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Samuel J. M. Kahn
Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis
  1. Defending the Traditional Interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2019 - Theoria 66 (158):76-102.
    In this paper I defend the traditional interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature from recent attacks leveled by Faviola Rivera-Castro, James Furner, Ido Geiger, Pauline Kleingeld and Sven Nyholm. After a short introduction, the paper is divided into four main sections. In the first, I set out the basics of the three traditional interpretations, the Logical Contradiction Interpretation, the Practical Contradiction Interpretation and the Teleological Contradiction Interpretation. In the second, I examine the work of Geiger, Kleingeld and (...)
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  2. Kant’s theory of conscience.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2015 - In Pablo Muchnik & Oliver Thorndike (eds.), Rethinking Kant: Volume IV. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 135-156.
    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 (...)
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  3. Reassessing the foundations of Korsgaard’s approach to ethics.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2017 - Dialegesthai. Rivista Telematica di Filosofia:online.
    In a series of well known publications, Christine Korsgaard argues for the claim that an agent acts morally just in case s/he acts autonomously. Two of Korsgaard's signature arguments for the connection between morality and autonomy are the "argument from spontaneity" and the "regress argument." In this paper, I argue that neither the argument from spontaneity nor the regress argument is able to show that an agent would be acting wrongly even if s/he acts in a paradigmatically heteronomous fashion.
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  4. A Kantian take on fallible principles and fallible judgments.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2014 - American Dialectic 4 (1):1-27.
    According to Kant, if an agent acts according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that s/he ought as far as morality is concerned. But Kant thinks that agents can be mistaken in their subjective determinations of their duties. That is, Kant thinks it is possible for an agent to believe that some action X is right even though it is an objective truth that X is not right; according to Kant, agents do not have infallible knowledge of right (...)
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  5. A Problem for Frankfurt Examples.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2021 - Southwest Philosophy Review 37 (1):159-167.
    In this paper I intend to raise a problem for so-called Frankfurt examples. I begin by describing the examples and what they are used for. Then I describe the problem.
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  6. A reply to Bencivenga, “Consequences in Kantian Ethics.”.Samuel J. M. Kahn - 2013 - American Dialectic (1):285-288.
    In Bencivenga’s “Consequences in Kantian Ethics,” he offers a version of Kant’s ethics according to which the most rational approach to living one’s life is “to always imagine what might follow from one’s moves and to choose moves accordingly” (284), but according to which agents always nevertheless must be modest in their judgments about what they ought to do because the actual consequences of their actions might not turn out as they imagined. In this way, he tries to foreground the (...)
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