Immanuel Kant’s notion of weakness or frailty warrants more attention, for it reveals much about his theory of motivation and general metaphysics of mind. As the first and least severe of the three grades of evil, frailty captures those cases where an agent fails to act on their avowed recognition that the moral law is the only legitimate determining ground of the will. The possibility of such cases raises many important questions that have yet to be settled by interpreters. (...) Most importantly, should we account for the failures of weakness by appealing to the activity of reason or sensibility? I will discuss this question in light of a tendency to adopt an overly dualistic reading of Kant’s moral psychology. Focusing on Kant’s remarks on weakness from the Religion and the Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that we should understand weakness as arising from the unique difficulties of sense-dependent judgment, rather than from self-deception, flagging commitment, or overwhelming desire. The resulting account offers a unified moral psychology capable of accommodating the many features of weakness that are difficult to reconcile on other readings. (shrink)

I argue that a Kantian inspired investigation into animal morality is both a plausible and coherent research program. To show that such an investigation is possible, I argue that philosophers, such as Korsgaard, who argue that reason demarcates nonhuman animals from the domain of moral beings are equivocating in their use of the term ‘rationality’. Kant certainly regards rationality as necessary for moral responsibility from a practical standpoint, but his distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal means that (...) he can only establish it as a marker for morality from a theoretical standpoint. This means that when it comes to evaluating the moral capabilities of others, rationality can be neither necessary nor sufficient for morality, leaving open the possibility of other empirical markers for moral responsibility. I argue that the higher faculties, character, implicit knowledge of universality, and antecedent practical pleasures (which provide a way to distinguish between morally motivated behaviour and other types of socially motivated behaviour) can all serve as empirical markers for morality. There is empirical evidence that at least some animals have conceptual capabilities and therefore the empirical marker of the higher faculties. In addition, there is suggestive evidence that merits further investigation for the other three markers. While this will not provide a definitive answer on whether animals are capable of acting morally, it will provide a Kantian outlook that can be used to evaluate empirical and philosophical work on animal morality. (shrink)

A crucial feature of Kant's critical-period writing on the sublime is its grounding in moral psychology. Whereas in the pre-critical writings, the sublime is viewed as an inherently exhausting state of mind, in the critical-period writings it is presented as one that gains strength the more it is sustained. I account for this in terms of Kantian moral psychology, and explain that, for Kant, sound moral disposition is conceived as a sublime state of mind.

I show how those with Kantian habits of mind—those committed to maintaining certain kinds of universality in ethics—can still get involved in the project of securing the distinctiveness of Christian ethics by highlighting parts of his moral philosophy that are amenable to this project. I first describe the interaction among James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, and Samuel Wells surrounding the issue of the distinctiveness of Christian ethics, to explain why Kant is generally understood as the opponent of this project (...) in this discourse. Then I lay out his discussions of how his moral argument for postulating divine existence can have beneficial moral-psychological results, and of how we can find moral satisfaction, the sense of pleasure in our moral strivings, as two elements in his moral philosophy that can be turned into a distinctively Christian ethics with revisions that should be allowed within the broad confines of Kantian moral philosophy. I also point out that his own answer to the question of moral satisfaction is already distinctively Christian, in that it is inspired by the Christian tenets of the imputation of righteousness and the assurance of salvation. (shrink)

One of the reasons why there is no Hegelian school in contemporary ethics in the way that there are Kantian, Humean and Aristotelian schools is because Hegelians have been unable to clearly articulate the Hegelian alternative to those schools’ moral psychologies, i.e., to present a Hegelian model of the motivation to, perception of, and responsibility for moral action. Here it is argued that in its most basic terms Hegel's model can be understood as follows: the agent acts (...) in a responsible and thus paradigmatic sense when she identifies as reasons those motivations which are grounded in his or her talents and support actions that are likely to develop those talents in ways suggested by his or her interests. (shrink)

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche presents passion as constituting human agency. He encountered this Humean view in Schopenhauer, and recognized its explanatory advantages over Platonic and Kantian rationalism. Zarathustra's poetic speeches anticipate and address contemporary objections to the view that passion constitutes agency. "On the Despisers of the Body" explains why understanding the self as constituted by passion provides better explanations of reasoning, value judgment, and the unity of the self than Christine Korsgaard's neo-Kantian view. "On Enjoying and (...) Suffering the Passions" explains why understanding virtues as constituted by passions provides a better explanation of moral phenomenology than John McDowell's rationalism. (shrink)

It is frequently argued that research findings in empirical moral psychology spell trouble for Kantian ethics. Sometimes the charge is merely that Kantianism is mistaken about the role of emotions in human action, but it has also been argued that empirical moral psychology ‘debunks’ Kantian ethics as the product of precisely the emotion-driven processes it fails to acknowledge. In this essay I argue for a negative and a positive thesis. The negative thesis is that (...) the ‘debunking’ argument against Kantian ethics is invalid because it begs the central question. The positive thesis is that, because the empirical facts about human moral psychology are morally significant, Kantians can and should wholeheartedly embrace the current interest in this area of empirical research. As Kant himself emphasized, it is an indirect, imperfect duty to use available knowledge of morally relevant empirical psychological conditions and to put this in the service of moral agency. (shrink)

Moral anxiety is the unease that we experience in the face of a novel or difficult moral decision, an unease that helps us recognize the significance of the issue we face and engages epistemic behaviors aimed at helping us work through it (reflection, information gathering, etc.). But recent discussions in philosophy raise questions about the value of moral anxiety (do we really do better when we’re anxious?); and work in cognitive science challenges its psychological plausibility (is there (...) really such an emotion?). Drawing on Kant and Kantians, I develop a model of moral anxiety (or ‘conscience’ in Kant’s terminology) that highlights both its empirical credentials and its distinctive value. Kant, it turns out, was an early—and sophisticated—dual-process theorist. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that Kant’s moral psychology draws from the dualist tradition of Plato and Aristotle, which takes there to be distinct rational and non-rational parts of the soul. My aim is to challenge the air of obviousness that psychological dualism enjoys in neo-Kantian moral psychology, specifically in regard to Tamar Schapiro’s account of the nature of inclination. I argue that Kant’s own account of inclination instead provides evidence of his commitment to psychological monism, (...) the idea that the mentality of an adult human being is rational through and through. I first consider Schapiro’s “intuitions” in favour of dualism: inclination must have a non-rational source, she contends, because they assail us unbidden and are not immediately responsive to volition, and because we are not responsible simply for having inclinations (only for acting on them). I explain how a monistic account of the nature of inclination can accommodate the first two points, and explain why the third neither is a point a Kantian can accept, nor is its denial the affront to common sense that Schapiro supposes. Then I turn to Schapiro’s aim to conceive of reflection as non-rational and thus independent of justificatory thought, and yet such as to induce rational reflection. I argue that it remains mysterious how inclination, on her account, could be resourced to play this role; and with that criticism in mind, I conclude by making a positive case for Kant’s conceiving of inclination in monistic terms, as an expression of rational mindedness. (shrink)

To capture genuine utilitarian tendencies, (Kahane et al., Psychological Review 125:131, 2018) developed the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale (OUS) based on two subscales, which measure the commitment to impartial beneficence and the willingness to cause harm for the greater good. In this article, I argue that the impartial beneficence subscale, which breaks ground with previous research on utilitarian moral psychology, does not distinctively measure utilitarian moral judgment. I argue that Kantian ethics captures the all-encompassing impartial concern for (...) the well-being of all human beings. The Oxford Utilitarianism Scale draws, in fact, a point of division that places Kantian and utilitarian theories on the same track. I suggest that the impartial beneficence subscale needs to be significantly revised in order to capture distinctively utilitarian judgments. Additionally, I propose that psychological research should focus on exploring multiple sources of the phenomenon of impartial beneficence without categorizing it as exclusively utilitarian. (shrink)

There is a debate in the literature as to whether Kantian self-conceit is intrapsychic or interpersonal. I argue that self-conceit is both. I argue that, for Kant, self-conceit is fundamentally an illusion about authority, one’s own and any authority one stands in relation to. Self-conceit refuses to recognize the authority of the law. But the law “shows up” for us in two guises: one’s own reason and other persons. Thus, self-conceit refuses to recognize both guises of the law. Hence (...) self-conceit is essentially double-sided, at once intrapsychic and interpersonal. (shrink)

The chapter reconstructs and criticizes one of Anscombe's famous three these, namely the claim that a ‘philosophy of psychology’ is a preliminary task to the construction of any possible ethical theory, or that moral philosophy ‘should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking’. The claim is that Anscombe’s idea of a philosophy of psychology cannot be simply identified with that of moral (...) class='Hi'>psychology with which we are familiar now; that her main claim, namely that actions are analogous to language is quite promising; that among the implications there is not only a criticism to consequentialism but also acknowledgement of a central role for judgement, and accordingly not just a blunt refusal, but instead an unaware rediscovery of Kantian ethics; that her rediscovery of the idea of virtue is promising enough, albeit misunderstood by Anscombe herself when she presents it in terms of coming back to Aristotelian and Thomist ethics as contrasted with modern moral philosophy. (shrink)

In Naked, Krista K. Thomason offers a multi-faceted account of shame, covering its nature as an emotion, its positive and negative roles in moral life, its association with violence, and its provocation through invitations to shame, public shaming, and stigmatization. Along the way, she reflects on a range of examples drawn from literature, memoirs, journalism, and her own imagination. She also considers alternative views at length, draws a wealth of important distinctions, and articulates many of the most intuitive objections (...) to her own view in order to defend it more thoroughly. As such, the book’s subtitle, The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life, undersells its scope and ambition. This is an exploration not just of shame’s dark side but a kaleidoscopic appreciation of both the nature and the (dis)value of shame and shaming. Somewhat undercutting this breadth, Thomason relies heavily on Kantian intuitions about equal respect and recognition for persons and their dignity; in several key arguments, she tells us to disregard predictable and systematic consequences of emotions, practices, and institutions so that we can better focus on their constitutive or internal aspects. Of course, every philosopher inevitably brings theoretical commitments to bear when writing about moral psychology, but non-Kantian readers should be forewarned that — despite the fact that Thomason says that she does “not assume any particular moral theory” — her ethical conclusions about shaming and stigmatizing are likely to be plausible only to those who are already snugly tied into a web of “Kantian commitments” (p. 9). (shrink)

Despite contemporary moral philosophers' renewed attention to the moral significance of emotions, the attitudinal repertoire with which they equip the mature moral agent remains stunted. One attitude moral philosophers neglect (if not disown) is contempt. While acknowledging the nastiness of contempt, I here correct the neglect by providing an account of the moral psychology of contempt. In the process, I defend the moral propriety of certain tokens of properly person-focused contempt against some prominent (...) objections -- among them, objections stemming from Kantian worries that contempt is incompatible with the respect we owe to persons as such. (shrink)

After distinguishing between a metaphysical and a contemplative strategy interpretation of the no-self doctrine, I argue that the latter allows for the illumination of significant and under-discussed Kantian affinities with Buddhist views of the self and moral psychology. Unlike its metaphysical counterpart, the contemplative strategy interpretation, understands the doctrine of no-self as a technique of perception, undertaken from the practical standpoint of action. I argue that if we think of the contemplative strategy version of the no-self doctrine (...) as a process engaged in, in order to free oneself from delusion and to see things more objectively in order to promote right action, then we find a clear parallel in Kant’s duty of self-knowledge which demands that we rid ourselves of deluded moral self-descriptions. While in Buddhism the aim is a selflessness that liberates one from suffering, for Kant the aim is an agency free of the conceit that interferes with clear moral vision, sound judgement, and dutiful action. I conclude by responding to objections advanced by Charles Goodman which aim to show that the Kantian position is deeply at odds with Buddhist thinking, arguing that neither Kantian agency nor Kantian self-legislation is undermined by the doctrine of no-self. (shrink)

In our societies today, the prevalence of serious, untreated trauma means that we cannot reliably expect to receive or give unconditional love, understood as love which functions within a normative framework to protect each and all of us as having dignity. Serious, untreated trauma makes unconditional love, so understood, unreliable because each time the pattern of the psychological damage (trauma) is triggered in the traumatized person, in the wrongdoers, or in the bystanders, their behaviour easily becomes self- and other-numbing, destructive, (...) and moralizing in an irrational and often self-deceived attempt to preserve or defend themselves or others against forces felt as threatening even though they are not. It is also common for someone who lives in societal conditions where avoiding patterned, traumatizing behaviour is impossible to experience the emotional temptation to give up on the possibility of a better future for oneself, one’s loved ones, or one’s community within the larger community or the state. For some, this is experienced as a draw towards suicide, while others experience it as a serious temptation to give up on working together with the good forces in society. This paper seeks to continue Charles Mills’s work on radicalizing Kant by sketching a Kantian account of trauma and thereby develop philosophical resources that can help us fight historical oppression and violence. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the moral-coherence reading of Kant’s moral argument offered by Allen Wood in his recent book _Kant and Religion_, display some of the challenges that it faces and suggest that a moral-psychological formulation is preferable.

Kantian ethics is based on a metaphysical conception of autonomy that may seem difficult to reconcile with the empirically-based science of psychology. I argue that, although not formally developed, a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective of ethics can broaden the field of Kantian-based moral psychology and specify what it means, motivationally, to have autonomy in the application of a moral norm. More specifically, I argue that this is possible when a moral norm is fully (...) endorsed by the self through a process of internalization that is energized by intrinsic motivation and is facilitated by the fulfillment of the basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. The conditions of the fulfillment of these needs may even implicitly reveal which norms will be integrated and treated as moral norms. I conclude that SDT offers a motivational approach that is useful in understanding the development of moral norms. (shrink)

How to interpret autonomy plays a crucial role that leads to different readings in Kant’s moral metaphysics, philosophy of religion and moral psychology. In this paper I argue for a two-layered conception of autonomy with varying degrees of justification for each: autonomy as a capacity and autonomy as a paragon-like paradigm. I argue that all healthy rational humans possess the inalienable capacity of autonomy, i. e. share the universal ground for the communicability of objective basic moral (...) principles. This initial understanding stands for autonomy as a capacity about which we can talk of universal validity and justification. Nevertheless, the way a person fully actualizes herself, her freedom, namely autonomy, is shaped by her initial conception of autonomy and moral view of the world. Autonomy as an organic experience of real moral agents, which means an ongoing, non-static, irreducible and inexplicable judgmental process concerning one’s actualization of oneself gives way to consider autonomy as a godlike state of the soul even though one cannot provide objective validity for this. (shrink)

Robert Adams argues that often our moral commitment outstrips what we are epistemically entitled to believe; in these cases, the virtuous agent doxastic states are instances of “moral faith”. I argue against Adams’ views on the need for moral faith; at least in some cases, our moral “intuitions” provide us with certain moral knowledge. The appearance that there can be no certainty here is the result of dubious views about second-order or indirect doubts. Nonetheless, discussing (...) the phenomena that lead Adams to postulate moral faith brings to light the nature of the epistemic warrant underlying various kinds of moral commitments. (shrink)

Is the exemplar of modern ethical theory estranged from their intimates because the motive of duty dominates their motivational psychology? While this challenge against modern ethical theory is familiar, I argue that with respect to a certain strand of Kantian ethical theory, it does not so much as make sense. I explain the content and functional role of the motive of duty in the psychology of the moral exemplar, stressing in particular how that motive shapes and (...) informs the content of others, including those characteristic of intimacy. I argue that to the extent that a subject does not integrate their motive of duty with their other motives, their moral and intimate relationships are compromised, and on the same grounds, because intimate relationships are interpersonal relationships and the motive of duty just is the motive to respect another person as a separate person. (shrink)

The paper is about Kant’s moral psychology, a complex analysis and philosophical reflection on the tension of human will as arbitrium sensitivum in acting consistently as ratio essendi. It explores the tension of fallibility of the human will. In Kant’s notion of practical freedom he points to the dynamics of the will—Wille and Willkur—and how it creates tension between choice and culpability. This occurs specifically in the Willkur’s function as the arbiter. I explore the impact of Willkur’s arbitration (...) in self-determination, especially the important call of obedience to the Wille. I conclude with an emphasis on the challenge for Kantian will to operate towards unity which enables the agent to be authentically autonomous. (shrink)

Moral realism faces two worries: How can we have knowledge of moral norms if they are independent of us, and why should we care about them if they are independent of rational activities they govern? Kantian constitutivism tackles both worries simultaneously by claiming that practical norms are constitutive principles of practical reason. In particular, on Stephen Engstrom’s account, willing involves making a practical judgment. To will well, and thus to have practical knowledge (i.e., knowledge of what is (...) good), the content of one’s will needs to conform to the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge. Practical norms are thus constitutive of practical knowledge. However, I will argue that the universality principles from which Engstrom derives the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge are reflectively and psychologically unavailable. As a result, they cannot help Kantian constitutivism provide an answer to moral realism's worries. (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)

Laura Papish’s new book comes in the wake of a series of studies of Kant’s conception of evil. Two features distinguish her approach: its emphasis on the connection between evil and self-deception (chapters 1–5), and its attentiveness to the role of self-cognition in moral reform (chapters 6–8). Lucidly written and conversant with recent debates in social and moral psychology, Papish’s book expands the range of topics that typically worry Kantians. Its most important contribution is perhaps to have (...) shown that self-deception and self-cognition are countervailing concepts, which together shed light on the neglected, epistemic dimension of Kant’s practical philosophy. My review will adopt the three-part structure of the book indicated in its title. (shrink)

Kant makes a much-unexpected confession in a much-unexpected place. In the Criticism of the third paralogism of transcendental psychology of the first Critique Kant accepts the irrefutability of the Heraclitean notion of universal becoming or the transitory nature of all things, admitting the impossibility of positing a totally persistent and self-conscious subject. The major Heraclitean doctrine of panta rhei makes it impossible to conduct philosophical inquiry by assuming a self-conscious subject or “I,” which would potentially be in constant motion (...) like other thoughts. For it rules out the possibility of completely detached reasoning which necessitates an unchanging state of mind. In this paper, Kaplama uses panta rhei to critically examine the philosophical shortcomings and contradictions of Kantian and Enlightenment ethics. In his examination, he specifically focuses on the teleological nature of Kant’s principle of freedom and ideal of moral autonomy which have dominated the Enlightenment thought. By doing so, he argues that it is essentially inaccurate to posit Überlegenheit (the state of being superior to nature) as the foundation of philosophical inquiry mainly because this would contradict the Enlightenment’s claim to constitute a rupture from classic and medieval metaphysics and would render Enlightenment a mere extension of Christian metaphysics. As in Christianity, Überlegenheit presupposes two separate realms, the actual (contingent) and ideal (pure) realms of thought and assumes that the transcendence commences from the level of the late metaphysical/teleological construction of the ‘subject’ who is completely persistent, self-conscious and immune to change. He then substantiates these points with reference to the philosophical roots of ethnic prejudice displayed by the post-Enlightenment colonialists and the missionaries in Fiji and the Pacific. This brief critical examination of the post-Enlightenment ethnocentrism will be conducted under the following three points: a) On the Enlightenment’s teleological and universalistic understanding of humanity and the concept of progress versus the Fijian concepts of the continuity of life, regeneration, and reproduction b) On the Enlightenment’s ideal of the free-willing and independent individual subject versus the Fijian ideas of 'the cord', reciprocity, and vanua, and c) On the Enlightenment’s (and Christianity’s) strict dualism between physics and metaphysics, nature and human mind, body and soul versus the Fijian bio-centrism, the sanctity of vanua and the cosmological concept of mana. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to look at Søren Kierkegaard's defence of an ethical way of life in the light of Harry Frankfurt's work. There are salient general similarities connecting Kierkegaard and Frankfurt: Both are sceptical towards the Kantian idea of founding morality in the laws of practical reason. They both deny that the concerns, which shape our lives, could simply be validated by subject-independent values. Furthermore, and most importantly, they both emphasize the importance of reflective endorsement of (...) one's way of life. This endorsement is understood by both not as an exercise of reason but as an exercise of our will without which boredom, anxiety and, ultimately, the dissolution of the self threatens. We can, the author of the paper argues, directly impose Frankfurt's hierarchical account of psychological attitudes on Kierkegaard in the sense that Frankfurt clearly helps us to elucidate Kierkegaard. This interpretation, however, also shows the limitations of any attempt, inspired by Kierkegaard, to justify moral rules without appealing to a religious foundation of morality. /// O propósito do presente artigo é, antes de mais, proceder, à luz da obra de Harry Frankfurt, a uma análise da defesa que Søren Kierkegaard faz do modo ético de conceber a existência humana. Com efeito, segundo o autor do artigo, são várias as similitudes existentes entre Kierkegaard e Frankfurt: ambos se mostram cépticos em relação ao projecto kantiano de fundar a moralidade nas leis da razão prática; ambos negam que as nossas preocupações existenciais possam simplesmente ser validadas por valores independentes do sujeito; acima de tudo, tanto Kierkegaard como Frankfurt enfatizam a importância de uma validação reflexiva do próprio modo de vida. Tanto um como o outro compreendem esta validação não como um exercício da razão, mas sobretudo como um exercício da vontade, sem o qual, na verdade, o sujeito se expõe não só ao tédio e à angústia, mas também, em última análise, ao perigo da auto-dissolução. Neste sentido, o artigo defende a possibilidade de se impor a Kierkegaard a narrativa de Frankfurt sobre as atitudes psicológicas, de modo que, conclui o autor, Frankfurt decididamente nos pode ajudar a elucidar Kierkegaard. Ao mesmo tempo, porém, esta interpretação mostra igualmente os limites de toda e qualquer tentativa, inspirada por Kierkegaard, de justificar as normas morais sem apelar aos fundamentos religiosos da moralidade. (shrink)

In Chapter 9 of The Practice of Moral Judgment and her later article Making Room for Character, Barbara Herman offers a distinctive response to a familiar set of concerns with the room left for character and personal relationships in Kantian ethics. She begins by acknowledging the shortcomings of her previous response on this issue and by distancing herself from a standard kind of indirect argument for the importance of personal commitments according to which these have moral weight (...) in virtue of their connection with the psychological health of individuals. Agreeing with an imagined critic’s concern that Kantian ethics must do more than merely tolerate motives of connection, she proposes that we adopt a deliberative field account of practical deliberation incorporating a developmental model of desire formation. I argue that, while this is a subtle and interesting account of desire development, it is not one that will satisfy the critic and should not satisfy the Kantian. I claim that the Kantian cannot forgo instrumental arguments for the importance of personal relationships and commitments and that they should not be shy of endorsing these arguments. (shrink)

The love that we feel for our friends plays an essential role in both our moral motivation to act towards them; and in our moral obligations towards them, that is, in our special duties. We articulate our proposal as a reply to Stephen Darwall’s second-person proposal, which we take to be a contemporary representative of the Kantian view. According to this view, love does not have a necessary role neither in moral motivation, nor in moral (...) obligation; just a complementary one. Yet this proposal faces three difficulties: a psychological problem, a practical problem, and a theoretical problem. In contrast, we argue that both moral motivation, and moral obligations emerge from our interpersonal relations with particular others. We further argue that obligations in the context of friendship are moral because they come with a feeling of obligation and have been internalized. Thus, the three problems raised to the Kantian position are clarified, and the role of love is emphasized in both our moral motivation, and our moral obligations towards friends. (shrink)

In this article I discuss a recent proposal according to which human beings are in need of moral enhancement by novel biomedical means in order to reduce the risk of catastrophes that could threaten the very possibility of continued human existence on this planet. I raise two objections to this proposal. The first objection claims that the idea that human beings could be morally enhanced by altering our emotional psychological inclinations, such as altruism, is misguided. In the line with (...) Kantian understanding of morality I argue that our morality is based on rationality and not on inclinations. If we take this view of morality it becomes clear that the proposed enhancement by biomedical means cannot be moral enhancement. What is enhanced is emotional aspect of our character, not our morality. People enhanced in this way would not act on the basis of their deliberate choices but on basis of preprogramed psychological inclination. This would in turn undermine our basic moral concept of freedom and, thereby, of moral responsibility. The second objection to the proposal show how the idea that moral enhancement by biomedical means should be mandatory violates political freedom of citizens. Faced with the objection that moral enhancement by biomedical means could be necessary in order to prevent catastrophic destruction of environment, in the final part of this chapter I try to point to education and liberal democracy as the alternative and morally acceptable ways of changing our behaviour. (shrink)

In this book some options concerning the greenhouse effect are assessed from a welfarist point of view: business as usual, stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction by 25% and by 60%. Up to today only economic analyses of such options are available, which monetize welfare losses. Because this is found to be wanting from a moral point of view, the present study welfarizes (among others) monetary losses on the basis of a hedonistic utilitarianism and other, justice incorporating, welfare (...) ethics. For these welfarist evaluations information about the social consequences of the four options are collected from the literature and eventually corrected; then the consequences for individual well-being are assessed based on psychological research about well-being dependent on the social situation of the individual; finally the aggregation formulas of the respective welfare ethics are applied to these data. Assessments by other types of ethics, e.g. Kantian ethic, are included. The strongest abatement option is found to be optimum with great unanimity. - In addition a cost-welfare analysis of greenhouse gas abatement is undertaken revealing efficient cost-welfare ratios for these measures and the most efficient ratio for the strongest option. - A final, more theoretical part discusses the moral obligations following from such evaluations. The notion of 'moral obligation' is explained in a way that, apart from moral goodness of the required act, reinforcement by formal or informal sanctions is another necessary condition for moral obligations. This leads to a conception of a historical morality according to which the demands of morality rise in the long run. Applying this conception to the greenhouse effect implies that presently we have the moral duty to raise the standards of greenhouse gas abatement as much as is politically feasible. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Kant’s aesthetic theory of the sublime has particular relevance for his ethics of virtue. Kant contends that our readiness to revel in natural sublimity depends upon a background commitment to moral ends. Further lessons about the emotional register of the sublime allow us to understand how Kant can plausibly contend that the temperament of virtue is both sublime and joyous at the same time.

I discuss the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one, more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished (...) image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes, which she seems to endorse even though it is an image manufactured by the same writers she choose as a polemical target; d) the difficulty to identify the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favor of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is precisely a response to difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action, a case for which Anscombe herself has nothing better to offer. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, “rival soul-pictures.” In this paper I clarify Murdoch’s generic notion of “soul-picture,” the genus of which, for example, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Murdoch’s constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a (...) class='Hi'>moral psychology must meet in order to qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self that is 1) holistic, 2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), 3) reflexive, 4) therapeutic and 5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language. (shrink)

Empirical research into moral decision-making is often taken to have normative implications. For instance, in his recent book, Greene (2013) relies on empirical findings to establish utilitarianism as a superior normative ethical theory. Kantian ethics, and deontological ethics more generally, is a rival view that Greene attacks. At the heart of Greene’s argument against deontology is the claim that deontological moral judgments are the product of certain emotions and not of reason. Deontological ethics is a mere rationalization (...) of these emotions. Accordingly Greene maintains that deontology should be abandoned. This paper is a defense of deontological ethical theory. It argues that Greene’s argument against deontology needs further support. Greene’s empirical evidence is open to alternative interpretations. In particular, it is not clear that Greene’s characterization of alarm-like emotions that are relative to culture and personal experience is empirically tenable. Moreover, it is implausible that such emotions produce specifically deontological judgments. A rival sentimentalist view, according to which all moral judgments are determined by emotion, is at least as plausible given the empirical evidence and independently supported by philosophical theory. I therefore call for an improvement of Greene’s argument. (shrink)

In the essays collected here, Apel addresses some of the points of the discourse ethics controversy by responding to critics and developing his original formulation in different directions: a) the distinction between two stages of discourse ethics, relating respectively to the ideal community of communication and the real community; in the second stage, while maintaining the principle of equal dignity of communication partners as a regulatory idea, deontological ethics should be integrated with an ethics of responsibility; b) placing a deontological (...) ethics as a post-conventional ethics within an evolutionary reconstruction of individual development and the history of humankind in the light of Gehlen's anthropology and Kohlberg's psychological theory of moral development; c) a recognition of a certain validity in the neo-Hegelian claim of the ineliminable role of morality or Sittlichkeit in the face of all universalistic ethics, accompanied, however, by the characterization of ethics as a compromise between universalistic instances and concrete cultural and institutional data, without any concession, yet, to the thesis of incommensurability between different forms of life. (shrink)

Laura Papish’s Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform is an ambitious attempt to breath new life into old debates and a welcome contribution to a recent renaissance of interest in Kant’s theory of evil. ​The book has eight chapters, and these chapters fall into three main divisions. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the psychology of nonmoral and immoral action. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 focus on self-deception, evil, and dissimulation. And chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus (...) on self-cognition, moral reform, and moral progress. I shall begin with a brief summary of these chapters. Then I shall turn to commentary. (shrink)

This paper discusses the philosophical issues pertaining to Kantian moral agency and artificial intelligence. Here, our objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Kantian ethics to elucidate the non-feasibility of Kantian machines. Meanwhile, the possibility of Kantian machines seems to contend with the genuine human Kantian agency. We argue that in machine morality, ‘duty’ should be performed with ‘freedom of will’ and ‘happiness’ because Kant narrated the human tendency of evaluating our ‘natural necessity’ (...) through ‘happiness’ as the end. Lastly, we argue that the Kantian ‘freedom of will’ and ‘faculty of choice’ do not belong to any deterministic model of ‘agency’ as these are sacrosanct systems. The conclusion narrates the non-feasibility of Kantian AI agents from the genuine Kantian ethical outset, offering a utility-based Kantian ethical performer instead. (shrink)

John Rawls shares the Enlightenment's commitment to finding moral and political principles which can be reflectively endorsed by all individuals autonomously. He usually presents reflective autonomy in Kantian, rationalist terms: autonomy is identified with the exercise of reason, and principles of justice must be constructed which are acceptable to all on the basis of reason alone. Yet David Hume, Adam Smith and many other Enlightenment thinkers rejected such rationalism, searching instead for principles which can be endorsed by all (...) on the basis of all the faculties of the human psyche, emotion and imagination included. The influence of these sentimentalists on Rawls is clearest in his descriptive moral psychology, but I argue that it is also present in Rawls's understanding of the sources of normativity. Although this debt is obscured by Rawls's explicit "Kantianism," his theory would be strengthened by a greater understanding of its debts to the sentimentalist Enlightenment. (shrink)

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we (...) argue that the implicit aim of the central moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)

Scholars disagree about whether and how Kant manages to avoid dualistic outcomes in the relation between freedom and sensibility within the moral agent. If he does not – if he portrays a moral agent who must judge and act without taking emotions, sentiments, and passions into account – then authors such as Blackburn can rightly argue that Kantian ethics loses sight of the concrete individual, whose sensibility has a fundamental role, taking part in the definition of her (...) specific identity. I argue that this portrait comes from a disputable and incomplete reading of Kant’s works. There is no dualistic outcome in the relation between freedom and sensibility in Kant. My aim is to show that there is a bridge between the rational and the sensible elements within the Kantian agent and that it can be reconstructed by analysing Kant’s works on ethics, aesthetics, and anthropology. Specifically, those elements must be thought of as in accordance, not in opposition, because sensibility is necessary for Kant’s ethics to be effective, both for the agent’s awareness of the moral law and for the agent’s motivation. (shrink)

Observations of animals engaging in apparently moral behavior have led academics and the public alike to ask whether morality is shared between humans and other animals. Some philosophers explicitly argue that morality is unique to humans, because moral agency requires capacities that are only demonstrated in our species. Other philosophers argue that some animals can participate in morality because they possess these capacities in a rudimentary form. Scientists have also joined the discussion, and their views are just as (...) varied as the philosophers’. Some research programs examine whether animals countenance specific human norms, such as fairness. Other research programs investigate the cognitive and affective capacities thought to be necessary for morality. There are two sets of concerns that can be raised by these debates. They sometimes suffer from there being no agreed upon theory of morality and no clear account of whether there is a demarcation between moral and social behavior; that is, they lack a proper philosophical foundation. They also sometimes suffer from there being disagreement about the psychological capacities evident in animals. Of these two sets of concerns—the nature of the moral and the scope of psychological capacities—we aim to take on only the second. In this chapter we defend the claim that animals have three sets of capacities that, on some views, are taken as necessary and foundational for moral judgment and action. These are capacities of care, capacities of autonomy, and normative capacities. Care, we argue, is widely found among social animals. Autonomy and normativity are more recent topics of empirical investigation, so while there is less evidence of these capacities at this point in our developing scientific knowledge, the current data is strongly suggestive. (shrink)

How can we make moral progress on factory farming? Part of the answer lies in human moral psychology. Meat consumption remains high, despite increased awareness of its negative impact on animal welfare. Weakness of will is part of the explanation: acceptance of the ethical arguments doesn’t always motivate changes in dietary habits. However, we draw on scientific evidence to argue that many consumers aren’t fully convinced that they morally ought to reduce their meat consumption. We then identify (...) two key psychological mechanisms—motivated reasoning and social proof—that lead people to resist the ethical reasons. Finally, we show how to harness these psychological mechanisms to encourage reductions in meat consumption. A central lesson for moral progress generally is that durable social change requires socially-embedded reasoning. (shrink)

This paper argues that although moral intuitions are insufficient for making judgments on new technological innovations, they maintain great utility for informing responsible innovation. To do this, this paper employs the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology as an illustrative example of how stakeholder values can be better distilled to inform responsible innovation. Further, it is argued that moral intuitions are necessary for determining stakeholder values required for the design of responsible technologies. This argument is supported by the claim (...) that the moral intuitions of stakeholders allow designers to conceptualize stakeholder values and incorporate them into the early phases of design. It is concluded that design-for-values (DFV) frameworks like the VSD methodology can remain potent if developers adopt heuristic tools to diminish the influence of cognitive biases thus strengthening the reliability of moral intuitions. (shrink)

Coordinating competing interests can be difficult. Because law regulates human behavior, it is a candidate mechanism for creating coordination in the face of societal disagreement. We argue that findings from moral psy- chology are necessary to understand why law can effectively resolve co- occurring conflicts related to punishment and group membership. First, we discuss heterogeneity in punitive thought, focusing on punishment within the United States legal system. Though the law exerts a weak influence on punitive ideologies before punishment occurs, (...) we argue that it effectively coordinates perceptions of individuals who have already been punished. Next, we discuss intergroup conflict, which often co-occurs with disagree- ments related to punishment and represents a related domain where coor- dination can be difficult to achieve. Here, we underscore how insights from moral psychology can promote equality via the law. These examples demonstrate how contributions from moral psychology are necessary to understand the connection between social cognition and law. (shrink)

Putting together Kant's theory of emotion is complicated by two facts: (1) Kant has no term which is an obvious equivalent of "emotion" as used in contemporary English; (2) theorists disagree about what emotions are. These obstacles notwithstanding, my dissertation aims to provide the foundation for a reconstruction of Kant's theory of emotion that is both historically accurate and responsive to contemporary philosophical concerns. In contrast to available approaches which rest on contested assumptions about emotions, I start from the generally (...) accepted and reasonable premise that what we call "emotions" refers in Kant to a set of mental states, some of which he associates with the feeling of pleasure and displeasure ("feelings"), others with the faculty of desire ("desires"). I then proceed to examine the nature of these two kinds of mental states and their proper treatment. I argue that Kantian feelings are representations of objects' relation to the subject, that have a felt quality, and dispose their subject to certain behaviors. While feelings can only motivate action by causing desires and have no temporal direction, desires - except for certain wishes - are future-directed, which allows them to motivate actions immediately (but they need not bring action about). Equipped with this account of feelings and desires, I proceed to examine the kind of treatment Kant prescribes for them, and argue that feelings (except affects) should be cultivated, that is, acquired and improved so that they could be used to pursue rational ends, while inclinations, i.e., habitual sensuous desires, should generally be disciplined, that is, constrained by rules. The resultant picture is compelling because it rests on minimal assumptions about emotions and successfully incorporates the phenomenological, evaluative, and dispositional functions traditionally associated with emotions. (shrink)

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2022 | The Moral Psychology of Hate provides the first systematic introduction to the moral psychology of hate, compiling specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars with a wide range of disciplinary orientations. In light of the recent revival of interest in emotions in academic philosophy and the current social and political interest in hate, this volume provides arguments for and against the value of hate through a combination of (...) empirical and philosophical methods. The authors examine hate not merely as a destructive feeling but as an emotion of great moral significance that illuminates how we understand each other and ourselves. The book will be of major interest to anyone concerned with the dynamics and the moral and political implications of this most powerful of human emotions. (shrink)

Expressivists claim that normative judgments (NJ) are non-cognitive states. But what kind of states are they, exactly? Expressivists need to provide us with an adequate account of their nature. Here, I argue that there are structural features that render this task rather daunting. The worry takes the form of a looming dilemma: NJ are either conative states (i.e. states with a world-to-mind direction of fit) or they are not. If they are, then they are either attitudes de se (i.e. attitudes (...) about oneself) or they are not. If they are, then they’re unable to account for disagreement. If they are not, then they're unable to account for agent-relative NJ. So NJ cannot be conative states (they cannot have a world-to-mind direction of fit). On the other hand, however, if NJ are not conative states (if they are states without a direction of fit, like affective or other sui generis non-cognitive, non-conative attitudes) then it remains a mystery how they support relations of disagreement. (shrink)