Immanuel Kant hat wie kein anderer Denker die Philosophie der Neuzeit geprägt. Aufgrund seiner überragenden Bedeutung liegen inzwischen mehrere Bände zu seinen Schriften in der Reihe "Klassiker Auslegen" vor. Kant ist im wahrsten Sinne ein universeller Denker, der sein Interesse auf nahezu alle Bereiche des menschlichen Lebens richtet. Nach ihm lässt sich dieses Interesse in drei Fragen bündeln: Was kann ich wissen? Wie soll ich handeln? Und: Was darf ich hoffen? Der Antwort auf die dritte Frage geht Kant in seiner (...) Schrift Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793) nach. Hier, in seiner Religionsphilosophie, setzt er, gemäß der Grundüberzeugung der Aufklärung, seine Moralphilosophie fort. Gott ist für Kant nicht mehr wie etwa in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, auch noch bei Descartes ein Gegenstand des Wissens, sondern des Hoffens: Der moralisch handelnde Mensch hofft auf eine sinnvolle Ordnung des Weltganzen, auf einen Gott, dessen Existenz zusammen mit der Unsterblichkeit der Seele die notwendige Voraussetzung für das letzte Ziel des praktischen Handelns, für das höchste Gut, ist. Diese originelle Verbindung von zunächst als gegensätzlich Erscheinendem, von einer Moral der Autonomie mit dem Glauben an einen übernatürlichen Gott, bildet jedoch nicht das einzige Thema der Schrift. In ihr entwickelt Kant darüber hinaus eine differenzierte Theorie des moralisch Bösen und erörtert das Verhältnis zwischen einem bloßen Kirchenglauben (die "sichtbare Kirche") und dem moralischen Religionsglauben (die "unsichtbare Kirche"). Dieser thematisch reichhaltige Text wird im von Otfried Höffe herausgegebenen Band in Form eines kooperativen Kommentars von international renommierten Autoren interpretiert und somit aktuell erschlossen. Alle Beiträge wurden für die 2. Auflage anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants überarbeitet und auf den neuesten Forschungsstand gebracht. Mit Beiträgen von Jochen Bojanowski, Johannes Brachtendorf, Andrew Chignell, Katrin Flickschuh, Maximilian Forschner, Otfried Höffe, Christoph Horn, Eberhard Jüngel, Douglas McGaughey, Reza Mosayebi, Burkhard Nonnenmacher, Friedo Ricken, Allen Wood. (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)

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period, namely, the teleological argument, deserves renewed attention. This paper reconstructs it and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or descriptive, (...) beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument in order to be complete. (shrink)

Those of us who enjoy certain products of the global industrial economy but also believe it is wrong to consume them are often so demoralized by the apparent inefficacy of our individual, private choices that we are unable to resist. Although he was a deontologist, Kant was clearly aware of this ‘consequent-dependent’ side of our moral psychology. One version of his ‘moral proof’ is designed to respond to the threat of such demoralization in pursuit of the Highest Good. That version (...) of the argument says that the capacity that faith and trust in God has to sustain our moral resolve licenses that faith and trust, from a practical point of view. My goal here is to argue that Kant’s proof has a contemporary, secular analogue in modern industrial contexts where the apparent “inefficacy” of an individual consumer’s choices in the face of massive insensitive supply-chains is a threat to her moral resolve. I conclude by suggesting that the Kantian approach may license us in adopting (as an item of defeasible moral faith) an evidential decision-theoretic principle regarding what it is to ‘make a difference.’ This in turn licenses trust -- if not in God then in other right-minded people. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to focus not on the problems that I believe may threaten Kant’s account of the highest good, but instead on those that I believe threaten the majority of the interpretive reconstructions attempted by commentators and thus prevent the emergence of a consensus in the near future. My goal is to set forth exactly four problems to which I believe any successful interpretation or reconstruction of Kant’s account of the highest good will have to provide substantive (...) solutions and, in doing so, either break new theoretical ground or at least provide a more comprehensive methodology for sorting through the texts. (shrink)

Development economists have suggested that the hopes of the poor are a relevant factor in overcoming poverty. I argue that Kant’s approach to hope provides an important complement to the economists’ perspective. A Kantian account of hope emphasizes the need for the rationality of hope and thereby guards against problematic aspects of the economists’ discourse on hope. Section 1 introduces recent work on hope in development economics. Section 2 clarifies Kant’s question “What may I hope?” and presents the outlines of (...) his answer. Crucially, hope is rational if it is rational to trust in the structures of reality on which the realization of one’s hope depends. Section 3 argues that central tenets of Kant’s account of what makes hope rational can be applied to the context of poverty. It becomes apparent that the poor often have good reason to be hopeless since they may not trust fundamental structures that are necessary for realizing their hope. Thus, the insight that the poor need more hope must go hand in hand with a commitment to establishing trustworthy political structures, such that their hope can be rational. Section 4 highlights the relevance of the secular highest good for a better understanding of the justification and scope of our duties to the poor in a Kantian framework. (shrink)

The attention economy — the market where consumers’ attention is exchanged for goods and services — poses a variety of threats to individuals’ autonomy, which, at minimum, involves the ability to set and pursue ends for oneself. It has been argued that the threat wireless mobile devices pose to autonomy gives rise to a duty to oneself to be a digital minimalist, one whose interactions with digital technologies are intentional such that they do not conflict with their ends. In this (...) paper, we argue that there is a corresponding duty to others to be an attention ecologist, one who promotes digital minimalism in others. Although the moral reasons for being an attention ecologist are similar to those that motivate the duty to oneself, the arguments diverge in important ways. We explore the application of this duty in various domains where we have special obligations to promote autonomy in virtue of the different roles we play in the lives of others, such as parents and teachers. We also discuss the consequences of our arguments for employers, software developers, and policy makers. (shrink)

The ‘black box’ in Stoic axiology refers to the mysterious connection between the input of Stoic deliberation (reasons generated by the value of indifferents) and the output (appropriate actions). In this paper, I peer into the black box by drawing an analogy between Stoic and Kantian axiology. The value and disvalue of indifferents is intrinsic, but conditional. An extrinsic condition on the value of a token indifferent is that one's selection of that indifferent is sanctioned by context-relative ethical principles. The (...) value of an indifferent that does not meet this condition is normatively silenced, such that it fails to constitute a reason for action. (shrink)

In the dissertation, I consider the permissibility of a familiar set of responses to wrongdoing in our interpersonal relationships—those responses that constitute the imposition of some cost upon the wrongdoer. Some of these responses are, I argue, properly considered punishing, and some of these instances of punishing are in turn permissible. Punishment as I understand it is a broad phenomenon, common in and to all human relationships, and not exclusively or even primarily the domain of the state. Personal interactions expressive (...) of wrong-reactive attitudes like disappointment, anger, and guilt will sometimes constitute punishment so understood. I consider childhood punishment, self-punishment, and punishment between friends, concluding that punishment in the context of our personal relationships may sometimes be appropriate where undertaken not for the sake of deterrence nor of retributive justice, but for the sake of the aims constitutive of the relationship in which it occurs. (shrink)

Kant holds that the applicability of the moral ‘ought’ depends on a kind of agent-causal freedom that is incompatible with the deterministic structure of phenomenal nature. I argue that Kant understands this determinism to threaten not just morality but the very possibility of our status as rational beings. Rational beings exemplify “cognitive control” in all of their actions, including not just rational willing and the formation of doxastic attitudes, but also more basic cognitive acts such as judging, conceptualizing, and synthesizing.

This article aims to highlight the extent to which Kant’s account of belief draws on the views of his contemporaries. Situating the non-evidentialist features of Crusius’s account of belief within his broader account, I argue that they include antecedents to both Kant’s distinction between pragmatic and moral belief and his conception of a postulate of pure practical reason. While moving us closer to Kant’s arguments for the first postulate, however, both Crusius’s and Meier’s arguments for the immortality of the soul (...) fail to anticipate the most important aspect of their Kantian counterparts. Developing the non-evidentialist features of Basedow’s account of belief, I distinguish it from its Pascalian and Jamesian relatives and argue that it is the clearest antecedent to Kant’s arguments for the first and second postulates. Finally, I consider the development of Kant’s account of belief after the first Critique in light of the foregoing, and discuss the broader implications of my analysis. (shrink)

This paper offers fictionalism as a new approach to the problem of reasonable disagreement discussed in social epistemology. The conciliationist approach to reasonable disagreement is defined, and three problems with it are posed: that it is destructive of inquiry, self-defeating, and unacceptably revisionary. Hans Vaihinger’s account of fictions is explained, and it is shown that if the intellectual commitments that are the subject of reasonable disagreements are treated as fictions rather than as beliefs, the three noted problems are avoided. Whereas (...) beliefs have a “rivalrous” relation to the source of their justification (evidence), fictions have a non-rivalrous relation to the source of their justification (expediency), meaning that disagreement over which fictions to employ is not problematic in the way that disagreement over what to believe is. Some objections to the fictionalist approach to reasonable disagreement are answered. (shrink)

This article provides a critical assessment of Habermas’s recent work on religion and its role in the public sphere by comparing it to Kant’s phi-losophy of religion on the one hand and that of Kierkegaard on the other. It is argued that although Habermas is in many ways a Kantian, he diverges from Kant when it comes to religion, by taking a position which comes closer to the Kierkegaardian view that religiousness belongs to private faith rather than philosophy. This has (...) implications not just for the conception of religion but also for the very roles of communication, validity, rationality, and philosophy. (shrink)

I have two main goals in this paper. The first is to argue for the thesis that Kant gave up on his highest good argument for the existence of God around 1800. The second is to revive a dialogue about this thesis that died out in the 1960s. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I reconstruct Kant’s highest good argument. In the second, I turn to the post-1800 convolutes of Kant’s Opus postumum to discuss his repeated (...) claim that there is only one way to argue for the existence of God, a way which resembles the highest good argument only in taking the moral law as its starting point. In the third, I explain why I do not find the counterarguments to my thesis introduced in the 1960s persuasive. (shrink)

This Guide is designed to restore the theological background that informs Kant’s treatment of grace in Religion to its rightful place. This background is essential not only to understand the nature of Kant’s overall project in this book, namely, to determine the “association” or “union” between Christianity (as a historical faith) and rational religion, but also to dispel the impression of “internal contradictions” and conundrums” that contemporary interpreters associate with Kant’s treatment of grace and moral regeneration. That impression, we argue, (...) is the result of entrenched interpretative habits that can be traced back to Karl Barth’s reading of the text. Once we realize that such a reading rests on a mistake, much of the anxiety and confusion that plague current discussions on these issues can be put to rest. (shrink)

This paper gives an account of Kant’s concept of self-contentment (Selbstzufriedenheit), i.e. the satisfaction involved in the performance of moral action. This concept is vulnerable to an important objection: if moral action is satisfying, it might only ever be performed for the sake of this satisfaction. I explain Kant’s response to this objection and argue that it is superior to Francis Hutcheson’s response to a similar objection. I conclude by showing that two other notions of moral satisfaction in Kant’s moral (...) philosophy, namely ‘sweet merit’ and the highest good, also avoid the objection. (shrink)

Forgiveness is clearly an important aspect of our moral lives, yet surprisingly Kant, one of the most important authors in the history of Western ethics, seems to have very little to say about it. Some authors explain this omission by noting that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought: forgiveness seems to have an ineluctably ‘elective’ aspect which makes it to a certain extent arbitrary; thus it stands in tension with Kant’s claim that agents are autonomous beings, capable of determining (...) their own moral status through rational reflection and choice. Other authors recognise that forgiveness plays a role in Kant’s philosophy but fail to appreciate the nature of this duty and misrepresent the Kantian argument in support of it. This paper argues that there is space in Kant’s philosophy for a genuine theory of forgiveness and hopes to lay the grounds for a correct interpretation of this theory. I argue that from a Kantian perspective, forgiveness is not ‘elective’ but, at least in some cases, morally required. I claim that, for Kant, we have an imperfect duty of virtue to forgive repentant wrongdoers that have embarked on a project of self-reflection and self-reform. I develop a novel argument in support of this duty by drawing on Kant’s theory of rational agency, the thesis of radical evil, Kant’s theory of moral development, and the formula of humanity. However, it must be noted that this is a conditional duty and Kant’s position also entails that absence of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer should be taken as evidence of a lack of commitment to a project of self-reflection and self-reform. In such cases, Kant claims, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. I argue that this duty should be understood as one of the duties of self-esteem, which involves the duty to respect and recognise our own dignity as rational beings. (shrink)

This paper explains a way of understanding Kant's proof of God's existence in the Critique of Practical Reason that has hitherto gone unnoticed and argues that this interpretation possesses several advantages over its rivals. By first looking at examples where Kant indicates the role that faith plays in moral life and then reconstructing the proof of the second Critique with this in view, I argue that, for Kant, we must adopt a certain conception of the highest good, and so also (...) must choose to believe in the kind of God that can make it possible, because this is essentially a way of actively striving for virtue. One advantage of this interpretation, I argue, is that it is able to make sense of the strong link Kant draws between morality and religion. (shrink)

Although Kant is often considered the founding father of the controversial principle ‘Ought Implies Can’ (OIC), it is not at all clear how Kant himself understands and defends this principle. This essay provides a substained interpretation of Kant's views on OIC. I argue that Kant endorses two versions of OIC: a version that is concerned with our physical capacities, and a version that posits a link between moral obligation and a volitional power of choice. I show that although there are (...) important senses in which Kant's conception of OIC differs from the way in which OIC is discussed in recent philosophy, his account raises important issues for contemporary theory: for instance, it highlights the extent to which acceptance or rejection of OIC reflects convictions about the sources of normativity. (shrink)

The volume Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania is the first contribution that aims at showing to the Japanese reader a sample of contemporary philosophy in Romania. At the same time a volume of contemporary Japanese philosophy is translated into Romanian and will be published by the University of Bucharest Press. -/- Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania includes several original articles in applied ethics and theoretical moral philosophy. It is representative of the variety of research and the growing interest in applied (...) ethics in the last few years in Romania. The philosophy practised here is at the same time an international activity, but also a kind of research deeply involved in Romanian realities. The contributors to the volume are Romanian philosophers from the most important Universities in the country, including members of the Romanian Academy, but also junior researchers. -/- This volume was made possible thanks to the relationship established between the Applied Ethics Centres of the University of Bucharest, Romania, and Hokkaido University, Japan. (shrink)

Kant’s teleology as presented in the Critique of Judgment is commonly interpreted in relation to the late eighteenth-century biological research of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. In the present paper, I show that this interpretative perspective is incomplete. Understanding Kant’s views on teleology and biology requires a consideration of the teleological and biological views of Christian Wolff and his rationalist successors. By reconstructing the Wolffian roots of Kant’s teleology, I identify several little known sources of Kant’s views on biology. I argue that (...) one of Kant’s main contributions to eighteenth-century debates on biology consisted in demarcating biology from metaphysics. Kant rejected Wolffian views on the hierarchy of sciences, according to which propositions specifying the functions of organisms are derived from theological truths. In addition, Kant argued that organic self-organization necessitates a teleological description in order to show that self-organization does not support materialism. By demarcating biology and metaphysics, Kant made a small yet important contribution to establishing biology as a science. (shrink)

Referring to the difference between Stakeholder Theory and Shareholder Theory, the ethical direction for companies to take is deeply discussed.

In this paper I do three things. Firstly, I defend the view that in his most familiar arguments about morality and the theological postulates, the arguments which appeal to the epistemological doctrines of the first Critique, Kant is as much of a fictionalist as anybody not working explicitly with that conceptual apparatus could be: his notion of faith as subjectively and not objectively grounded is precisely what fictionalists are concerned with in their talk of nondoxastic attitudes. Secondly, I reconstruct a (...) logically distinct argument to a fictionalist conclusion which I argue Kant also gives us, this time an argument to the conclusion that it is a good thing if our commitment to the existence of God is nondoxastic. And finally, I argue that this argument is of continuing interest, to Kantians and non-Kantians alike, not only because it raises interesting questions about the relation of morality to belief in God (which go in the opposite direction to most discussions, which focus on whether and to what extent belief in God can be an aid to morality), but also because this ‘Moral Hazard Argument’ seems to be available to religious realists and non-realists alike, thus suggesting that religious fictionalism is not by any means just an interesting version of religious non-realism. (shrink)

The present article deals with religious faith by comparing the so-called double movement of faith in Kierkegaard to Kant's moral faith. Kierkegaard's double movement of faith and Kant's moral faith can be seen as providing different accounts of religious faith, as well as involving different solutions to the problem of realizing the highest good. The double movement of faith in Fear and Trembling provides an account of the structure of faith that helps us make sense of what Kierkegaard means by (...) religious faith in general, as well as to understand better the relation between philosophy and Christian thinking in Kierkegaard. It is argued that previous scholarship has described the relation between Kierkegaard and Kant in a misleading manner by interpreting Kant as an ethicist and overlooking the role of grace in Kant. (shrink)

This essay tries to show that there exist several passages where Kierkegaard (and his pseudonyms) sketches an argument for the existence of God and immortality that is remarkably similar to Kant's so-called moral argument for the existence of God and immortality. In particular, Kierkegaard appears to follow Kant's moral argument both when it comes to the form and content of the argument as well as some of its terminology. The essay concludes that several passages in Kierkegaard overlap significantly with Kant's (...) moral argument, although Kierkegaard ultimately favors revealed faith over natural theology in general and Kant's moral faith in particular. Whereas Kant uses the moral argument to postulate the existence of God and immortality, Kierkegaard mainly uses it as a reductio ad absurdum of non-religious thinking. (shrink)

Defenders of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology (or what I call practicalism) need to address two main problems. First, the view seems to imply, absurdly, that knowledge can come and go quite easily—in particular, that it might come and go along with our variable practical interests. We can call this the stability problem. Second, there seems to be no fully satisfying way of explaining whose practical interests matter. We can call this the “whose stakes?” problem. I argue that both problems can (...) be addressed in roughly the same terms. More exactly, I argue that by first clarifying the whose stakes? problem an answer to the stability problem naturally falls out. (shrink)

What I call the dynamics of reason is a post-Kuhnian approach to the history and philosophy of science articulating a relativized and historicized version of the Kantian conception of the rationality and objectivity of the modern physical sciences. I here discuss two extensions of this approach. I argue that, although the relativized standards of rationality in question change over time, the particular way in which they do this still preserves the trans-historical rationality of the entire process. I also make a (...) beginning in extending my historical narrative from purely intellectual history (both philosophical and scientific) to the wider cultural context. (shrink)

In this article, I look at recent developments in the field of the Philosophy of the relationship between morality, understood in a realist manner, and the primary object of religious belief in the monotheistic religions, God. Some contemporary solutions to the Euthyphro dilemma and versions of moral arguments for the existence of God are discussed.

In Part One of Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Kant repeatedly refers to a “proof” that human nature has a necessary and universal “evil propensity,” but he provides only obscure hints at its location. Interpreters have failed to identify such an argument in Part One. After examining relevant passages, summarizing recent attempts to reconstruct the argument, and explaining why these do not meet Kant's stated needs, I argue that the elusive proof must have a transcendental form (called quasi‐transcendental (...) because Kant never uses “transcendental” in Religion). With deceptive simplicity, the section titles of Part One, viewed as components in an architechtonic system of religion, constitute steps in just such a proof. (shrink)

Kant famously said he 'had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith ’ . But what exactly was his conception of Glaube, and how does it fit into his epistemology? In the first Critique it is not until the concluding Method section that he explicitly addresses these issues. In the Canon of Pure Reason he lists three questions that sum up ‘all interest of my reason’: What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? (...) . Kant here put hope on the agenda of philosophy. In his essays on history he argued that we can hope for secular progress in the development of human culture; but in his moral and religious philosophy he was also concerned with eschatological hopes that we can perfect our characters in a life after death, and that the moral governor of the universe will ensure that happiness is eventually proportionate to virtue. About immortality and the existence of God, his constant refrain is that we can have only a practical kind of faith. (shrink)

This critical survey of recent work on Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason and his doctrine of the practical postulates (of freedom, God, and immortality) assesses the implications of these doctrines for the debate about realism and antirealism in Kant's moral philosophy. Section 1 briefly surveys some salient considerations from the first Critique and Groundwork. In section 2, I argue that recent work on the role, content, "factual" nature, and epistemic status of the fact of reason does not support (...) an anti-realist interpretation of Kant's ethics. In section 3, I argue that recent work on the derivation and epistemic and ontological status of the practical postulates does not support an anti-realist interpretation of Kant's ethics. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to analyse the influence of Johann Bernhard Basedow and Rousseau on Kant’s cosmopolitanism and concept of cosmopolitan education. It argues that both Basedow and Kant defined cosmopolitan education as non-denominational moral formation or Bildung, encompassing—in different forms—a thin version of moral religion following the core tenets of Christianity. Kant’s encounter with Basedow and the Philanthropinum in Dessau helps to understand the development of Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism and educational theory ‘in weltbürgerlicher Absicht’. Rousseau’s role (...) is more complex: he clearly influenced Kant; he is usually considered a precursor of modern nationalism and national education; and recent studies have stressed the cosmopolitan dimension of his educational programme. I claim that the dilemma of education according to Rousseau is that one has to choose between education of homme or education of citoyen, and that there is no way to avoid or go beyond this stark alternative. Kant’s reinterpretation of Rousseau is favourable and creative and has found many followers up to the present, but is misleading, as he ignores the dilemma and imposes his own conception of cosmopolitanism, of cosmopolitan education and of (possible) progress in history on Rousseau while claiming that this was actually Rousseau’s message. (shrink)

In this paper I propose an interpretation of Kant’s notion of the highest good which bears political, ethical, and religious layers simultaneously. I argue that a proper analysis of what Kant allows us to hope for necessarily involves what we should hope for as moral agents. I argue that Kant’s conception of the highest good plays a crucial role in his moral theory as it designates the ideal “context” of moral experience which can be described as “a moral world”. Each (...) of these three layers or aspects of the moral world (i.e., political, ethical, and religious) as the interrelated contexts in and through which we realize our moral agency is inextricably linked with the highest good. Without any dichotomy between secular or religious conceptualization of the highest good, in the political and in certain aspects of the ethical contexts we should adopt certain hopes as an implicit aspect of being virtuous, whereas from a religious perspective we are able to, and we may legitimately adopt hope and faith about the cosmic/ teleological context of our moral experience. (shrink)

In the 1960s Lewis White Beck criticized Kant’s highest good as a moral concept. In 1963 John Silber responded. Thus, the “Beck-Silber controversy.” This paper explores such controversy in the Spanish literature. It begins identifying four criticisms: the problems of heteronomy, derivation, impossibility, and irrelevance. It then identifies a new problem rescued from the Spanish literature: dualism. After categorizing, following Matthew Caswell, the Spanish defenses into revisionists, secularizers, and maximalists, this paper assesses these defenses. The paper also translates sections of (...) such literature into English and leaves us closer to a complete defense of the highest good by salvaging what it can of the Spanish literature’s unique points. (shrink)

Kant's sustained reflections on God have received considerable scholarly attention over the years and rightly so. His provocative criticisms of the three traditional theoretical proofs of the existence of God, and his own positive proof for belief in God's existence on moral grounds, have fully deserved the clarification and analysis that has occurred in these discussions. What I want to focus on, however, is the extent to which Kant's position contains resources sufficient to answer a line of questioning about the (...) existence of God that has recently been called the problem of the ‘hiddenness of God’ in contemporary discussions in philosophy of religion. If God exists roughly as the Judeo-Christian philosophical tradition conceives of him, it is puzzling, at least prima facie, why he does not make his existence overwhelmingly obvious to one and all, but rather is hidden from us. For if God is omnipotent, as the tradition maintains, it seems that he would have the power to reveal himself to us and, for that matter, with sufficient clarity that we would be left with no doubt about the matter. And if, as the tradition maintains further, it is important to God that we accept his existence and reject false idols who would pretend to divine status, it would seem that he has a significant reason to reveal himself to us. In short, given that God can make his existence obvious to all, and that doing so would fulfil an important purpose, why does he remain hidden from us? (shrink)

Este artículo intenta desarrollar una deducción del concepto de sumo bien kantiano: esto es, intenta demostrar, de acuerdo con la interpretación de Dieter Henrich acerca de la deducción, que el sumo bien es un fin a la vez que un deber. Apelo a los rasgos de la razón práctica que constituyen la legitimidad de los hechos, la premisa que cualquier deducción debe tener. De acuerdo con Kant, el sumo bien consiste en la felicidad, la virtud y sus relaciones de proporcionalidad (...) y causalidad, tal que la felicidad es proporcional a, y causada por, la virtud. Sostengo, utilizando las nociones kantianas aceptadas, que Kant tiene razones convincentes para concluir que el sumo bien es, de hecho, un fin a la vez que un deber. Si esto es correcto, entonces este argumento ofrece la deducción prometida en mi título. This paper attempts a deduction of Kant's concept of the highest good: that is, it attempts to prove, in accordance with Dieter Henrich's interpretation of the notion of deduction, that the highest good is an end that is also a duty. It does this by appealing to features of practical reason that make up the legitimating facts that serve as the premises that any deduction must possess. According to Kant, the highest good consists of happiness, virtue, and relations of proportionality and causationbetween happiness and virtue, such that happiness is proportional to and caused by virtue. I argue, by drawing on accepted Kantian notions, that Kant had compelling reasons for concluding that the highest good is in fact an end that is also a duty. If correct, then this argument provides the deduction promised in my title. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Kant's Statement of the Principle of the Primacy of Practical Reason, and its Role in Kant's Moral Theology The Primacy of Practical Reason in the Broader Sense The Primacy of Practical Reason and the Assumption of Freedom: Their Relation The Primacy of Practical Reason in Relation to the Theological Postulates Kant's Argument in “On the Primacy” Other Texts Kant's Copernicanism and the Concept of Practical Cognition in the Context of the Postulates Influence.

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to elucidate Schopenhauer’s moral philosophy in terms of an ethics of virtue. This paper consists of four sections. In the first section I outline three major objections Schopenhauer raises for Kant’s moral philosophy. In section two I extract from these criticisms a framework for Schopenhauer’s own position, identifying how his moral psychology underpins a unified and hierarchical conception of virtue and vice. I then ascertain some strengths of this view. In section three I (...) focus in upon the issue of fixed character and moral education as at least one major point of divergence between Schopenhauer’s virtue ethics and typical trends within the tradition. In the fourth and final section, I consider and respond to this ethical framework’s possible susceptibility to the charge of egoism, and adjudicate among competing solutions in the secondary literature. I conclude that refined forms of Schopenhauer’s ethical views offer rich and plausible insights into both virtue and vice which have received less attention than they deserve. Hence, Schopenhauer warrants more serious concern in contemporary discussions of virtue ethics alongside the likes of Aristotle, Hume and Nietzsche. (shrink)

Schelling’s views of evil in Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom is usually thought of as a radicalization of Kant’s argument for the propensity to evil in human nature in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. In this paper, I argue that Kant does not provide a full transcendental deduction for the ground of evil in human nature because this would give a rational reason for there to be evil, Schelling provides a theological–metaphysical reconstruction of Kant’s argument (...) by providing a non-rational ground for evil and the difference between Kant and Schelling lies in how they conceive of the actualization of the ground of evil—through intelligible deed or protohistorical choice—which has repercussions for how they think of conversion. (shrink)

The present paper suggests to consider Kierkegaard’s use of Abraham’s story in Fear and Trembling in regulative terms, that is, to consider it as a model – not for our moral behaviour but rather for our religious behaviour. To do so, I first rely on recent literature to argue that Kierkegaard should be regarded as a distinctively post-Kantian philosopher: namely, a philosopher who goes beyond Kant in a way that is nevertheless true to the spirit of Kant’s original critical philosophy. (...) Then, I present a post-Kantian reading of Fear and Trembling, focusing on the problematic implications that result from comparing this text with Hegel’s theory of recognition. Finally, I submit that sacrifice in Fear and Trembling is a regulative notion in a Kantian sense. This interpretation addresses some of the most problematic aspects of the text. I conclude that the regulativity of sacrifice may be regarded as an important and perhaps an essential component of Kierkegaard’s overall philosophical strategy. (shrink)

Kant’s concept of grace in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason is a difficult topic, exegetically speaking. Obviously enough, Kant subscribes positively to a notion of divine assistance. This appears awkward given his rationalist ethics rooted in personal autonomy. This has given cause to interpreters of Kant’s philosophy of religion – both early commentators and today – to read Kant’s account of grace is uniquely rationalist. This would make grace a rational expectation given personal commitment to good works. The (...) argument of this paper is that grace is a hyperrationalist element in Kant’s practical philosophy because of the potentially problematic consequences of Kant’s views of human nature. Human nature is namely not particularly prone to be responsive to the rational moral law and therefore requires a number of pedagogical tools that facilitate moral agency. (shrink)

Cooperation threatens to become rationally problematic insofar as the following conditions hold: reliance has a worst outcome—we rely and the other proves unreliable; the interaction is one-off; and we are ignorant of the other’s particular motivations but recognize a general motivation to be unreliable. The problem is that the satisfaction of these conditions is commonplace. Thus cooperation should be much less common than it in fact is. So what explains it? This chapter considers and rejects various game-theoretical solutions before canvassing (...) a ‘trust-based’ solution. According to this solution the problem is dissolved once one recognizes how trust itself can give reasons for cooperating. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two rationalist readings of Either/Or: the Rational Argument Interpretation, according to which the aim of the book is ultimately to offer a rational argument in favor of living ethically, and the Rational Presupposition Interpretation, according to which the pseudonymous authors presuppose that it is rational to live ethically. The paper argues in favor of . In particular, it argues that the fundamental presuppositions of Either/Or are those of Kant’s moral philosophy and rational religion. At the heart (...) of Kant’s arguments for the practical postulates lies an “existential moment”: Kant’s practical arguments are subjectively valid in virtue of the personal decision of the individual to do his duty. According to the Rational Presupposition Interpretation advanced here, Either/Or is best understood as an attempt to communicate indirectly and to confront the reader with the significance of personal choice for inhabiting a hopeful moral life-view. (shrink)

Kant entwickelt in der Kritik der Urteilskraft eine philosophische Ästhetik, eine Theorie der organischen Natur. Die beiden scheinbar heterogenen Gegenstandsbereiche sind durch das Prinzip der reflektierenden Urteilskraft, die Idee der Zweckmäßigkeit, verbunden, die der Mensch sowohl bei der Reflexion über die schönen Gegenstände der Natur und der Kunst als auch bei seiner Erforschung der organischen Natur zugrunde legt. Da sich alle Zwecke zuletzt auf den Endzweck des Menschen als moralisches Wesen beziehen, übersteigt die dritte „Kritik" schließlich die Bereiche von Kunst (...) und Natur und berührt Fragen der Moralphilosophie und der Moraltheologie. Zusätzlich entdeckt Kant im subjektiven Vermögen der Urteilskraft jenes Bindeglied unter den menschlichen Gemütskräften, das einen architektonischen Übergang zwischen den Naturbegriffen des Verstandes in der ersten und dem Freiheitsbegriff der Vernunft in der zweiten „Kritik" ermöglicht und die theoretische und die praktische Philosophie in einem einzigen philosophischen System vereinigt. Der vorliegende kooperative Kommentar bietet eine textnahe, fortlaufende Interpretation der „Kritik der Urteilskraft". Für die 3. Auflage anlässlich des 300. Jubiläums Immanuel Kants wurden alle Beiträge überarbeitet und auf den neuesten Forschungsstand gebracht. Mit Beiträgen von: K. Ameriks, J. Bojanowski, R. Brandt, G. Cunico, M. Foessel, E. Förster, C. Fricke, H. Ginsborg, P. Giordanetti, I. Goy, O. Höffe, A. Kablitz, G. Kohler, S. Mathisen, B. Recki, J. Rivera de Rosales, S. Roth und E. Watkins. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793) is a formidably difficult book, which since its very inception was ripe for controversy. Part of the difficulty in understanding Kant’s text is thematic: in the idea of God and the questions surrounding faith in God’s existence, all interests of reason seem to converge –metaphysics, epistemology, morality, politics, the purposiveness of nature, and the destiny of the human species all unite in Kant’s view of religion and give it a distinctive (...) polyphonic tone. Part of the difficulty is ideological: Kant’s treatment of religious matters—relying on the assumption that a rational a priori core (identical to the principles of his morality) underlies and shapes all historical revelations—distances itself from both dogmatism and atheism. Those who accept religious orthodoxy, no less than those who are committed to a purely secular view of human affairs, are doomed to be displeased with the ambiguities of Kant’s approach, which preserves religion but subverts the meaning of this term so drastically as to make it unrecognizable in its traditional understanding. James DiCenso’s Commentary, “the first complete English language commentary on the work” (according to the dust-jacket), is thus a daring philosophical undertaking: it required not only comprehensive knowledge of Kant’s corpus but also the intellectual versatility to appreciate Kant’s innovative view. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende apresentar uma análise comparativa entre as obras de fundamentação da moralidade e o escrito sobre a religião no que tange à estrutura da ação por dever. Tal análise se justifica em vista de Kant, no escrito sobre a religião, apresentar a definição da ação por dever e da ação moralmente má nos termos de hierarquia e ordem moral dos móbiles, formulação que, aparentemente, não é apresentada no âmbito da fundamentação da moral. Dessa análise se sobressai, ainda, a (...) necessidade de, ao menos amplamente, fornecer dados quanto à função e o aparecimento da noção de ordem moral dos móbiles no interior do discurso moral kantiano. (shrink)