Abstract
In On Grace and Dignity, Schiller argues for the moral importance of grace (Anmut), an attractive quality we witness in people’s moves, gestures, or general demeanour, as they interact with others. He claims that grace is the manifestation in outer appearance of the highest kind of moral accomplishment. In this chapter, I seek to understand this surprising claim in light of Schiller’s engagement with Kant’s moral philosophy. Using both historical and contemporary material, I offer a reconstructive interpretation of the concept of grace and show how it resonates with some contemporary treatments of Kantian ethics.
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Notes
- 1.
A version of the essay originally appeared in the History of Philosophy Quarterly 2006 vol. 23:1:1–20. It is reprinted here with significant stylistic alterations to fit it with the requirements of the present volume.
- 2.
The translation I provide is based on an anonymous version published originally in 1875, and frequently reprinted subsequently, by George Bell and Sons, in London.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
‘Now if one asks, What is the aesthetic character, the temperament, so to speak, of virtue, whether courageous and hence joyous or fear-ridden and dejected, an answer is hardly necessary. This latter slavish frame of mind can never occur without a hidden hatred of the law. And a heart which his happy in the performance of its duty (not merely complacent in the recognition of thereof) is a mark of genuineness of the virtuous disposition’ (Rel 19, Ak 6: 23–4).
- 6.
See, for example, Kant treatment moral ‘contentment’ [Zufriedenheit] in CPrR 234–5, Ak 5: 118–9; and the role of aesthetic pleasures in the cultivation of virtue in MM 588, Ak 6: 473–4 and Rel 42–4, Ak 6:47–9).
- 7.
Baron aims to exculpate Kant’s ethics of the idea that ‘as long as one does one’s duty, one has done all that can morally be expected of one’ (Baron 1996, 51). However, the idea of duty which is precisely about what we can reasonably expect of each other is foundational for Kant. This is why other desirable elements such as smiling disposition, for example, are not duties.
- 8.
Schiller’s point should not be confused with mere affirmation of nature instead of reason: ‘where pure nature reigns humanity disappears’ (GD 195, NA 20b:280), its rule is ‘a wild ochlocracy’ (GD 197, NA 20b:282).
- 9.
- 10.
Nagel’s topic is the Mozart’s 1791 opera, the Magic Flute (1791). He argues that it expresses a view of happiness that has nothing to do with the rewards of ‘self-exertion’ in world ‘far away from Luther and Kant’ (Nagel 1991, 35).
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Deligiorgi, K. (2023). Schiller on the Aesthetics of Morals and Twentieth-Century Kant Scholarship and Philosophy. In: Falduto, A., Mehigan, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Friedrich Schiller. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16798-0_29
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