Kant’s theory of religion has often been portrayed as leaving no room for grace. Even recent interpreters seeking to affirm Kantian religion find his appeal to grace unconvincing, because they assume the relevant section of Religion (Second Piece, Section One, Subsection C) is an attempt to construct a theology of divine assistance. Yet Kant’s goal in attempting to solve the three "difficulties" with belief in grace is to defend an ethics of grace – i.e., an account of how someone (...) can believe in grace without succumbing to the tendency to become morally lazy. After introducing the three difficulties and offering a perspectival interpretation of how Kant intends to solve each one, this paper interprets Kant’s phenomenon-noumenon distinction in a way that clarifies how his solutions to these difficulties all focus on the believer’s ethical state, not on transcendent theological constructions. (shrink)

I want to distinguish between maxims at three levels of abstraction. At the first level are what I shall call individual maxims, or i‐maxims: maxim tokens as adopted by particular rational beings. At the second level are abstract maxims, or a‐maxims: abstract principles distinct from any individual who adopts them. At the third level are maxim kinds, or k‐maxims: sets of various action‐guiding principles that are grouped on the basis of their content. In this paper, I argue for the thesis (...) that i‐maxims are the locus of assessment in Kant's ethics. (shrink)

Some contemporary intepreters of Kant maintain that on Kant's view fulfilling duties of virtue require doing so from the motive of duty. I argue that there are interpretive and doctinal reasons for rejecting this interpretation. However, I argue that for Kant motives can be deontically relevant; one's motives can affect the deontic status of actions.

Due to his theory of deontological ethic, Kant is regarded, in the history of philosophy, as one of the cornerstones of ethics, and it is said, as a rule, that he has an original theory of ethics in that he posited the idea of free and autonomous individual. However, when dug deeper into Kant‟s ethics, and also if it is ex-actly compared with theological ethic, it is clearly seen that all he has accomplished was to make a (...) copy of the theological ethic and to use such secular terms as reason, conscience, good will, moral law, categorical imperative, universalizability, summum bonum, ethico-civil state/universal religion of mere reason as a substitute for such key terms of religious ethics as God, prophet, for God‟s sake, the Golden Rule, Divine command, Heaven, Kingdom of God without modifying the wording, content and logic of theolog-ical ethics. So, the notion of a subject or reason which pretends to be God has no sign of originality. (shrink)

Kant repeatedly stresses that moral philosophy shall find completion in the shape of a system. The present chapter focuses on three main aspects that characterise his view of the need of a system of ethics, suggesting that Kant's view should be construed in contrast with the current assumptions on the role of a system in moral philosophy. First, I argue that, in Kant’s view, the system of ethics does not pursue the coherentist project of systematising moral beliefs. (...) Systematicity in ethics is, for him, about unfolding the obligations that are justified by the fundamental principle, according to a Pufendorfian paradigm widespread in the eighteenth century. Second, I show that, in contrast not only to current assumptions, but also to the Pufendorfian paradigm, Kant’s systematic treatment of ethics is neither a logically consistent arrangement of demands, nor a complete collection of ethical duties, but a system of ends that yields an open-ended system of duty types. Third, I suggest that in Kant’s view a systematic treatment of ethics is supposed to provide orientation to moral thinking through a broader perspective from which perplexing cases should be considered by emphasizing the holistic character of ethical demands and clarifying their connections. (shrink)

The chapter shows how Kant’s ethical thought as reflected in the lectures, responds to Baumgarten’s works on moral philosophy. I argue that Kant chose Baumgarten’s textbooks for his classes for genuinely philosophical reasons. The thorough discussion of Baumgarten’s views provided Kant with important clues for developing an original position, even if mostly in opposition to Baumgarten. I illustrate this complex role of Baumgarten with a few significant examples, that also highlight some original aspects of Baumgarten’s position in comparison to Wolff’s: (...) (1) Kant follows Baumgarten’s in focusing on obligation as the crucial issue in moral philosophy, but Kant regards Baumgarten’s account as not satisfying. (2) Baumgarten’s sharply theistic foundation of morality is rejected by Kant. (3) Kant rejects also several significant aspects of Baumgarten’s division of ethical duties, thereby revealing profound differences in their conceptions of morality. (shrink)

This paper provides analysis of Kant's Categorical Imperative and its relevance to religion. I discuss what the concept of a categorical imperative implies about self-transcendence, and what this understanding of self-transcendence indicates about the self's relation to God and others.

Kant’s arguments for the reality of human freedom and the normativity of the moral law continue to inspire work in contemporary moral philosophy. Many prominent ethicists invoke Kant, directly or indirectly, in their efforts to derive the authority of moral requirements from a more basic conception of action, agency, or rationality. But many commentators have detected a deep rift between the _Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals_ and the _Critique of Practical Reason_, leaving Kant’s project of justification exposed to conflicting (...) assessments and interpretations. In this major re-reading of Kant, Owen Ware defends the controversial view that Kant’s mature writings on ethics share a unified commitment to the moral law’s primacy. Using both close analysis and historical contextualization, Owen Ware overturns a paradigmatic way of reading Kant’s arguments for morality and freedom, situating them within Kant’s critical methodology at large. The result is a novel understanding of Kant that challenges much of what goes under the banner of Kantian arguments for moral normativity today. (shrink)

Kant lectured on moral philosophy fairly regularly over the course of his long, 40-year teaching career. Bearing a variety of different titles such as “Practical Philosophy”, “Ethics”, and “Universal Practical Philosophy and Ethics”, we have evidence that Kant offered a course on moral philosophy in at least 28 different semesters (of these we can prove that 19 actually took place, 9 others were advertised and there is good reason to think that they took place - see Arnoldt 1909). (...) This means that Kant offered a course on ethics in approximately one third of every semester he taught. The student notes from these lectures have proved invaluable resources for gaining insight into Kant’s intellectual development, his opinion on issues not covered extensively in the published works, and his character as a university instructor, among many others things. From his lectures on ethics, 23 distinct sets of notes are thought to have existed at any one point in time, but many of these have since been lost or destroyed (see Naragon 2006). Only 14 sets of notes still exist, either as an original, a copy, a published version of a subsequently lost manuscript, or just a collection of fragments (ibid.). But each of these are not unique, distinct sets of notes. For example: of the 23 sets of known notes, 13 of them belong to the same group in the sense that they are thought to all be copies of one original set. In the end, we possess only five distinct sets of notes from Kant’s lectures on ethics, stemming from various periods of his life: Herder (1760s), Kaehler/Collins (1770s), Powalski (1782/3), Mrongovius (1784/5), and Vigilantius (1790s). In what follows, each of these sets of notes will be given their own brief discussion. (shrink)

I argue that the Universal Law formulation of the Categorical Imperative is best interpreted as a test or decision procedure of moral rightness and not as a criterion intended to explain the deontic status of actions. Rather, the Humanity formulation is best interpreted as a moral criterion. I also argue that because the role of a moral criterion is to explain, and thus specify what makes an action right or wrong, Kant's Humanity formulation yields a theory of relevant descriptions.

Scholars have long debated the relationship between Kant’s doctrine of right and his doctrine of virtue (including his moral religion or ethico-theology), which are the two branches of his moral philosophy. This article will examine the intimate connection in his practical philosophy between perpetual peace and the highest good, between political and ethico-religious communities, and between the types of transparency peculiar to each. It will show how domestic and international right provides a framework for the development of ethical communities, including (...) a kingdom of ends and even the noumenal ethical community of an afterlife, and how the transparency and trust achieved in these communities is anticipated in rightful political society by publicity and the mutual confidence among citizens that it engenders. Finally, it will explore the implications of this synthesis of Kant’s political and religious philosophies for contemporary Kantian political theories, especially those of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. (shrink)

The 1929 confrontation between Heidegger and Cassirer in Davos (Switzerland) is pivotal for the history of the twentieth-century philosophy. The stake of that encounter was the appropriation of Kant’s legacy during the first half of the last century and the fate of Neo-Kantianism between the two World Wars. Since then, the “Davos disputation” has become controversial among researchers of the development of philosophical orientations in the twentieth century. Moreover, not only these researchers, but also the attendants of that dispute, express (...) opposite views on its outcome. Central at Davos was the issue of human finitude and transcendence within a Kantian framework. Although Kant addresses this issue most explicitly in his moral philosophy, the research of the Davos disputation tends to focus primarily on theoretical matters. The thesis revaluates Heidegger’s and Cassirer’s debate on human finitude and transcendence against the background of their written interpretations of Kant’s critical ethics. Heidegger’s reading of Kant’s conception of human finitude turns out to underestimate Kant’s views on the human potential for transcending, while Cassirer turns out to overestimate that potential by downplaying Kant’s arguments for ineluctable finitude. According to a moderate interpretative position, halfway between Heidegger’s and Cassirer’s, a finite being has, for Kant, a potential to transcend “within” – not “beyond” – finitude. (shrink)

Kant famously insists that free will is a condition of morality. The difficulty of providing a demonstration of freedom has left him vulnerable to devastating criticism: critics charge that Kant's post-Groundwork justification of morality amounts to a dogmatic assertion of morality's authority. My paper rebuts this objection, showing that Kant offers a cogent demonstration of freedom. My central claim is that the demonstration must be understood in practical rather than theoretical terms. A practical demonstration of x works by bringing (...) x into existence, and what the demonstration of freedom brings into existence is a moral will, a will regulated by the moral law and capable of acting in accordance with it. Since to act morally is to act freely, bringing a moral will into existence actualizes our capacity for freedom and demonstrates that we possess it. To confirm the viability of such a demonstration, Kant must establish that agents can regulate their wills by practical principles, and that practical judgments are efficacious of themselves (i.e., that non-Humean motivational internalism is true). Kant, I argue, is successful on both counts. (shrink)

By setting the focus on issues of dependence and embodiment, feminist work has and continues to radically improve our understanding of Kant’s practical philosophy as one that is not (as it typically has been taken to be) about disembodied abstract rational agents. This paper outlines this positive development in Kant scholarship in recent decades by taking us from Kant’s own comments on women through major developments in Kant scholarship with regard to the related feminist issues. The main aim is to (...) provide an overview of the philosophical resources already available in the literature as well as a sense of where main interpretive and philosophical challenges currently lie. More specifically, I start with a brief summary of the kinds of statements Kant makes about women that give rise to the many interpretive and philosophical puzzles facing anyone who reads his philosophy carefully. I then provide a brief historical overview of many of the pioneering women Kant scholars who made it possible for there to be so many excellent women scholars in the Kant community today and for firmly establishing the condition of woman as a point of inquiry on the philosophical map. The last section is organized in themes to give the reader a sense of the current, related discussions. I provide an overview of the more recent literature regarding Kant on women, embodiment (sexual objectification, sexual activity, sexual violence, abortion), care relations (marriage, dependents, servants), and systemic injustice (poverty, sex work, and oppression). As we will see, these many engagements with Kant’s philosophy not only help us to better understand our inherited women-undermining and problematic dependency-furthering institutions and practices, but also provide ample philosophical resources that can be utilized in our efforts to envision the project of reform such that we can achieve a better future for each and all. (shrink)

Drawing on an analysis of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties suggested by The Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) requires that maxims be universalizable in the sense that they can be regarded as universal laws consistent with the integrity and effective exercise of rational agency. This account, I claim, has a number of advantages over Korsgaard’s practical contradic-tion interpretation of the CI both in terms of the criteria of assessment that Korsgaard uses and in (...) those of broader textual considerations. (shrink)

Book Review of: Lara Denis and Oliver Sensen (Eds.). Kant’s Lectures on Ethics: A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

In this article, I explicate Kant’s position on the wide right to abortion. That is, I explore the extent to which, according to Kant’s practical philosophy, abortion is punishable, even if it involves an unjust infringement of the right to life. By focusing on the state’s right to punish, rather than the right to life or the onset of personhood, I use Kant to expose a novel range of issues and questions about the legal status of abortion (and criminal punishment (...) more generally). The article is divided into four sections. In the first, I lay the groundwork for Kant’s theory of rights and briefly canvass some of the literature on Kantian approaches to abortion. In the second, I look at Kant’s discussion of equivocal rights. In the third, I turn to Kant’s discussions of capital punishment and suicide. In the fourth, I examine Kant on honor killings, and I use his position on infanticide in order to extrapolate and explain his ideas about the right to punish in the context of abortion. (shrink)

This chapter situates Kant’s rejection of Stoic eudaimonism within his overarching anti-eudaimonist agenda. I begin by emphasizing the importance of the Stoic tradition for Kant’s critical reception of ancient ethical theory. I then reconstruct the central commitments of ancient Stoic eudaimonism and of Christian Garve’s quasi-Stoic eudaimonism. Turning to Kant’s anti-Stoic argument in the Dialectic of the Second Critique, I argue that the primary target of Kant’s error of subreption (vitium subreptionis) is the Stoic Seneca, specifically his account of joy (...) (gaudium) as an accompaniment of one’s consciousness of virtuous activity. After reconstructing Kant’s argument in detail, I offer a new way to understand its anti-eudaimonist implications: practical illusion leads the Stoic to rationalize, and, ultimately, to disfigure the moral law. Even in their moral ardor—or rather, propelled by it—the Stoic commits an error of self-love. (shrink)

A strong distinction is often made between personal autonomy and moral autonomy. Personal autonomy involves governing yourself in the pursuit of your own conception of the good. Moral autonomy involves legislating the moral law for yourself. Viewed in this way personal autonomy seems at best marginal and at worst a positive hindrance to moral autonomy, since personal autonomy can conflict with moral autonomy. Given that Kantian approaches to morality are closely aligned with moral autonomy, does that mean that the Kantian (...) must view personal autonomy as a moral hindrance? Can there be a legitimate role for personal autonomy within Kant’s ethical framework? This paper will seek to argue: that personal and moral autonomy need not be seen as in tension or at odds with one another; that Kant defends an attractive weak substantive theory of personal autonomy; that socialisation plays an important role (both positive and negative) in the development of autonomy competences in Kant’s theory; and that personal autonomy (properly understood) has an essential role to play in Kant’s ethical framework. (shrink)

Since the publication of Andrews Reath's “Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant” (Journal of the History of Philosophy 26:4 (1988)), most scholars have come to accept the view that Kant migrated away from an earlier “theological” version to one that is more “secular.” The purpose of this paper is to explore the roots of this interpretative trend, re-assess its merits, and then examine how the Highest Good is portrayed in Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. As (...) will be argued, it is in this text more so than any other where Kant develops his most philosophically sophisticated account of the Highest Good. Because of the central significance of Kant’s doctrine of the Highest Good for both his ethical theory and philosophy of religion, this paper therefore seeks to provide an important corrective to the current received views. (shrink)

As has been noted in the recent literature on Kant’s ethics, Kant holds that although natural drives such as feelings, emotions and inclinations cannot lead directly to moral worth, they nevertheless play some kind of role vis-à-vis morality. The issue is thus to understand this role within the limits set by Kant’s account of freedom, and it is usually tackled by examining the relationship between moral and non-moral motivation in the Groundwork, the Critique of Practical Reason, and more recently, (...) the Anthropology. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to argue that the Observations is a peculiar work, for by contrast with later works, its focus is not on the ways in which nature helps human beings become more moral, or better moral agents, but rather on how it ensures that the human species survives and flourishes independently of its morality, and in particular despite its lack thereof. In this sense, the Observations emphasizes first that the human species can, and does, function independently of its moral worth; and second, that it is intended to function beautifully has a whole in spite of its lack of moral worth. On this basis, I will conclude that the Kant of the Observations is more akin to a Mandeville than a Rousseau – he describes the functioning of the species, spelling out its survival mechanisms through natural drives, rather than explains that and how it ought to perfect itself. (shrink)

During the 1780s, as Kant was developing his universalistic moral theory, he published texts in which he defended the superiority of whites over non-whites. Whether commentators see this as evidence of inconsistent universalism or of consistent inegalitarianism, they generally assume that Kant's position on race remained stable during the 1780s and 1790s. Against this standard view, I argue on the basis of his texts that Kant radically changed his mind. I examine his 1780s race theory and his hierarchical conception (...) of the races, and subsequently address the question of the significance of these views, especially in the light of Kant's own ethical theory. I then show that during the 1790s Kant restricts the role of the concept of race, and drops his hierarchical account of the races in favour of a more genuinely egalitarian and cosmopolitan view. (shrink)

In her book Morality as Rationality: A Study of Kant’s Ethics, Barbara Herman set a clear goal: to show that the central claims of Kant’s ethics can be properly understood only if we accept the thesis that morality is a form of rationality. In other words, Herman argues that within Kant’s practical philosophy all moral principles are rational and when we act in accordance with them we act rationally.

Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While Kant uses the (...) German equivalent in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy. (shrink)

Kant’s account of “the radical evil in human nature” in the 1793 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone is typically interpreted as a reworking of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But Kant doesn’t talk about Augustine explicitly there, and if he is rehabilitating the doctrine of original sin, the result is not obviously Augustinian. Instead Kant talks about Stoic ethics in a pair of passages on either end of his account of radical evil, and leaves other clues (...) that his argument is a reworking of an old Stoic problem. “Radical evil” refers to the idea that our moral condition is — by default and yet by our own deed — bad or corrupt; and that this corruption is the root (radix) of human badness in all its variety, ubiquity, and sheer ordinariness. Kant takes as his premise a version of the Stoic idea that nature gives us “uncorrupted starting points” (Diogenes Laertius 7.89). What sense can be made of the origin of human badness, given such a premise? Kant’s account of radical evil is an answer to this old Stoic problem, which requires a conception of freedom that is not available in his Stoic sources. (shrink)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant grounds his postulate for the immortality of the soul on the presupposed practical necessity of the will’s endless progress toward complete conformity with the moral law. Given the important role that this postulate plays in Kant’s ethical and political philosophy, it is hard to understand why it has received relatively little attention. It is even more surprising considering the attention given to his other postulates of practical reason: the existence of God and freedom. (...) The project of this paper is to examine Kant’s postulate of the immortality of the soul, examine critiques of this argument, and show why the argument succeeds in showing that belief in the moral law also obligates one to believe in the soul’s immortality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: A general interpretation and close textual analysis of Kant’s theory of the categories of freedom (or categories of practical reason) in his Critique of Practical Reason. My main concerns in the paper are the following: (1) I show that Kant’s categories of freedom have primarily three functions: as conditions of the possibility for actions (i) to be free, (ii) to be comprehensible as free and (iii) to be morally evaluated. (2) I show that for Kant actions, although qua theoretical (...) objects they are always already constituted by means of the theoretical categories, qua practical objects (objects of reason in its practical use, i.e. objects qua possibly good or bad) they are constituted by means of the categories of freedom; and that it is only in this way that actions, qua phenomena, can be a consequence of freedom, and can be understood and evaluated as such. (3) Since Kant's presentation of his theory of the Categories of Freedom is extremely brief, Kant's parallel theory of the theoretical categories in his Critique of Pure Reason is used as a guide for the interpretation of the practical categories and their systematic relevance. (Translation by Alex Worsnip, reviewed and approved by the author.). (shrink)

In two recent articles I have argued that Kant’s legal and political philosophy can shed new light on his much-contested account of moral autonomy and that important changes in his political theory help to explain why in his later work the Formula of Autonomy disappears. In the present essay, I respond to comments by Sorin Baiasu and Marie Newhouse, who argue that the changes in Kant’s political theory fail to explain the disappearance of the Formula of Autonomy, since in both (...) phases Kant held that laws are given by the people’s representatives. I offer additional support for my original argument by developing a more detailed account of Kant’s conception of the relation between the legislating representatives and the people they are taken to represent. I argue that Kant’s conception of the proper representation relation changed, and that it changed so fundamentally that the analogy at the basis of the Formula of Autonomy was no longer apt, thus providing a plausible explanation for its disappearance. I also address several related comments and propose an explanation for why Kant dropped the very idea of autonomy as a property of the will. (shrink)

In the modern moral luck debate, Kant is standardly taken to be the enemy of moral luck. My goal in this paper is to show that this is mistaken. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, I show that participants in the moral luck literature take moral luck to be anathema to Kantian ethics. In the second, I explain the kind of luck I am going to focus on here: consequence luck, a species of resultant luck. (...) In the third, I explain why philosophers have taken Kantian ethics to reject moral luck and, in particular, consequence luck. In the fourth, I explain why these philosophers are mistaken, and I set out Kant’s theoretical framework for consequence luck. In the fifth, I clarify and defend this framework, and in the sixth, I interrogate and attack it. (shrink)

Kant's “Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason” seems an odd element in Kant's oeuvre. Parts of it seem like scholastic theology or an arbitrary effort to reconcile the Kantian philosophical system with the doctrines of Christianity1. One of the most troubling notions is that of radical evil. Not only is the motivation for introducing the notion unclear, it is also difficult to grasp the line of argumentation, and furthermore accept its conclusion that there must be an innate (...) propensity for evil in human nature. The vague introduction of the concept of grace exacerbates the puzzlement even further. Nevertheless, I claim that the notions of radical evil and grace form a significant addition to Kant's conception of moral life lacking in his earlier works in ethics, Groundwork to the Metaphysic of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. I contend that the depiction of human moral life is not exhausted by the consciousness of duty and the endless pursuit toward virtue. Moral life is characterized also by the ongoing introspection of character accompanied by the hope for moral transformation as manifested by the notions of radical evil and grace. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant’s pre-critical ontology, though generally dismissed by environmental philosophers, provides ecological lessons by way of its metaphysical affinities with environmental philosophy. First, I reference where environmental philosophy tends to place Kant and highlight his relative marginalization. This marginalization makes sense given focus on his critical works. I then outline Kant’s pre-critical ontological framework and characterize the ways in which it is ecological. Finally, I conclude with some ecological reflections on the pre-critical philosophy and its (...) possible relevance for contemporary environmental issues. (shrink)

This article examines an appendix to the Doctrine of Virtue which has received little attention. I argue that this passage suggests that Kant makes it a duty, internal to his system of duties, to ‘join the graces with virtue’ and so to ‘make virtue widely loved’ (MM, 6: 473). The duty to make virtue widely loved obligates us to bring the standards of respectability, and so the social graces, into a formal agreement with what morality demands of us, such that (...) the social graces give the illusion of virtue. The existence of such a duty can answer Schiller’s persistent objection that Kant’s ethics scares away the Graces with Duty. (shrink)

For Kant, any authentic moral demands are wholly distinct from the demands of prudence. This has led critics to complain that Kantian moral demands are incompatible with our human nature as happiness-seekers. Kant’s defenders have pointed out, correctly, that Kant can and does assert that it is permissible, at least in principle, to pursue our own happiness. But this response does not eliminate the worry that a life organized around the pursuit of virtue might turn out to be one from (...) which we cannot expect any of this (permissible) happiness. To address this worry, Kant would need to establish that there is a kind of harmony between virtue and our own happiness that can give us confidence that aiming at morality does not require us to abandon our hope for happiness in this life. This paper aims to show that Kant—building on insights from Rousseau that Kant identifies with Cynicism—does offer an account of such a harmony between virtue and worldly happiness. (shrink)

If there is to be any progress in the debate about what sort of positive moral status Kant can give the emotions, we need a taxonomy of the terms Kant uses for these concepts. It used to be thought that Kant had little room for emotions in his ethics. In the past three decades, Marcia Baron, Paul Guyer, Barbara Herman, Nancy Sherman, Allen Wood and others have argued otherwise. Contrary to what a cursory reading of the Groundwork may indicate, (...) Kant thinks the emotions play an important role in the moral life. I want to extend the work of Baron, Guyer, Herman, Sherman and Wood in three ways. First, I will set out in a diagram Kant's taxonomy of feelings and emotions. Agreement on such a taxonomy should make it easier to evaluate debates about Kant and the emotions. Second, I will focus on a certain subclass of emotions – reason-caused affects – that have previously received little attention, even from these Kant scholars. Third, these scholars base much of their defence of Kant on his later works – especially the Metaphysics of Morals and the Anthropology – but Kant's fairly rich taxonomy of the emotions, including reason-caused affects, is clearly in place at least as early as the Critique of Judgment . I believe that the Critique of Judgment is an importantly ignored resource for understanding the moral role of the emotions for Kant. The third Critique makes positive, philosophically interesting claims about the emotions and morality. Kant emphasizes certain roles for emotions in this work that he develops to the same extent nowhere else. Nevertheless, the Critique of Judgment goes all but unmentioned by many who write on these issues. In what follows, I will defend as many of my claims as possible using the third Critique. (shrink)

This article explains and examines the ethical implications of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy for human development and global peace. The article addresses the problem of whether Kant’s philosophy advances human development and global peace. I argue that Kant’s philosophy promotes human development and global peace. The argument is based on the following premises: Kant’s moral philosophy supports reverence for humanity. Reverence for humanity promotes the cultivation of human potential, such as rationality. Kant considers rationality a property par excellence in human persons, (...) making them superior to other animals; so, rationality is a guiding principle that makes human persons worthy of reverence. Rationality helps resolve conflicts among people in a society. Moreover, Kant’s political philosophy promotes cooperation among states, eventually leading to global peace. Peace and human development depend on each other: human development develops positive peace, and negative peace augments human development. Kant’s ethics of reverence for humanity promotes positive peace, while his politics of cosmopolitan rights creates negative peace among states. Negative peace is the absence of violence, while positive peace refers to activities affirming life. In general, Kant’s moral and political philosophy is characteristically rational and cosmopolitan, which strives to cultivate natural capacities among human persons across the states, which enhances human development and global peace. In the arena of qualitative research, this article uses the method of empirically informed philosophical analysis to examine journal papers, scholarly books, proceedings of conferences, and congresses. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to raise a problem for recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s universalizability tests. In particular, I argue that these recent attempts are subject to reductio and that the most obvious way of patching them renders them impracticable. I begin by explaining the motivation for these attempts. Then I describe how they work and begin my attack. I conclude by considering some patches.

This paper sheds light on Kant’s notion of autonomy in his moral philosophy by considering Kant’s critique of the rationalist theories of morality that Kant discussed in his lectures on practical philosophy from the 1760s to the time of the Groundwork. The paper first explains Kant’s taxonomy of moral theories and his perspective on the history of ethics. Second, it considers Kant's arguments against the two main variants of ‘rationalism’ as he construes it, that is, perfectionism and theological (...) voluntarism, pointing out the similarities to previous criticisms. Third, the paper argues that Kant’s discussion of the 'rationalist' views does not amount to an unqualified dismissal, but to an attempt at working out a novel rationalist position. Kant’s criticisms of rationalist views suggest that his project emerges from the failures of previous rationalism, with the aim to work out a rationalist view that can account for moral obligation by integrating insights from the theological conception. The combination of perfectionism and theological views yields the basic outline of the idea of autonomy, consisting in the lawgiving function of a rational will as a key to the legislation of a necessary law. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Kant’s theory of conscience. In particular, I explicate the following two claims that Kant makes in the Metaphysics of Morals: (1) an erring conscience is an absurdity and (2) if an agent has acted according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that can be required of him/her. I argue that (1) is a very specific claim that does not bear on the problem of moral knowledge. I argue that (2) rests on a strongly (...) internalist line of argument. (shrink)

In this paper I look at the connection between willing and believing for Kant’s and Kantian ethics. I argue that the two main formulations of the categorical imperative are relativized to agents according to their beliefs. I then point out three different ways in which Kant or a present-day Kantian might defend this position. I conclude with some remarks about the contrast between Kant’s legal theory and his ethical theory.

Kant and Leibniz are interested in explaining how a number of individuals can come together and form a single unified composite substance. Leibniz does not have a convincing account of how this is possible. In his pre-critical writings and in his later metaphysics lectures, Kant is committed to the claim that the idea of a world is the idea of a real whole, and hence is the idea of a composite substance. This metaphysical idea is taken over into his ethical (...) writings and becomes the idea of a realm of ends. I explain why a realm of ends, should be thought of as both a unum per se and as a real whole. A realm of ends is a whole of individuals unified by laws they have given themselves, that is, it is a community of autonomous individuals. Only such a community can be thought of as a composite individual. Such a whole will be real rather than ideal because the source of the unity of the whole is intrinsic to the whole, for what gives unity to the realm are laws and the sources of the laws are the individual members of the whole. It will be a unum per se because both the laws and the individuals constituting the realm are incomplete without one another. If this reading is correct, this requires a fundamental reevaluation of Kant’s notion of autonomy. To be autonomous is not, primarily, to be understood in terms of ruling oneself, but instead must be thought of primarily in terms of being a generative source of laws for an ideal community. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against two prevailing views of Kant’s Religion. Against commentators such as Michalson and Quinn, who have argued that Kant’s project in Religion is riddled with inconsistencies and circularities, I show that a proper understanding of Kant’s views on grace reveals these do not exist. And contra commentators that attribute to Kant at best a minimalist conception of grace, I show that Kant’s view of it is remarkably robust. I argue that Kant works with three different (...) conceptions of grace. These are: a) grace and the God within, b) grace and the transformation of the fundamental orientation, and c) grace that can be laid hold of; the first and the last play a significant role in his philosophy of religion. (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)

This paper advances an assessment of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made from a bird’s eye view. Seen from this perspective, the task of Kant’s work was to ground the spontaneity of human reason, preserving at the same time the strict methods of science and mathematics. Kant accomplished this objective by reviving an old philosophical discipline: the peirastic dialectic of Plato and Aristotle. What is more, he managed to combine it with logic. From this blend, Kant’s transcendental idealism appeared as (...) a new logic that paralleled Aristotle’s syllogistic logic. The first result of this move was that philosophy became a formal study that treats even such subjects as ethics with rigour. Another outcome was that it established philosophy as a professional – school – discipline. In the twentieth century academy, this development was echoed by the emergence of analytic philosophy, in which Kant’s new logic evolved into a philosophical logic. (shrink)

In the Doctrine of Virtue Kant divides duties of love into three categories: beneficent activity , gratitude and Teilnehmung – commonly referred to as the duty of sympathy . In this paper I will argue that the content and scope of the third duty of love has been underestimated by both critics and defenders of Kant's ethical theory. The account which pervades the secondary literature maintains that the third duty of love includes only two components: an obligation to make (...) use of our natural receptivity to sympathetic feelings as a means to fulfilling other duties of love, and an indirect duty to cultivate these feelings. As a result, Kant's duty of sympathy has been widely regarded as a duty whose value is derived from the way in which it serves other duties, in particular, the duty of beneficent activity, which obliges agents ‘to promote according to one's means the happiness of others in need’ . Teilnehmung has thus assumed something of a second-class status among the duties to others. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that the prevailing account of Kant's third duty of love is incomplete. (shrink)

This paper delves into the intersection between Kant’s moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on _personhood_. It explores how Kant’s emphasis on rationality in moral agency aligns with evolutionary studies on the development of moral behaviors. By examining the transcendental implications of Kant’s _Categorical Imperative_ (CI) and the evolutionary origins of moral agency, this study aims to illuminate the link between Kant’s conception of moral agency and personhood. Additionally, it investigates how Kant’s call for CI resonates with evolutionary insights on the (...) adaptive nature of social cooperation in human societies. Through this analysis, we seek to deepen our understanding of the cognitive, social dimensions of moral agency and moral status within the framework of Kant’s moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on personhood. (shrink)

Kant’s argument against suicide is widely dismissed by scholars and often avoided by teachers because it is deemed inconsistent with Kant’s moral philosophy. This paper attempts to show a way to make sense of Kant’s injunction against suicide that is consistent with his moral system. One of the strategies adopted in order to accomplish my goal is a de-secularization of Kant’s ethics. I argue that all actions of self-killing (or suicide) are morally impermissible because they are inconsistent with God’s (...) established nature and order. It is argued that the existence of God as the locus of moral value and duty in Kant’s moral system, and not belief in God, can explain the consistency of Kant’s injunction against suicide. A synergistic view is offered, which rests on three arguments: First, suicide goes against God’s authority. Second, suicide is inconsistent with our self-perpetuating nature. Third, suicide goes against the rational will. (shrink)

This thesis examines the theoretical foundations of Kant's moral philosophy. I argue that Kant's moral ideal of a kingdom of ends is to be identified with the theoretical idea of a community, and that this idea can be traced back to the category of community introduced in his table of categories. In particular I argue that, for the mature Kant, the only application of the theoretical idea of community is the moral idea of a kingdom of ends, the (...) only way we can conceive of a kingdom of ends is as a political community governed by juridical laws, and the only way we can conceive of a member of a community is as an autonomous agent. To support my interpretation I show how an understanding of Kant's theoretical work on community and interaction helps us understand the motivation behind the theory of property Kant offers in the Metaphysics of Morals. In addition, I trace the development of Kant's ethics back to his reading of Swedenborg in the early 1760s. (shrink)

Kant is probably one of the most misunderstood philosophers in the history of Western thought. Some of the most well-known and pervasive objections to Kant’s practical philosophy often rest on considerable misunderstandings of his central theses or a poor and superficial reading of his work. A common misconception is that in Kant’s practical philosophy there is no place or role for human happiness. In Happiness in Kant’s Practical Philosophy: Morality, Indirect Duties, and Welfare Rights, Alice Pinheiro Walla dispels this misunderstanding (...) by elucidating Kant’s conception of happiness (understood in broadly hedonist terms) and showing that, for Kant, the pursuit of happiness plays an important role in our personal and collective lives. This means that, far from endorsing an ascetic ideal of the moral agent, as it is commonly thought, Kant’s system embraces an ideal of the human life in which there is significant space, and even a duty, to pursue pleasurable endeavours. Somehow surprisingly, in Pinheiro Walla’s reading, Kant’s ethics is arguably less demanding than standard interpretations of Aristotelian and Utilitarian ethical theories. (shrink)