Obwohl Kants Tugendlehre bei ihrer Veröffentlichung weithin unbeachtet bleibt, entfaltet sie in den letzten Jahren eine zunehmende Wirkung: ein revolutionär neuer Tugend-Begriff, der mit Nachdruck vertretene Gedanke von Pflichten gegen andere und auch gegen sich selbst, eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Liebespflichten" sowie mit Achtung und Würde. Der von Fachleuten verfasste Kommentar, der anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants in einer 2. überarbeiteten erscheint, entschlüsselt damit das letzte wichtige Werk Kants zur Moral. Mit Beiträgen von Monika Betzler, Jochen Bojanowski, Dahan Fan, Franz (...) Hespe Moritz Hildt, Otfried Höffe, Dieter Hüning, Heiner F. Klemme, Karoline Reinhardt, Elke E. Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, Oliver Sensen, Amelie Stuart. (shrink)

This paper deals primarily with theDoctrine of Method(DM) of Kant’sDoctrine of Virtue. First, I present an overview of theDM(1.1) and an explanation of how it is possible to teach virtue (1.2). Second, I address the following issues: Why is aDMnecessary at all (2.1)? How does theDMrelate to what Kant calls casuistry (2.2)? I will argue that wide duties have two essential characteristics: They command the right kind of moral motivation in terms of a moral maxim, and they allow for latitude. (...) The fact that wide duties command the right kind of motivation leads to theDM; the latitude of wide duties, however, leads to casuistry. To unfold this interpretation, it must also be shown that both imperfect and perfect duties are wide duties. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of ‘vices of culture’ in Immanuel Kant’s account of radical evil and education. I argue that Kant was keenly aware of a uniquely human tendency to allow a self-centered concern for status to misunderstand or co-opt the language of dignity and equal worth for its own purposes. This tendency lies at the root of the ‘vices of culture’ and ‘aggravated vices’ that Kant describes in the Religion and Doctrine of Virtue, respectively. When it comes to (...) moral education, then, it will be crucial that the developing agent have a clear understanding of the shared dignity of rational agents and the particular duties that are defined, in part, by their tendency to alter status among agents. I argue that the casuistical questions that Kant attaches to these discussions in the Doctrine of Virtue are an example of a pedagogical device that might help pupils to overcome this tendency so closely associated with radical evil. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of ‘vices of culture’ in Immanuel Kant’s account of radical evil and education. I argue that Kant was keenly aware of a uniquely human tendency to allow a self...

The idea of autonomy, presented as Kant’s main achievement in the Groundwork and the second Critique, is hardly present in the ethics of the “Doctrine of Virtue”. Against Pauline Kleingeld’s recent interpretation, I argue that this does not amount to a disappearance of the Principle of Autonomy, but to an important development of the notion of autonomy. I first show that Kant still advocated the Principle of Autonomy in the 1790s along with the thought of lawgiving through one’s maxims. I (...) then argue that the role of autonomy in Kant’s later ethics has a different focus than in the previous works, which requires to connect autonomy with autocracy. Conversely, in the “Doctrine of Virtue”, autocracy, which Kant had employed before as an independent notion, is construed as a new layer of autonomy. What Kant there calls subjective autonomy is thereby considered as reason’s self-government in the maxims of each rational agent. -/- . (shrink)

The paper engages with the Casuistic questions posed in the book on the Perfect Duties to Oneself, in the Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue of the Metaphysic of Morals. It investigates whether it is possible to identify Kant’s literal answers to the casuistic questions that Kant himself poses, concluding that it is not. Therefore, Kantian answers rather than Kant’s answers are discussed. The paper’s outcome supports a rigorist interpretation of Kant’s ethics.