Moral Law and the Highest Good. By E. Morris MillerM.A., Litt.D. (Melbourne: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.: Melbourne University Press. 1928. Pp. ix + 235. Price 6s. 6d.)

Philosophy ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 5 (17) ◽  
pp. 133-134
Author(s):  
G. C. Field
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Insole

AbstractKant is clear that the concept of the ‘highest good’ involves both a demand, that we follow the moral law, as well as a promise, that happiness will be the outcome of being moral. The latter element of the highest good has troubled commentators, who tend to find it metaphysically extravagant, involving, as it does, belief in God and an afterlife. Furthermore, it seems to threaten the moral purity that Kant demands: that we obey the moral law for its own sake, not out of interest in the consequences. Those commentators brave enough to tackle the issue look to the concept of the highest good either to add content to the moral law (Silber), or to provide rational motivation, in a way that does not violate moral purity (Beiser and Wood). I argue that such interpretations, although they may be plausible reconstructions, are unable to account for certain conceptual and textual problems. By placing Kant's thought against the background of medieval theology, I argue that the hope for the summum bonum is irreducibly important for Kant, even where its function is not that of providing the content or motivational force of the moral law. Kant is not only concerned with the shape of our duties and motivations, but the shape of the universe within which these emerge.


2020 ◽  
pp. 354-380
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Insole

The chapter argues that we can construe the relationship between Kant’s account of the moral law and God as a type of concurring moral dependence, on the basis of formal causation, such that the very activity of willing the moral law is a type of participation in the uncreated divine mind. In the end, morality does require divinity, and, even, a (carefully specified) type of divine activity, albeit that we do not arrive at this commitment through a traditional acceptance of the categories of revelation and faith. It is argued that there is a defensible sense of the notion of ‘divinity’ that Kant can be said to have warrant to believe in, given his assumptions about freedom, although it is a rather different sort of divinity from the ‘divine being’ of philosophical (let alone Christian) theism. I suggest that in his final fragmentary writings, Kant might be said to show some awareness of this. This interpretation throws a new light on Kant’s conception of the Kingdom of Ends, whereby the happiness that constitutes the highest good can be construed as an enactment of divinity, through willing the moral law, rather than the contemplation of a divine being.


Kant-Studien ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-298
Author(s):  
Georg Geismann

Abstract Time and again, one finds in the literature the view that Kant held a pre-critical or semi-critical moral philosophy in the canon chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is shown, firstly, by the fact that practical freedom is understood as cognized through experience and, secondly, by the fact that Kant not only allows a sensuous incentive for the observance of the moral law, but considers it necessary. Against that, it is argued in this essay that, firstly, moral philosophy as such is not addressed in the canon at all and, secondly, that the canon by no means approves of sensuous incentives with regard to the morally required promotion of the highest good. What is indeed addressed, although only in the second section of the canon, is moral theology.


Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Nataliya Palatnik

AbstractMany Kantians dismiss Kant’s claim that we have a duty to promote the highest good – an ideal world that combines complete virtue with complete happiness – as incompatible with the core of his moral philosophy. This dismissal, I argue, raises doubts about Kant’s ability to justify the moral law, yet it is a mistake. A duty to promote the highest good plays an important role in the justificatory strategy of the Critique of Practical Reason. Moreover, its analysis leads to a new perspective on Kant’s conception of moral objectivity.


Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Kahn

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


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (135) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Gabriel Almeida Assumpção

Resumo: A leitura da Crítica da Razão Prática permite perceber que a moral kantiana não consiste em mero formalismo, abrindo espaço para uma discussão sobre os fins morais. O fim último a que o ser racional cuja vontade é determinada pela lei moral se propõe a produzir é o conceito de sumo Bem, ligação sintética a priori entre virtude como causa e felicidade moralmente condicionada como efeito. Ciente das dificuldades para a produção do objeto proposto, Kant recorre aos postulados da razão prática pura (liberdade, imortalidade da alma e existência de Deus) e estabelece um contraponto entre o cristianismo e escolas pagãs da antiguidade que não aceitariam tais pressuposições (na visão de Kant), os estóicos e os epicuristas. Buscamos mostrar, com o presente estudo, a fecundidade do diálogo entre Kant e o cristianismo, bem como o esforço kantiano de tentar fazer jus a diferentes dimensões do ser humano: tanto a afetividade quanto a moralidade.Abstract: Reading the Critique of Practical Reason enables us to realize that Kantian morality is not mere formalism, but is rather an opening to discuss moral ends. The ultimate goal of the rational being, whose will is determined by moral law, is the concept of the Highest Good, the a priori synthetic connection between virtue as a cause and a morally conditioned happiness as an effect. Aware of the difficulties related to the proposed object, Kant resorts to the postulates of practical reason (freedom, immortality of the soul and the existence of God) and counterpoints Christianity with two ancient pagan schools, the Stoics and the Epicureans, which, according to the philosopher, would not accept such assumptions. The present study aims to show there is a fecund dialogue between Kant and Christianity, as well as the author’s attempt to do justice to the following dimensions of the human being: affectivity and morality.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
João Carlos Brum Torres

O artigo tem por objeto o exame de três registros de gritantes e distintos paradoxos na Doutrina do Direito de Kant. Registros feitos em tempos e contextos históricos diferentes por Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek atribuiu a Kant a mais paradoxal das proposições jamais enunciadas por qualquer autor, a de que a mera ideia de soberania deve obrigar-nos a obedecer como a nosso inquestionável senhor a quem quer que se haja estabelecido como tal, sem que caiba indagar quem lhe deu o direito de comandar-nos. Willaschek aponta a incompatibilidade de duas teses centrais da doutrina kantiana: a do caráter externo dos vínculos jurídicos e a da incondicionalidade obrigacional do direito positivo, pois não é possível entender como é possível termo-nos como obrigados por imperativos jurídicos e, ao mesmo, vermo-nos internamente isentados do dever de obedecê-los. O ponto crítico de Balthazar é alegar que não pode haver na filosofia kantiana uma crítica da razão político e jurídica, simplesmente porque o conceito de imputação, base da normatividade própria dessas esferas, pressupõe uma pluralidade de agentes livres que, justamente, só pode ser uma pressuposição, pois nosso acesso à normatividade prática só pode ter lugar em primeira pessoa. No exame a que o artigo submete essas alegações, o artigo argumenta, em objeção à tese de Balthazar, que o caráter universal e categórico da força que vincula o sujeito quando confrontado com a lei moral em primeira pessoa necessariamente se desvaneceria se, ao mesmo tempo, ele não fosse tomado pela evidência de que a realidade objetiva dos princípios morais é não só instanciável, mas assegurada pela múltipla instanciação. Com relação às dificuldades levantadas por Willaschek e Bouterwek, o artigo argumenta que o princípio exeundum e statu naturali, enquanto norma metapositiva, anterior à divisão do domínio prático entre doutrina do direito e doutrina da virtude, permite ao mesmo tempo compreender a exigência de obediência ao poder constituído e a restrição das obrigações jurídico-políticas exclusivamente ao foro externo.AbstractThe object of the article is to examine three claims about three distinct and allegedly blatant paradoxes in Kant's Doctrine of Right. These three critical points had been made in distinct times and contexts by Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek attributed to Kant the most paradoxical of all paradoxical propositions, the statement that by the mere idea of sovereignty we are obliged to obey as our lord who has imposed himself upon us, without questioning from where he got such right. Willaschek points out the incompatibility of two main theses of Kantian doctrine of right: the claims that the legal bounds are of external character and that they are the source of unconditional obligations, since it seems impossible to understand how it would be possible to be obliged by juridical norms and decisions and at the same time to be exempted of the internal duty of compliance. The radical objection of Professor Balthazar is the claim that in the context of Kantian Philosophy it is impossible to admit a critique of the juridical and political reason because the concept of imputation, ground of the normativity in these domains, requires not only the presupposition of free agents, but a true and secure epistemic access to them, which is, according to him, impossible considering that the moral law and the other practical principles are accessible for us only in the first person. In the course of the appraisal of such claims, the article contest that objection arguing that the universal and categorical force of the normative bound experienced by the subject when confronted with the moral law in the first person would ineluctably vanish if, at the same time, he had not been taken by the evidence that the objective reality of the moral principles is secured by multiple instancing. Regarding the difficulties raised by Willaschek and Bouterwek, the article argues that the principle exeundum e statu naturali, as a norm of meta-positive character, prior to the division of practical domains between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue, is the cue both to the understanding of the requirement of unquestioning obedience to the constituted power and to the restriction of the validity of this requirement only in foro externo.


Author(s):  
Susan Sauvé Meyer

This chapter presents a an overview of the themes and topics of Plato’s Laws and then focusses on the grand hierarchy of divine and human goods identified in book I (631b-d) as the reference point of all proper legislation. The hierarchy rests on a conception of virtue distinct from what we find in other Platonic dialogues. It ranks courage last among the virtues and describes justice as a blend of moderation with wisdom and courage. This chapter argues that courage is ranked last because it is a natural or non-rational trait of fearlessness, analogous to the “ordinary” trait of moderation (self-restraint in the face of pleasure) that is presented as a trifling virtue in books III and IV. Justice, as conceived of in the Laws, requires combining these two traits and informing them with wisdom. The chapter concludes by noting that the leading role played by wisdom in Plato’s hierarchy of goods prefigures Aristotle’s conception of the highest good.


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