In this paper I propose to shed new light on the role of feeling in Kant’s psychology of moral motivation by focusing on the concept of an incentive (Triebfeder), a term he borrowed from one of his most important rationalist predecessors, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. I argue that, similar to Baumgarten, Kant understands an incentive to refer to the ground of desire and that feelings function as a specific kind of ground within Kant’s psychology of moral action, namely as the ‘impelling (...) cause’ of desire. I claim that this interpretation has several advantages over the alternatives currently on offer in the literature. (shrink)

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and that categorical imperatives are synthetic. This claim plays a crucial role in Kant’s attempt to establish moral ‘oughts’ as categorically binding on all rational agents, for by classifying moral statements according to this distinction, Kant hopes to uncover the sort of justification required to establish such statements. However, Kant’s application of the analytic/ synthetic distinction to imperatives is problematic. For one thing, this distinction was (...) developed by Kant in connection with indicative, subject-predicate statements, which would seem to cast doubt on the idea that imperatives can be either analytic or synthetic. Moreover, Kant’s claim that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and categorical imperatives are synthetic seems to conflict with other claims in his moral works. For example, in the Groundwork, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are unproblematic since they can be established on the basis of experience. But this is incompatible with the idea that hypothetical imperatives are analytic, since presumably all analytic statements are a priori — established independently of experience. (shrink)

An examination of Kant's doctrine of radical evil as set forth in Book I of Religion.

Kants Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788) steht zu Unrecht oft im Schatten der Kritik der reinen Vernunft und der Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Tatsächlich sind die Grundelemente der Kantischen Moralphilosophie im Gegensatz zu vielen Thesen der ersten Kritik bis heute weitgehend anerkannt, und erst der Nachweis der zweiten Kritik, dass Freiheit wirklich ist, macht "den Schlussstein von dem ganzen Gebäude eines Systems der reinen, selbst der spekulativen Vernunft aus". Entlang der Stichworte reiner Wille, gesetzgebende Form der Maxime, transzendentale Freiheit, (...) Autonomie und Faktum der Vernunft zeigt Kant in der "Analytik", dass reine Vernunft "für sich" praktisch sein, nämlich den Willen bestimmen kann. Die "Dialektik" sichert den Ideen von der Existenz Gottes und der Unsterblichkeit der Seele objektive Realität und untersucht das Verhältnis von theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft. Die "Methodenlehre" schließlich skizziert eine Theorie moralischer Erziehung, die für den heutigen Ethikunterricht noch aktuell ist. Die zwölf Beiträge dieses kooperativen Kommentars, der anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants in einer 3., überarbeiteten Auflage erscheint, rekonstruieren die Argumente eines Schlüsseltextes der Moralphilosophie und prüfen die sachliche Überzeugungskraft. Mit Beiträgen von: Karl Ameriks, Reinhard Brandt, Eckart Förster, Otfried Höffe Allen W. Wood Christoph Horn, G. Felicitas Munzel, Onora O'Neill Annemarie Pieper, Friedo Ricken, Nico Scarano. (shrink)

The main objective of my dissertation is twofold: (i) to investigate how the problem of moral motivation occurs in Kant’s texts, and (ii) to examine how Kant’s account of moral feeling serves as an appropriate solution to it. First, I argue that the problem of moral motivation occurs in Kant’s texts as a skeptical problem concerning the motivational efficacy of practical reason. My view that this problem is integral to Kant’s main ethical project goes against a scholarly trend that dismisses (...) the philosophical significance of motivational skepticism in Kant’s moral theory. Second, I argue that Kant develops a peculiar notion of moral feeling in his Critique of Practical Reason primarily to resolve the problem of motivational skepticism about pure practical reason. In doing so, I regard the notion of moral feeling as an essential component of both Kant’s moral motivational structure and his justification of the moral law. This inclusion of moral feeling makes my interpretation a better alternative not only to standard transcendental interpretations of Kant’s account of moral motivation, but also to other kinds of interpretations proposed in the recent literature. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of moral action faces a serious difficulty concerning motivation: how do commands of pure practical reason solely move human agents to perform moral actions? In his response, Kant claims that human agents perform moral actions out of a feeling of respect for the moral law. However, attempts to accommodate a feeling of respect into Kant’s rigorously rationalist ethical theory have led to two diverging strands of interpretation in the secondary literature: intellectualism and affectivism. Against this context, this paper (...) proposes an interpretation of Kantian moral motivation with an appropriate place for the notion of respect within it to resolve the motivational problem concerning moral actions. According to the model of Kantian moral motivation that this paper develops, motivation to act morally takes place in two sequential stages, each involving the positive role of respect as a motive. By arguing for a positive role of the feeling of respect in the process of moral motivation, this model aligns with the affectivist school of interpretation. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo principal de este estudio es analizar el vínculo entre lo sublime dinámico y la moralidad en el marco del pensamiento critico de Kant. Defenderemos la tesis según la cual el sentimiento de lo sublime dinámico es irreducible a la moralidad aun cuando este sentimiento supone necesariamente la moralidad. Subsidiariamente, intentaremos señalar que lo sublime dinámico implica una referencia necesaria a la propia corporalidad. Asimismo, esbozaremos una hipótesis en torno a la posibilidad de pensar el rol de la (...) propia corporalidad en el marco de la teoría moral kantiana. Las principales conclusiones de nuestro análisis son las siguientes: 1. lo sublime dinámico y la moralidad son esferas claramente diferenciadas en el pensamiento de Kant; 2. lo sublime dinámico supone la moralidad. ABSTRACT The main aim of this study is to analyze the link between the dynamic sublime and the morality in the framework of Kant's critical thought. Our study will be restricted to the analysis of the dynamic sublime. We will defend the thesis according to which the feeling of the dynamic sublime is irreducible to the morality even if this feeling necessarily supposes the morality. Subsidiarily, we will try to indicate that the dynamic sublime implies a necessary reference to the own corporeality. Likewise, we will outline a hypothesis concerning the possibility of thinking the role of the own corporeality in the framework of the Kantian moral theory. The main conclusions of our analysis are the following: 1. the dynamic sublime and the morality are clearly differentiated spheres in Kant's thought; 2. the dynamic sublime supposes the morality. (shrink)

In the modern debate in metaethics and moral psychology, moral rationalism is often presented as a view that cannot account for the intimate relation between moral behaviour on one hand and feelings, emotions, or desires on the other. Although there is no lack of references to the classic rationalists of the 18th century in the relevant discussions, the works of these writers are rarely ever examined detail. Yet, as the debate in Kant scholarship between “intellectualists” and “affectivists” impressively shows, a (...) more thorough analysis of what the classic rationalists actually have to say about moral motivation is suited to cast serious doubts on the idea that moral rationalism must crucially neglect the affective–conative side of human psychology. The aim of this paper is to analyse the conceptions of moral motivation that were embraced by Kant's rationalist predecessors—Clarke, Wolff, Burnet, Balguy, and Price—which have not attracted a similar amount of attention by specialists so far. The claim I will defend is that none of those early rationalists actually embraces the motivational thesis that is often taken to be characteristic of moral rationalism, a thesis I shall refer to as strong rationalism about (moral) motivation. (shrink)

Kants Position zur moralischen Selbsterkenntnis liegt zwischen den beiden Polen des Cartesianismus und des Behaviorismus. Hinsichtlich des Wissens um die eigenen Maximeninhalte vertritt Kant die cartesische Direktheitsthese und m.E. auch die Unfehlbarkeitsthese. Die beiden anderen Aspekte der moralischen Selbsterkenntnis – das Wissen um die Pflichtgemäßheit der Maximen und das Wissen um die Handlungsmotive – sind Kant zufolge allerdings weder infallibel, noch unbezweifelbar, noch direkt. Und obgleich Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der eigenen Handlungsmotive in Zweifel gezogen werden und sich als falsch erweisen können, (...) sind sie dennoch verläßlicher als Überzeugungen hinsichtlich der Handlungsmotive anderer. (shrink)

I argue for a new reading of Kant's claim that respect is the moral incentive; this reading accommodates the central insights of the affectivist and intellectualist readings of respect, while avoiding shortcomings of each. I show that within Kant's ethical system, the feeling of respect should be understood as paradigmatic of a kind of pleasure, pleasure in the moral. The motivational power of respect arises from its nature as pleasurable feeling, but the feeling does not directly motivate individual dutiful actions. (...) Rather, the feeling is motivational in the sense that, after an agent has acted in a morally good way, the pleasure that results from that action contributes to the cultivation of virtue in the agent and, consequently, morally good actions in the future. Understanding the feeling of respect to be moral pleasure not only gives us insight into how finite rational beings develop virtue, but also a new way of understanding respect as an incentive. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve , Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires. The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast (...) between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from NeoPlatonic and Christian conceptions of divine motivation to Scotus, Kant, Marx, Arendt, and Levinas. Rich with historical detail, this book includes an extended examination of Platonic and Aristotelian eudaimonist theories of human motivation. Drawing on contemporary critiques of egoism, Davenport argues that happiness is primarily a byproduct of activities and pursuits aimed at other agent-transcending goods for their own sake. In particular, the motives involved in virtue and in its practice as understood by Alasdair MacIntyre are projective rather than eudaimonist. This theory is supported by analyses of radical evil, accounts of intrinsic motivation in existential psychology, and contemporary theories of identity-forming commitment in analytic moral psychology. Following Viktor Frankl, Joseph Raz, and others, Davenport argues that Harry Frankfurt's conception of caring requires objective values worth caring about, which serve as rational grounds for projecting new final ends. The argument concludes with a taxonomy of values or goods, devotion to which can make life meaningful for us. (shrink)