt stellt jedoch einen tiefen Eingriff in Kants Moralphilosophie dar und geht, wie ich zeigen werde, seinerseits mit gravierenden Problemen einher. Anschließend diskutiere ich die Möglichkeit, die Universalisierungsformel des kategorischen Imperativs dahingehend zu modifizieren, dass sie nicht bloß über aktuale, sondern über alle möglichen Maximen quantifiziert. Obgleich auch dieser Lösungsvorschlag problembehaftet ist, erweist er sich im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung als der aussichtsreichste Ansatz. (shrink)

This open access book revises Kant’s ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible introduction to Kant’s views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only ‘indirect’ duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s ‘Formula (...) of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant’s notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant’s thought. The book’s final part illustrates the framework’s use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists. (shrink)

More than a century before Anscombe counseled us to jettison concepts such as that of the moral ought, or moral law, Schopenhauer mounted a vigorous attack on such prescriptive moral concepts, particularly as found in Kant. In this chapter I consider the four objections that constitute this attack. According to the first, Kant begs the question by merely assuming that ethics has a prescriptive or legislative-imperative form, when a purely descriptive-explanatory conception such as Schopenhauer’s also presents itself as a possibility. (...) According to the second, Kant’s purportedly philosophical ethics is in fact a theological ethics in disguise, because the moral ought and its prescriptive cousins presuppose a divine lawgiver. According to the third, Kant’s conceptions of the moral law as a law of freedom, and of moral imperatives as categorical or unconditioned, involve him in contradictions. Finally, Schopenhauer objects that there can be no such thing as a moral ought because a binding ought or law must be understood to operate through appeals to self-interest, which stands in opposition to morality. I contend that these last three objections are sound and that the fourth in particular succeeds in confuting the prescriptivist conception of morality. (shrink)

In the modern moral luck debate, Kant is standardly taken to be the enemy of moral luck. My goal in this paper is to show that this is mistaken. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, I show that participants in the moral luck literature take moral luck to be anathema to Kantian ethics. In the second, I explain the kind of luck I am going to focus on here: consequence luck, a species of resultant luck. In (...) the third, I explain why philosophers have taken Kantian ethics to reject moral luck and, in particular, consequence luck. In the fourth, I explain why these philosophers are mistaken, and I set out Kant’s theoretical framework for consequence luck. In the fifth, I clarify and defend this framework, and in the sixth, I interrogate and attack it. (shrink)

In this paper, I confront Parfit’s Mixed Maxims Objection. I argue that recent attempts to respond to this objection fail, and I argue that their failure is compounded by the failure of recent attempts to show how the Formula of Universal Law can be used to demarcate the category of obligatory maxims. I then set out my own response to the objection, drawing on remarks from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals for inspiration and developing a novel account of how the Formula (...) of Universal Law can be employed to determine the deontic status of action tokens, action types, and maxims. (shrink)

My goal in this piece is to show that there is a problem lurking in the shadows of recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests and, further, to show that the most obvious way of fixing these attempts renders them unable to fulfill their function. I shall begin by motivating and explaining such an attempt.

This chapter presents new findings about Maria von Herbert's life. Building on this, an interpretation is offered of what she means when she calls upon Kant "for solace ... or for counsel to prepare [her] for death". It is then argued that Kant's reply is more satisfactory than is commonly appreciated, as he explicitly defines the roles which he is prepared to adopt – that of a "moral physician" and of a "mediator" -- and thus the standards by which to (...) judge his reply. Having said that, his letter does not address what has been viewed as a challenge to Kantian ethics. It is a matter of dispute what exactly this challenge consists in. This chapter identifies the challenge and the terms in which it is most productively stated. Finally, it provides sufficient reasons to establish that a portrait that resurfaced in November 2016 does indeed depict Maria von Herbert. (shrink)

Commentators disagree about the extent to which Kant’s ethics is compatible with consequentialism. A question that has not yet been asked is whether Kant had a view of his own regarding the fundamental difference between his ethical theory and a broadly consequentialist one. In this paper I argue that Kant does have such a view. I illustrate this by discussing his response to a well-known objection to his moral theory, namely that Kant offers an implicitly consequentialist theory of moral appraisal. (...) This objection was most famously raised by Mill and Schopenhauer, but also during Kant’s time by Pistorius and Tittel. I show that Kant’s response to this objection in the second Critique illustrates that he sees the fundamental difference between his moral theory and a broadly consequentialist one to be one that concerns methodology. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to raise a problem for recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s universalizability tests. In particular, I argue that these recent attempts are subject to reductio and that the most obvious way of patching them renders them impracticable. I begin by explaining the motivation for these attempts. Then I describe how they work and begin my attack. I conclude by considering some patches.

In this paper, I give a reconstruction of the so‐called Reinhold–Sidgwick objection and show that Korsgaard‐style Kantian constructivists are committed to two key premises of the underlying argument. According to the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection, the Kantian conception of autonomy entails the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally responsible for a morally wrong action. My reconstruction of the underlying argument reveals that the objection depends on a third premise, which says that freedom is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. After (...) mapping the common replies to the objection, I demonstrate that none of these replies is available to Kantian constructivists. But they need not be committed to the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally blameworthy. Kantian constructivists who want to resist the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection are well advised to subject the third premise of the underlying argument to critical scrutiny. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of an important type of human relationship: relationships based on shared ends. These are an indispensable part of most ethically worthy or valuable lives, and our successes or failures at participating in these relationships constitute a great number of our moral successes or failures overall. While many philosophers agree about their importance, few provide us with well-developed accounts of the nature and value of good shared-end relationships. This paper begins to develop a positive account of (...) such relationships. In the interest of highlighting some strengths and weaknesses of competing approaches, it contrasts the theories that are proposed by the Confucian philosopher Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724–1777) and the influential moral philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Both philosophers share many of the same core ethical commitments, but as the author shows, Dai Zhen’s approach to thinking about the nature and value of good shared-end relationships is superior to Kant’s because it highlights the fact that such relationships must be motivated by ethically-shaped forms of other-concern and self-interest, whereas Kant does not picture self-interest as an important source of morality or ethically valuable relationships. The author considers clarifications and revisions to Kant’s theory that seem to make more room for the mixture of motives required for good shared-end relationships, but concludes that these ad hoc modifications do not succeed at providing a recognizably Kantian theory that can account for them as well as Dai Zhen’s. (shrink)

In the first ever commentary on the Groundwork, one of Kant’s earliest critics, Gottlob August Tittel, argues that the categorical imperative is not a new principle of morality, but merely a new formula. This objection has been unjustly neglected in the secondary literature, despite the fact that Kant explicitly responds to it in a footnote in the second Critique. In this paper I seek to offer a thorough explanation of both Tittel’s ‘new formula’ objection and Kant’s response to it, as (...) well as illustrate its significance. I argue that the objection is in fact the third step in a line of argument that Tittel presents in his commentary, and that the objection is best understood within this context. I analyze Kant’s response in the second Critique footnote line-by-line so as to show that Kant both clarifies that it was never his aim to offer a new principle, but only ‘establish’ the principle that common human reason already implicitly employs. Furthermore, I show that Kant uses the opportunity to clarify the sense in which the categorical imperative is a ‘formula [Formel]’, namely as a representation of a complicated and abstract principle, like the moral law, in a way that is easier to understand and apply. I conclude by illustrating the fourth step in Tittel’s line of argument, which makes the overall significance of the ‘new formula’ objection clear: for Tittel, the problem is not that Kant seems to be offering merely a new formula, but that the categorical imperative lacks a foundation. (shrink)

Most Kantian constructivists try to ground universal duties of interpersonal morality in certain interactions between individuals, such as communication, argumentation, shared action or the second-person standpoint. The goal of this paper is to present these, which I refer to as arguments from the second-person perspective, with a dilemma: either the specific kind of interaction that is taken as a starting point of these arguments is inescapable, but in that case the argument does not justify a universal principle of interpersonal morality. (...) Or interaction does have a principle of interpersonal morality among its necessary conditions of possibility, but such forms of interactions are merely optional. I argue that proponents of arguments from the second-person perspective have failed to provide a convincing response to this dilemma and that this failure is systematic. This suggests that the success of Kantian constructivism depends on the success of arguments from the first person. (shrink)

We discuss Kant’s conception of beneficence against the background of the overdemandingness debate. We argue that Kant’s conception of beneficence constitutes a sweet spot between overdemandingess and undemandingess. To this end we defend four key claims that together constitute a novel interpretation of Kant’s account of beneficence: 1) for the same reason that we are obligated to be beneficent to others we are permitted to be beneficent to ourselves; 2) we can prioritise our own ends; 3) it is more virtuous (...) to do more rather than less when it comes to helping others; and 4) indifference to others is vicious. Finally, we explain how this represents a system of duties that gives our personal ends a moral standing without unacceptably moralising them. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the problem of the Kantian line. The problem arises because the locus of value in Kantian ethics is rationality, which (counterintuitively) seems to entail that there are no duties to groups of beings like children. I argue that recent attempts to solve this problem by Wood and O’Neill overlook an important aspect of it before posing my own solution.

This paper lays out two recent accounts of Hegel’s practical philosophy in order to present a challenge. According to Robert Stern and Mark Alznauer, Hegel attempts to ground our ethical practices in ontological norms. I argue that we cannot ground our ethical practices in this way. However, I also contend that Stern’s and Alznauer’s conception of reality as both conceptual and normative can still play a useful role in practical philosophy, namely, to help defuse a sceptical worry about a threat (...) to ethics. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that benevolence is not the whole of the moral life, but it is not as widely appreciated that benevolence is an irreducible part of that life. This paper argues that Kantian efforts to characterize benevolence, or something like it, in terms of reverence for rational agency fall short. Such reverence, while credibly an important part of the moral life, is no more the whole of it than benevolence.

The contrast between Kant’s moral philosophy and Feder’s is not less crucial than the controversy caused by the Göttingen review of the first Critique. One of main targets of Kant’s moral philosophy was Feder’s view, which can be regarded as Kant's main competitor in the contemporary debate. I thus argue that the background provided by the conflict with Feder shows significant distinctive traits of Kant's view, with regard to three fundamental issues. First, I examine how the project of a pure (...) moral philosophy opposes Feder’s empirical investigation into the will, which is in fact one of the targets of Kant's criticism against universal practical philosophy. Second, a central element of Kant’s anti-eudaemonism, the contrast between happiness and self-contentment, is a rejection of the strongly moralized view of happiness that underlies Feder’s eudaemonism. Finally, I examine Tittel's objection that Kant had provided "only a new formula" of morality and Kant's response, which display a fundamental contrast between Kant’s understanding of the aims of moral theory with Feder’s common-sense conception. (shrink)

This article discusses the vice of self-centeredness, argues that it inhibits our ability to treat humanity as an end in itself, and that Kantian moral theory cannot account for this fact. After in this way arguing that Kantian theory fails to provide a fully adequate account of agents who live up to the formula of humanity, I discuss Buddhist resources for developing a better account.

Kant views every human action as either entirely determined by natural necessity or entirely free. In viewing human action this way, it is unclear how he can account for degrees of responsibility. In this article, I consider three recent attempts to accommodate degrees of responsibility within Kant's framework, but argue that none of them are satisfying. In the end, I claim that transcendental idealism constrains Kant such that he cannot provide an adequate account of degrees of responsibility.

In this short essay I intent to discuss the moral standing of autonomy in the field of Medical Ethics and the way it affects individual decision making as well as health care policies. To this purpose I will employ a real life scenario, namely administering placebo medication to a patient without letting him know, by means of which I will challenge not only the effectiveness and the feasibility of autonomy in the Kantian sense, but also its desirability. I will argue (...) that the Kantian notion of autonomy when it comes to Medical Ethics is in some cases self-defeating and, therefore, confusing and misleading. I will conclude with the view that, at least as Medical Ethics is concerned, we should rethink and, maybe, revise the meaning we usually assign to autonomy, so as to take into account the particular nature of the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

This book provides an entry-level introduction to philosophical ethics, theories of moral reasoning, and selected issues in applied ethics. Chapter 1 describes the importance of philosophical approaches to ethical issues, the general dialectical form of moral reasoning, and the broad landscape of moral philosophy. Chapter 2 presents egoism and relativism as challenges to the presumed objectivity and unconditionality of morality. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 discuss utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, respectively. Each chapter begins with a general overview of the (...) characteristic theory of value and moral reasoning and proceeds to present a more refined account based on a prominent historical source (Mill, Kant, and Aristotle, respectively). It then discusses strengths and weaknesses of the theory from a contemporary perspective, including more recent developments, defenses, and critiques. Each chapter includes an appendix in which secondary, less prominent, or more complex issues are discussed. Chapters 6-9 address in detail a prominent area of applied ethics: 6. abortion, 7. assisted dying, 8. Biotechnology, 9. Animals and eating. Each of these chapters presents an introduction to the topic, including definitions, historical and contemporary developments and contexts, etc.; the various questions and issues involved; and an application of each theory from multiple points of view. Each chapter also includes a set of primary readings along with an extensive bibliography. Chapter 10 discusses four more areas of applied ethics: War, Torture, and Terrorism; Capital Punishment; Environmental Ethics; and Same-Sex Marriage. The treatment of these topics focuses mainly on the introductory material. While there is some discussion of the various ethical arguments, it is less comprehensive or detailed compared to other chapters. However, several primary resources are listed to supplement the discussion in the textbook. (shrink)

An introduction to how heteronomous views address the topic of moral autonomy. In the first section I provide a short history of the rise of the autonomy stance in meta ethics. Then I sketch the relationship between Kant and mainstream contemporary Kantians. I finally outline a summary of the papers in the special issue of Dialegesthai.

My goal in this paper is to show that it is not the case that positive duties can be derived from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests. I begin by explaining in detail what I mean by this and distinguishing it from a few things that I am not doing in this paper. After that, I confront the idea of a maxim contradictory, a concept that is advanced by many com- mentators in the attempt to derive positive duties from the universalizability tests. (...) I ex- plain what a maxim contradictory is and how the concept is used to derive positive duties. Then I argue that the notion of a maxim contradictory presupposes an objectionable form of maxim realism. I move from there to the idea of a maxim contrary and the deliberative field. These two ideas are used in tandem by commentators who do not appeal to maxim contradictories. I explain how these concepts are used to derive positive duties and then I argue that there is a systematic error in the derivations that enables one to see that they cannot work. (shrink)

I will discuss the prospect of pharmaceutically enhancing human morality and decision making in such a way as to eliminate morally unjustifiable choices and promote desirable ones. Our species in the relatively short period since it has emerged has enormously advanced in knowledge, science, and technical progress. When it comes to moral development, the distance it has covered is almost negligible. What if we could medically accelerate our moral development? What if we could once and for all render our species (...) totally immune to certain vices? I will examine whether pharmaceutically intervening in human morality would compromise the autonomy of moral agents. I will argue that the argument from the autonomy of the moral agent is neither stable nor convincing. In the light of Kantian ethics we might consider moral enhancement by pharmaceutical means to be a perfect duty for moral agents. (shrink)

Preface -/- Introduction -/- PART I -/- 1 Kant’s pursuit of the Supreme Principle of Morality -/- 2 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part I -/- 3 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part II -/- 4 Dignity -/- 5 Freedom, reason, and the possibility of the Categorical Imperative -/- PART II -/- 6 Objections to the Formula of Universal Law -/- 7 Three problems in Kant’s practical ethics -/- 8 Reason and sentiment: (...) Kantian ethics in a good human life -/- Conclusion -/- Index . (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo, busco identificar, por meio de algumas passagens da "Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes" e da "Crítica da Razão Prática", o debate de Kant com a Filosofia Prática Universal de Wolff. Em um primeiro momento, apresento, de forma sucinta, alguns aspectos gerais da metafísica e da ética wolffiana com o intuito de, em um segundo momento, explicitar como algumas considerações de Kant, em suas duas primeiras obras morais, incidem diretamente nas teses de seu predecessor. A crítica de Kant (...) é apresentada nas seguintes etapas. Primeiro, destaco, diante das teses de Wolff, o argumento kantiano sobre a impossibilidade de se estabelecerem os princípios da faculdade superior de apetição e da obrigação moral a partir do prazer baseado nas representações e, por conseguinte, no princípio da felicidade. Em um segundo momento, sublinho a reivindicação kantiana de uma razão prática pura como a única base da faculdade superior de apetição. A partir disso, é notável o surgimento dos novos conceitos kantianos de lei formal, de liberdade e de perfeição moral. Por último, destaco, ainda em diálogo com Wolff, como a razão prática pura, compreendida como faculdade superior de apetição, pode representar não apenas as bases da necessidade moral, mas também uma fonte adequada de motivação. ABSTRACT In this Paper, I seek to identify Kant's debate with Wolff`s Universal Practical Philosophy in some passages of the "Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals" and of the "Critique of Practical Reason". At first, I briefly present some general aspects of Wolff`s metaphysics and ethics aiming at, in a second step, stressing how some of Kant's considerations, in his first two moral works, have a direct impact on the theses of his predecessor. First, stressing the discussion with Wolff, I highlight Kant's argument about the impossibility of establishing the principles of the superior faculty of desire and of moral obligation from the pleasure on the representations and, therefore, in the principle of happiness. In a second step, I stress the Kantian claim of pure practical reason as the basis of the superior faculty of desire. Thence, I show how the new Kantian concepts of formal law, freedom and moral perfection emerge. Finally, I highlight, still in a dialogue with Wolff, how the pure practical reason may represent not only the foundations of moral necessity, but also how it may be a proper source of motivation. (shrink)

Thanks to recent scholarship, Kant is no longer seen as the dogmatic opponent of suicide he appears at first glance. However, some interpreters have recently argued for a Kantian view of the morality of suicide with surprising, even radical, implications. More specifically, they have argued that Kantianism requires that those with dementia or other rationality-eroding conditions end their lives before their condition results in their loss of identity as moral agents, and requires subjecting the fully demented or those confronting future (...) dementia to non-voluntary euthanasia. Properly understood, Kant’s ethics has neither of these implications. wrongly assumes that rational agents’ duty of self-preservation entails a duty of self-destruction when they become non-rational. further neglects Kant’s distinction between duties to self and duties to others and wrongly assumes that duties can be owed to rational agents only during the time of their existence. (shrink)

In this paper, I have argued that whatever might be said about his attack on other German philosophers, Santayana’s attack on Kant, despite its subtlety, its force and its intelligence, is fundamentally misguided. Teasing out where Santayana’s attack rests on misunderstandings of Kant’s philosophy is a useful exercise: it is useful for Kantians, for it gives us a chance to show Kant at his best; it is useful for Santayana scholars, for it reminds us that Santayana, for all his brilliance, (...) was not infallible; and it is useful more generally, for the mistakes Santayana makes about Kant are, perhaps in part because of Santayana’s well-deservedly wide influence, still prevalent today. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Kant’s theory of conscience. In particular, I explicate the following two claims that Kant makes in the Metaphysics of Morals: (1) an erring conscience is an absurdity and (2) if an agent has acted according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that can be required of him/her. I argue that (1) is a very specific claim that does not bear on the problem of moral knowledge. I argue that (2) rests on a strongly (...) internalist line of argument. (shrink)

The categorical imperative can be construed as a universalization test for moral permissibility. False negatives of the categorical imperative would be maxims failing this test, despite the permissibility of their actions; maxims like: ‘I’ll withdraw all my savings on April 15th’. Examples of purported false negatives familiar from the literature can be grouped into three general categories, and dispatched by applying category-specific methods for proper formulation of their maxims, or for proper testing. Methods for reformulating failing maxims, such as the (...) addition of appropriate conditional clauses, do not generate false-positive counterexamples in other instances. (shrink)

Kantians are increasingly deserting the universal law formula in favor of the humanity formula. The former, they argue, is open to various decisive objections; the two are not equivalent; and it is only by appealing to the humanity formula that Kant can reliably generate substantive implications from his theory of an acceptable sort. These assessments of the universal law formula, which clash starkly with Kant's own assessment of it, are based on various widely accepted interpretative assumptions. These assumptions, it is (...) argued in this article, depend on misleading translations of key terms; selective attention to Kant's concrete examples; not taking seriously Kant's theoretical claims about the relations among his various ideas; and a failure to take into account Kant's idiosyncratic definitions of key concepts. The article seeks to right these interpretative wrongs, and finds that the universal law formula is not open to many of the standard objections. (shrink)

This book offers new readings of Kant’s “universal law” and “humanity” formulations of the categorical imperative. It shows how, on these readings, the formulas do indeed turn out being alternative statements of the same basic moral law, and in the process responds to many of the standard objections raised against Kant’s theory. Its first chapter briefly explores the ways in which Kant draws on his philosophical predecessors such as Plato (and especially Plato’s Republic) and Jean-Jacque Rousseau. The second chapter offers (...) a new reading of the relation between the universal law and humanity formulas by relating both of these to a third formula of Kant’s, viz. the “law of nature” formula, and also to Kant’s ideas about laws in general and human nature in particular. The third chapter considers and rejects some influential recent attempts to understand Kant’s argument for the humanity formula, and offers an alternative reconstruction instead. Chapter four considers what it is to flourish as a human being in line with Kant’s basic formulas of morality, and argues that the standard readings of the humanity formula cannot properly account for its relation to Kant’s views about the highest human good. (shrink)

Kant’s moral philosophy usually considers two types of duties: negative duties that prohibit certain actions and positive duties commanding action. With that, Kant insists on deriving all morality from reason alone. Such is the Categorical Imperative that Kant lays at the basis of ethics. Yet while negative duties can be derived from the Categorical Imperative and thus from reason, the paper argues that this is not the case with positive duties. After answering a number of attempts to derive positive duties (...) from the Categorical Imperative, most notably those of Barbara Herman, it sketches an alternative approach to understanding the relationship between the universal moral law and specific moral contents. (shrink)

In his critical and his later work, Kant recommends apathy to the moral agent faced with pathological phenomena. Notoriously, Kant even rejects compassion (Mitleiden) as pathological. A deconstruction of Kant's 'apathology', i.e. of his systematic treatment of compassion, reveals disgust as quasi-transcendental affect at the roots of the moral agent's apathy.

In Book I of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason Kant offers an explanation of freedom and moral good and evil that is different from that offered in the Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals. My primary goal in this paper is to analyze and elucidate this new theory. My secondary goal is to contrast this new theory with the older one that it is replacing. I argue that the new theory, which centers on the idea that evil (...) involves a sort of misprioritizing, enables Kant to get around two problems associated with the older theory. (shrink)

Throughout his entire career, Nishida Kitarō was, arguably, interested in challenging Immanuel Kant’s formulation of the moral will. In his first work, An Inquiry into the Good, he criticizes Kant’s pure practical reason as idealistic, arguing that the good should be understood not in terms of an abstract, formal relation of reason with itself, but in terms of personality as a single, unique, unifying power that is the true reality of the self. He echoes this language in his last work, (...) “The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview,” proposing that the personal self exists as a self-determining individual through creative expression. This article will investigate how Nishida’s development of this concept of the personal self grounds his proposal that the goal of the moral will is realization of the good as a personal, rather than abstract, ideal, through the intentional action of active intuition. (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While Kant uses the (...) German equivalent in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy. (shrink)