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Kant’s Contextualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2018

Katrin Flikschuh
Katrin Flikschuh*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
*
Email: k.a.flikschuh@lse.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article builds on David Velleman’s recent work on moral relativism to argue that Kant’s account of moral judgement is best read in a contextualist manner. More specifically, I argue that while for Kant the form of moral judgement is invariant, substantive moral judgements are nonetheless context-dependent. The same form of moral willing can give rise to divergent substantive judgements. To some limited extent, Kantian contextualism is a development out of Rawlsian constructivism. Yet while for constructivists the primary concern is with the derivation of generally valid principles of morality, Velleman’s Kant-inspired form of moral relativism demonstrates the indispensability to a Kantian approach of indexical reasons for action. I argue in turn that Velleman’s focus on the indexical nature of reasons for action must be supplemented by an account of agential reflexivity. The latter divides Kantian contextualism from Kantian relativism.

Keywords

KantRawlsVellemancontextualismreasons for actionmoral judgementnorm diversity
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 23 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Kant & Rawls , December 2018 , pp. 555 - 579
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2018 

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