In business ethics journals, Kant’s ethics is often portrayed as overly formalistic, devoid of substantial content, and without regard for the consequences of actions or questions of character. Hence, virtue ethicists ride happily to the rescue, offering to replace or complement Kant’s theory with their own. Before such efforts are undertaken, however, one should recognize that Kant himself wrote a “virtue theory” (Tugendlehre), wherein he discussed the questions of character as well as the teleological nature of human action. Numerous Kant (...) scholars argue that Kant already erected precisely the kind of integrative moral architecture that some of his modern interpreters (while aiming to supersede him) wish to construct. For business ethics, this divergence of scholarly opinion is of crucial importance. It shows first that the standard portrayals of Kant’s ethics in business ethics textbooks—as rigidly deontological, narrowly individualistic, and hence unsuitable for the specific demands of corporate agency—might have to be revised. Second, discussions in the business ethics literature on stakeholder-engagement and managerial decision-making likewise stand to gain from a more nuanced picture of Kant’s moral philosophy. Third, a reassessment of Kant’s ethics with regard to questions of personal character and moral sentiments might also lead to a more favorable view of the relevance of his ethics for managerial practice. Last, but not least, the many current attempts to reconcile Kant’s freedom-oriented philosophy with virtue theories stand to benefit considerably from a better understanding of how Kant himself conceived of one such synthesis between the formal and substantial aspects of morality. This, ultimately, could lead to an important overlapping consensus in the academic literature as to the role and relevance of virtuous conduct in business. (shrink)

Humanity is an important notion within Kant's moral theory. The humanity formulation of the categorical imperative commands: ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means’ . Kant's analysis of ethical obligation and his expositions of rights and duties in the Metaphysics of Morals refer frequently to humanity. How we understand this concept, then, has signifcant implications for how (...) we understand Kant's ethics. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that moral requirements are based on a standard of rationality he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative” (CI). Immorality thus involves a violation of the CI and is thereby irrational. Other philosophers, such as Locke and Hobbes, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality. However, these standards were either desirebased instrumental principles of rationality or based on sui generis rational intuitions. Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason (...) will reveal only the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles. Yet he argued that conformity to the CI (a non-instrumental principle) and hence to moral requirements themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to rational agency. This argument was based on his striking doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it. The fundamental principle of morality — the CI — is none other than the law of an autonomous will. Thus, at the heart of Kant's moral philosophy is a conception of reason whose reach in practical affairs goes well beyond that of a Humean ‘slave’ to the passions. Moreover, it is the presence of this self-governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth and deserving of equal respect. (shrink)

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which (...) shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions. (shrink)

The idea of autonomy, presented as Kant’s main achievement in the Groundwork and the second Critique, is hardly present in the ethics of the “Doctrine of Virtue”. Against Pauline Kleingeld’s recent interpretation, I argue that this does not amount to a disappearance of the Principle of Autonomy, but to an important development of the notion of autonomy. I first show that Kant still advocated the Principle of Autonomy in the 1790s along with the thought of lawgiving through one’s maxims. I (...) then argue that the role of autonomy in Kant’s later ethics has a different focus than in the previous works, which requires to connect autonomy with autocracy. Conversely, in the “Doctrine of Virtue”, autocracy, which Kant had employed before as an independent notion, is construed as a new layer of autonomy. What Kant there calls subjective autonomy is thereby considered as reason’s self-government in the maxims of each rational agent. -/- . (shrink)

The paper develops a Kantian view of the highest good and the relation between virtue and happiness. Several Kantian theses are defended, among them the thesis that the highest good is realized only if every virtuous individual is happy, the view that virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient for happiness, and the proposition that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for the worthiness of being happy. The author argues that the highest good ought to be realized and that it ought (...) to be that everyone who is virtuous is happy. To prove these claims, the author will use techniques developed by modern deontic logicians. According to Kant, we do not have an immediate duty to promote our own happiness, the aim of morality being not personal satisfaction but rather virtue and the good will. The important question is not “How do I become happy?” but “How do I become good?”. The arguments in this paper support this view. (shrink)

Obwohl Kants Tugendlehre bei ihrer Veröffentlichung weithin unbeachtet bleibt, entfaltet sie in den letzten Jahren eine zunehmende Wirkung: ein revolutionär neuer Tugend-Begriff, der mit Nachdruck vertretene Gedanke von Pflichten gegen andere und auch gegen sich selbst, eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Liebespflichten" sowie mit Achtung und Würde. Der von Fachleuten verfasste Kommentar, der anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants in einer 2. überarbeiteten erscheint, entschlüsselt damit das letzte wichtige Werk Kants zur Moral. Mit Beiträgen von Monika Betzler, Jochen Bojanowski, Dahan Fan, Franz (...) Hespe Moritz Hildt, Otfried Höffe, Dieter Hüning, Heiner F. Klemme, Karoline Reinhardt, Elke E. Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, Oliver Sensen, Amelie Stuart. (shrink)

La posición sistemática de la Metafísica de las costumbres de Kant y en concreto de su segunda parte, la Doctrina de la virtud, es análoga a la del Sistema de la doctrina de las costumbres según los principios de la Doctrina de la Ciencia de Fichte. Sin embargo, en dicha obra, Fichte califica la ética kantiana de “formalista” y pretende que la suya es más concreta y aplicable por su teoría de la conciliación entre el impulso natural y el impulso (...) moral. En este artículo se explica y discute dicha postura de Fichte, mostrando que la crítica a Kant es injusta, dado que precisamente la Doctrina de la virtud ofrece, de un modo metódicamente diverso pero sólido y coherente con la ética de la autonomía, la “ética material” kantiana. (shrink)

Resumen En este artículo, muestro que la parcialidad debidamente justificada hacia nuestros seres queridos es parte del proyecto moral kantiano. A diferencia de los críticos que abogan que la imparcialidad del juicio obliga a no tener en cuenta las relaciones personales cuando se toman decisiones morales, defiendo la hipótesis de que un kantiano puede ser parcial con sus seres queridos, por razones tanto sistemáticas como textuales.In this article I show that duly justified partiality towards our loved ones is part of (...) the Kantian moral project. Unlike the critics who advocate a reading in which the impartiality of the judgment in this ethics forces not to take into account personal relationships when making moral decisions, I defend the hypothesis that a Kantian can be partial with his loved ones, this for systematic and textual reasons. (shrink)

Contrary to a widespread view, I argue that the contemporary notion of “human rights” does not have a comfortable home in Kant’s legal philosophy. Even the one “innate right of humanity,” that many consider the pre-institutional Archimedian starting point of Kant’ s argument, is a normative conception that is “juridified all the way down.” In the state of nature, all private rights are present only in the form of the consequents of conditional claims about legal rights of the form, “If (...) and only if in a juridified realm, then X,” with “X” referring to the specificities of positive law within a juridified realm. One objection claims that this proposal undermines the idea that there are powerful individual rights on a par with legal rights but pre-institutional. By means of responding to worries regarding stateless individuals and migrants, I show that even though human rights are foreign to a Kantian conception of legality, other resources in Kant’s practical philosophy stand ready to assuage the objection. (shrink)

Esse estudo examina a concepção de virtude de Kant no texto pré-crítico Observações sobre o sentimento do belo e do sublime e no período crítico assim como a concepção de virtude de Schiller em Sobre a graça e a dignidade mostrando principalmente que existem algumas continuidades entre a posição de Kant a respeito da virtude no período pré-crítico e a concepção do período crítico do pensamento moral à luz do debate entre Kant e Schiller a respeito do papel dos sentimentos (...) na concepção de virtude ou perfeição moral. Palavras-chave: Virtude. Inclinação. Dever. Sublime. (shrink)