Autonomy Without Paradox: Kant, Self-Legislation and the Moral Law

Philosophers' Imprint 19 (6):1-18 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Within Kantian ethics and Kant scholarship, it is widely assumed that autonomy consists in the self-legislation of the principle of morality. In this paper, we challenge this view on both textual and philosophical grounds. We argue that Kant never unequivocally claims that the Moral Law is self-legislated and that he is not philosophically committed to this claim by his overall conception of morality. Instead, the idea of autonomy concerns only substantive moral laws, such as the law that one ought not to lie. We argue that autonomy, thus understood, does not have the paradoxical features widely associated with it. Rather, our account highlights a theoretical option that has been neglected in the current debate on whether Kant is best interpreted as a realist or a constructivist, namely that the Moral Law is an a priori principle of pure practical reason that neither requires nor admits of being grounded in anything else.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kant's Conception of Personal Autonomy.Paul Formosa - 2013 - Journal of Social Philosophy 44 (3):193-212.
The Principle of Autonomy in Kant's Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall.Pauline Kleingeld - 2017 - In Eric Watkins (ed.), Kant on Persons and Agency. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 61-79.
Kant on Moral Autonomy.Oliver Sensen (ed.) - 2012 - Cambridge University Press.
The Autonomy of Morality and the Morality of Autonomy.Robert Stern - 2009 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 6 (3):395-415.
Continuity in the History of Autonomy.T. H. Irwin - 2011 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (5):442 - 459.
The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.Stefano Bacin & Oliver Sensen (eds.) - 2018 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Self-legislation in Kant's moral philosophy.Patrick Kain - 2004 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 86 (3):257-306.
Kant’s Non-Aristotelian Conception of Morality.Reshef Agam-Segal - 2012 - Southwest Philosophy Review 28 (1):121-133.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-03-14

Downloads
769 (#18,397)

6 months
168 (#14,776)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Pauline Kleingeld
University of Groningen
Marcus Willaschek
Goethe University Frankfurt

References found in this work

The sources of normativity.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Onora O'Neill.
Kantian constructivism in moral theory.John Rawls - 1980 - Journal of Philosophy 77 (9):515-572.
The Sources of Normativity.Christine Korsgaard - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196):384-394.

View all 35 references / Add more references