Robin Barrow claims in his ?Moral education's modest agenda? that ?the task of moral education is to develop understanding, at the lowest level, of the expectations of society and, at the highest level, of the nature of morality???[that is, that moral education] should go on to develop understanding, not of a particular social code, but of the nature of morality ? of the principles that provide the framework within which practical decisions have to be made? [Barrow, R. 2006. Moral education's (...) modest agenda. Ethics and Education 1, no. 1: 3?13.]. Barrow's words are noteworthy not only because he sets out to define the ?modest? agenda of moral education in terms of principles, but also because he asserts that education is important for teaching students to understand morality in such terms. However, even though he is arguing that understanding morality is important in terms of principles, he says little about their function or status, or how we cultivate ourselves so that we act in agreement with and are motivated by the principles of practical reason. In this article I therefore discuss two distinctive features of human beings and offer a Kantian notion of morality as a response to Barrow's development of an understanding of morality in terms of principles. I argue that the principles Kant suggests are constitutive of action, and that we both develop our understanding and also value our humanity when we act in agreement with and are motivated by the suggested principles, and cultivate our predispositions (technical, pragmatic and moral). Moreover, I argue that we reach the goal of ?a progressive organization of citizens of the earth into and toward the species as a system that is cosmopolitically united? [Kant, I. 2006b. Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Trans. Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] when we, inter alia, value our humanity and comply with the principles of practical reason, in practice. (shrink)

Throughout the critical period Kant enigmatically insists that reason is a ‘unity’, thereby suggesting that both our theoretical and practical endeavors are grounded in one and the same rational capacity. How Kant's unity thesis ought to be interpreted and whether it can be substantiated remain sources of controversy in the literature. According to the strong reading of this claim, reason is a ‘unity’ because all our reasoning, including our theoretical reasoning, functions practically. Although several prominent commentators endorse this view, it (...) is widely thought to lack exegetical support. This paper seeks to strengthen the case for this reading by showing how theoretical reason's positive function, as Kant presents it in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, may be construed as fundamentally practical. I argue that reason's supreme regulative principle ought to be understood as a categorical practical imperative. This interpretation, I suggest, resolves the apparent inconsistencies that blight Kant's account of the principle in the Appendix, while bringing greater overall coherence to his account of theoretical reason's regulative function. (shrink)

To determine whether fish welfare matters morally, we need to know what characteristics or capacities beings need to have in order to be morally considerable, and whether fish have such characteristics. In this paper I discuss a group of theories, Kantian practical reasoning theories, in which agency (or practical rationality) is traditionally thought to be a necessary condition for moral considerability. An individual must have quite sophisticated capacities to be a (moral) agent in such theories: she must be able to (...) act on rational principles. It seems unlikely that nonhuman animals such as fish have such capacities. I argue, however, that on the basis of certain Kantian arguments, moral agents have reason to accept duties to nonrational animals if they are agents in a much less demanding sense: if they are motivated to pursue the objects of their desires. If fish have this capacity, their welfare matters morally. (shrink)