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Accessing the Moral Law through Feeling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2015

Owen Ware
Owen Ware*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
*
Email: owenjware@gmail.com
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Abstract

In this article I offer a critical commentary on Jeanine Grenberg’s claim that, by the time of the second Critique, Kant was committed to the view that we only access the moral law’s validity through the feeling of respect. The issue turns on how we understand Kant’s assertion that our consciousness of the moral law is a ‘fact of reason’. Grenberg argues that all facts must be forced, and anything forced must be felt. I defend an alternative interpretation, according to which the fact of reason refers to the actuality of our moral consciousness.

Keywords

KantGrenbergfact of reasonfeeling of respectmoral justification
Type
Critical Exchange
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 301 - 311
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2015 

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