In this paper, I give an explanation and defense of Kant’s claim that we cannot comprehend how freedom is possible. I argue that this is a significant point that has been underappreciated in the secondary literature. My conclusion has a variety of implications both for Kant scholars and for those interested in Kantian ideas more generally. Most notably, if Kant is right that there are principled reasons why freedom is beyond our comprehension, then this would release his ethical views from (...) an undesirable explanatory burden. It would be a boon for Kantians if they could ground their lofty claims about the unique, elevated status of rational agency without committing to an implausible view of libertarian freedom. I also suggest that there are certain debates concerning moral motivation and transcendental idealism that might have to change in response to Kant’s claims about the incomprehensibility of freedom. (shrink)

Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which deals (...) with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (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)

In this open access book, Timothy Aylsworth and Clinton Castro draw on the deep well of Kantian ethics to argue that we have moral duties, both to ourselves and to others, to protect our autonomy from the threat posed by the problematic use of technology. The problematic use of technologies like smartphones threatens our autonomy in a variety of ways, and critics have only begun to appreciate the vast scope of this problem. In the last decade, we have seen a (...) flurry of books making “self-help” arguments about how we could live happier, more fulfilling lives if we were less addicted to our phones. But none of these authors see this issue as one involving a moral duty to protect our autonomy. (shrink)

What is the highest good actually good for in Kant’s third Critique? While there are well-worked out answers to this question in the literature that focus on the highest good’s practical importance, this paper argues that there is an important function for the highest good that has to do exclusively with contemplation. This important function becomes clear once one notices that coherent [konsequent] thinking, for Kant, was synonymous with "bündiges" thinking, and that both are connected with the highest good in (...) the third Critique’s moral proof for God’s existence. I show that the original meaning of "bündig," which is from the carpentry trade and has been forgotten, illuminates the stakes of the highest good in Kant’s system. For us, as proverbial carpenters of reason, coherence is essential for the intellectual activity of constructing a philosophical worldview in his transcendental idealism. I motivate the reading further by showing how this function can neatly reconstruct Kant’s proof for God’s existence in the third Critique. I conclude by sketching Kant’s reasons for why the project of creating a coherent worldview grounded in the highest good is worth the labor costs. (shrink)

This essay considers Kant’s concept of the highest good from a systematic point of view. The two spheres of freedom and nature—of the practical and theoretical—need to be brought into a causal relation for the highest good to be achieved. Kant seems to offer numerous possibilities for how human beings are able to think that it is possible for the highest good to be attainable. I argue that it is only in the third Critique, however, that Kant articulates an answer (...) that also establishes freedom and nature within a larger system. The third Critique does this by positing a third, independent and mediating sphere of human experience that allows a transition between freedom and nature to be effected. This answer to the problem of the highest good is distinctive because the causal efficacy of reason in attaining its own demands is preserved. I examine Kant’s view by way of an analysis of his discussion of ‘territory’ and ‘domain’ in the Introduction to the text. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die Bedeutung von Kants Begriff des ethischen Gemeinwesens für die Frage des Kosmopolitanismus herausgearbeitet. Kosmopolitanismus ist für Kant zunächst eine Konsequenz der Rechtslehre: Der Rechtszustand kann nur als globaler peremtorisch wirklich sein. Diese Einsicht kollidiert jedoch mit der Voraussetzung souveräner bürgerlicher Staaten, so dass der politische oder juridische globale Rechtszustand die moralische Forderung des Kosmopolitanismus nicht erfüllt. Es lässt sich zeigen, dass diese Kollision in der antagonistischen Form der modernen Gesellschaft gründet, deren politische Instrumente die Staaten (...) sind. Im Unterschied zu den rechtsphilosophischen Schriften konstruiert Kant in der Religionsschrift ein weltbürgerliches ethisches Gemeinwesen, das von der Idee einer moralisch organisierten Gesellschaft ausgeht. Dieses Modell wird im Rahmen der Religionsphilosophie entwickelt. Darüber hinaus weisen Überlegungen Kants zur Pädagogik: Die Überwindung gesellschaftlich bedingter Partikularität und Konkurrenz kann als Bildungsaufgabe formuliert werden. (shrink)

En la presente investigación propongo el concepto de prudencia epistémica. La prudencia epistémica es la habilidad social para influir en los demás para fines socio-cognitivos. Como habilidad pragmática, la prudencia epistémica consiste no sólo en una descripción de los orígenes empíricos del error, sino en la habilidad social para evitar el error y otros males cognitivos frutos del egoísmo lógico y otros vicios epistémicos.

Emmanuel Levinas’s doubts about the ethical value of artistic beauty have been widely acknowledged by the vast majority of Levinas’s commentators. However, though it is true that in “Reality and Its Shadow” Levinas persistently rebukes artistic beauty for its nonethicality, it is undeniable that he at least upholds the value of artistic criticism and modern literature. In this article I intend to relate Levinas’s exploration of the possibility of spiritual–ethical teaching in literature to Immanuel Kant’s reflections on the relation between (...) the feeling of beauty, that of sublimity, and sensible feeling in his third Critique. This up-close comparative examination fosters understanding of Levinas’s religious and philosophical approach to the sublime elements in some literary works, especially those of Fyodor Dostoevsky. (shrink)

Kant makes and elaborates upon a distinction between active citizenship and passive citizenship. Active citizens enjoy the right to vote and rights of political participation generally. Passive citizens do not, though they still enjoy the protection of the law as citizens. Kant’s examples have left commentators puzzling over how these distinctions follow from his stated rationale or justification for active citizenship, namely, that active citizens possess a kind of political and economic self-sufficiency. This essay focuses on one subset passive citizenry (...) – that of traveling blacksmiths, barbers, and day laborers in order to examine Kant’s distinctions. I argue that these examples show that Kant’s concerns regarding dependence are, at least in some cases, pragmatic rather than political. (shrink)

Nesse artigo, eu apresento a teoria kantiana do mal. Mostrarei que Kant divide o mal em três níveis: fraqueza, impureza e perversidade, relacionando-os com afetos e paixões. Eu defendo que Kant apresenta várias formas de curar o mal nos diversos textos, tais como Doutrina da Virtude, Antropologia, Ideia para uma história universal do ponto de vista cosmopolita e Religião nos limites da simples razão. Eu tentarei mostrar que a virtude é impotente para curar o mal e que Kant apresenta uma (...) comunidade ética para esse fim. Por fim, eu compararei a construção de comunidade ética com o estabelecimento de uma sociedade civil jurídica. (shrink)