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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Kant starts the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by emphasizing the importance of separating the a priori or rational part of moral philosophy from the a posteriori or empirical aspects. Indeed, he reserves the term moral philosophy for the rational part. He writes ‘ethics … the empirical part might be given the special title practical anthropology, the term moral philosophy being properly used to refer just to the rational part’. Throughout his writings in both theoretical and practical philosophy the distinction between what is a priori and what is a posteriori is given paramount importance. We need to separate that which has its source a priori from its application to, for example human beings.
1 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Zweig, A., eds. Hill, T. E. and Zweig, A. (Oxford: OUP, 2002 [1785]), 4: 388.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 4: 389.
3 Ibid., 4: 421.
4 Ibid., 4: 402n.
5 Louden, R. B., Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford: OUP, 2000).Google Scholar
6 Sherman, N., ‘Reasons and feelings in Kantian morality’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 55/2 (1995), 369–77, at 369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, Beck, L. W. trans., 3rd edn (New York: Macmillan, 1993 [1788]), 5: 79.Google Scholar
8 Kant, I., ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, in Gregor, M. J. trans., Immanuel Kant Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP, 1999 [1797]), 6: 399–6: 403.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 6: 462.
10 Ibid., 6: 454-5.
11 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 79.Google Scholar
12 Ibid., 5: 71.
13 Ibid., 5: 71-5: 89.
14 Ibid., 5: 71.
15 Ibid., 5: 72.
16 Ibid., 5: 72.
17 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 457.Google Scholar
18 Allison, H. E., Kant's Transcendental Idealism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 26–8.Google Scholar
19 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 72.Google Scholar
20 Ibid., 5: 78.
21 Ibid., 5: 75.
22 Ibid., 5: 79.
23 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 460, n. 3.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., 4: 400, n. 13.
25 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 79.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., 5: 78–9.
27 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer of this paper who pointed out that Kant's claim that the ‘negative effect on feeling (through the check on the inclinations) is itself a feeling’ (5: 73) is a claim that can be disputed since thwarting a feeling might cause a feeling, but need not be a feeling. Perhaps Kant's point is made in too abbreviated a form here. Presumably the point is that the ground of duty, the moral law, is what is thwarting feelings and this is manifested at the phenomenal level by the feeling that Kant calls respect.
28 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 73.Google Scholar
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., 5: 73, 75, 78.
31 Ibid., 5: 79.
32 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 401, n. 14.Google Scholar
33 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 80.Google Scholar
34 For example, Reath, A., ‘Kant's theory of moral sensibility’, Kant-Studien, 80 (1989), 284–302Google Scholar; McCarty, R., ‘Kantian moral motivation and the feeling of respect’, Journal of the History of Philosophy (1993), 421–35Google Scholar; Stratton-Lake, P., Kant, Duty and Moral Worth (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar; Broadie, A. and Pybus, E. M., ‘Kant's concept of “Respect”’, Kant-Studien, 66 (1975), 58–64Google Scholar.
35 Kant, I., ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, 6: 399.Google Scholar
36 Kant, I., Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, in Wood, A. and Giovanni, G. di, trans, and ed., Immanuel Kant Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 1996 [1793]), 6: 23–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 This thesis has become known as the ‘Incorporation thesis’ from Allison, H., Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: CUP, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 413, n. *.Google Scholar
39 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5:117.Google Scholar
40 Kant, I., Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 406.Google Scholar
41 Ibid., 4: 400.
42 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 78.Google Scholar
43 Ibid., 5: 114.
44 Reath, A., ‘Kant's theory of moral sensibility’, 287.Google Scholar
45 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 80.Google Scholar
46 Stratton-Lake, P., ‘Kant, duty, and moral work’, p. 36.Google Scholar
47 Kant, I., ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, 6: 464.Google Scholar
48 Guyer, P., Kant and the Experience of Freedom (Cambridge: CUP, 1996).Google Scholar In chapter 10 of this book Guyer argues that respect is not the motive for adherence to the moral law. Respect is rather the effect on feelings of the decision to adhere to the moral law.
49 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 79.Google Scholar
50 Reath, A., ‘Kant's theory of moral sensibility’, 288Google Scholar
51 Ibid., 289.
52 Kant, I., ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, 6: 399.Google Scholar
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., 6: 400.
55 Ibid., 6: 399.
56 Ibid.
57 Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 76.Google Scholar
58 Kant, I., ‘Metaphysics of Morals’, 6: 400.Google Scholar
59 Ibid., 6: 438.
60 Ibid., 6: 400.
61 Ibid., 6: 401.
62 Ibid., 6:402.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., 6: 403.
65 Ibid., 6: 462.
66 Ibid., 6: 401.
67 Ibid., 6: 399-400.
68 Ibid., 6: 402.
69 Ibid., 6: 448.
70 Ibid., 6: 465.
71 Ibid., 6: 466.
72 Ibid., 6: 467.
73 Ibid., 6: 463.
74 Ibid., 6: 468.
75 Ibid., 6: 454-5.
76 Ibid., 6: 456.
