Kant's Account of Motivation: A Sartrean Response to Some Hegelian Objections

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (01) ◽  
pp. 86-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sorin Baiasu
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Rational Person ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Habitual Responses ◽  
Acting From Duty

Ethical motivation represents an important aspect of Kant's practical philosophy, one without which much of Kant's distinctive position would be lost. Not surprisingly, it is also one of those aspects of Kantianism to which Hegelian criticism directs its focus with predilection. Central to Kant's account of moral motivation is the distinction between acting merely in accordance with duty and acting from duty. When he introduces this distinction, in the Groundwork, Kant also points to the epistemic difficulties of properly drawing the distinction. A key concept here is, without any doubt, that of duty, and Kant begins with a preliminary definition: the notion of duty is a notion ‘which contains that of a good will though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances’ (G: 4: 397). What this definition tells us is that, although beings which are only governed by practical reason without any admixture of inclinations and sensuous drives, that is, purely rational beings, will also have a good will, such beings do not have duties precisely because they lack the ‘subjective limitations and hindrances’ of sensuous motivating forces, such as desires, passions, habitual responses. If a person spontaneously and necessarily acts as duty requires, then it does not make sense to talk about an obligation for this person to act as duty requires. Such a person must be a purely rational person, since only she can always and necessarily act as (practical) reason requires. By contrast, beings with limitations and hindrances, like us, act spontaneously and necessarily as natural laws require and, hence, it does not make sense to talk about our obligation or duty to observe the laws of nature.

Why God is probably good: a response to the evil-god challenge

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
CALUM MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Good And Evil

AbstractA number of philosophers have recently defended the evil-god challenge, which is to explain relevant asymmetries between believing in a perfectly good God and believing in a perfectly evil god, such that the former is more reasonable than the latter. In this article, I offer a number of such reasons. I first suggest that certain conceptions of the ontology of good and evil can offer asymmetries which make theism a simpler hypothesis than ‘maltheism’. I then argue that maltheism is itself complex in a variety of ways: it is difficult to articulate a simple precise version of maltheism; maltheism posits a mixture of positive and negative properties; maltheism posits a more complex relationship between moral motivation, practical reason and action; and maltheism relevantly parallels other epistemically ‘complex’ sceptical scenarios.

Die Institutionalisierung des Nichtinstitutionellen

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben Hartwig
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Argumentation Theory ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Legal Argumentation

The volume examines the relation between law, reason, and discourse in Robert Alexy’s legal philosophy. The examination follows Alexy’s own description of his greater project. In his “Theorie der juristischen Argumentation” [Theory of Legal Argumentation] of 1978, Alexy speaks of the Kantian idea of designing a “Code of Practical Reason”. Today, Alexy is prepared to rest his entire case on the idea of an “Institutionalization of Reason”. The work undertakes the reconstruction of the concept of practical reason underlying this idea. To this end, it examines both the roots that go back to Kant’s practical philosophy, as well as the system represented by Alexys’s legal philosophy, which has grown over a period of more than 40 years. At its center is the thesis of the necessity of a realization of reason through rational practical discourse in law – in short, Alexy’s attempt to institutionalize the non-institutional.

Delusions of Virtue: Kant on Self-Conceit

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Moran
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Practical Philosophy

AbstractLittle extended attention has been given to Kant’s notion of self-conceit (Eigendünkel), though it appears throughout his theoretical and practical philosophy. Authors who discuss self-conceit often describe it as a kind of imperiousness or arrogance in which the conceited agent seeks to impose selfish principles upon others, or sees others as worthless. I argue that these features of self-conceit are symptoms of a deeper and more thoroughgoing failure. Self-conceit is best described as the tendency to insist upon one’s own theoretical or practical conclusions at any cost, while still wanting to appear – to oneself or to others – as though one is abiding by the constraints of theoretical or practical reason. Self-conceit is thus less centrally the tendency to impose one’s will or inclinations upon others, and more centrally the tendency to reconstruct evidence and rationalize so that one may be convinced of one’s own virtue. While the conceited agent may ultimately impose her judgement upon others, she does so in order to preserve her delusion of virtue.

Pirates, Kings and Reasons to Ad: Moral Motivation and the Role of Sanctions in Locke's Moral Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Sheridan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Moral Rules

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties.

scholarly journals Practical Reason

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-148
Author(s):  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Andrey Breus
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
Analytical Theory ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Interpretative Sociology

Paul Ricœur’s essay “Practical Reason” was initially published in 1979, and later became part of the book Du texte à l’action: essais d’herméneutique II (1986), marking Ricœur’s transition from the general problems of the justification of hermeneutics as a legitimate philosophical discipline to the problems of practical philosophy in a broad sense. Relying on the analytical theory of action, the interpretative sociology of M. Weber, and the Hegelian critique of Kantian ethics, Ricœur seeks to restore the Aristotelian concept of phronesis or “practical wisdom” in the context of modern philosophizing. This turns out to be unexpectedly relevant where neither Kant’s deontology nor the Hegelian Sittlichkeit can adequately express the entirety of human practical experience in a world where ideology and alienation have become inevitable components of social life.

The Idea of a World Order

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
Danie Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
World Order ◽  
Physical Aspect ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Dooyeweerd was struck by the fact that different systems of philosophy expressly oriented their philosophic thought to the idea of a divine world order. The dialectic of form and matter permeated both Greek and medieval philosophy. The distinction between natural laws and laws of nature is highlighted with reference to Descartes and Beeckman. A key distinction for an understanding of the order of the world is given in the difference between modal laws and type laws. In order to substantiate this claim, an explication of the nature of the order for the world has to explore elements derived from the four most basic modes of explanation: number (the one and the many), space (universality), the kinematic (constancy), and the physical aspect (change). These points of entry serve theoretical thought with terms that may either be employed in a conceptual way or in a concept-transcending way. The influence of nominalism on the thought of Dooyeweerd is analyzed in some more detail.

Language, conventionality of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World

When we say that smoke means fire or that those spots mean measles, we are noting how the presence of one thing indicates the presence of another. For these natural relationships to continue, it is enough that the laws of nature remain the same. The connection between the two states is strictly causal. By contrast when we say, ‘In English, "gold" means this stuff’, pointing at some metal, we are insisting on an arbitrary connection between a piece of language and part of the world. We might have used another word, as other languages do, or have used this word for something else. But, for a word to have the literal meaning it does in a language, this arbitrary connection must be sustained on subsequent occasions of use. What is needed to sustain the connection is an intention on our part, not just the continued operation of natural laws. Of course, some connections between words and things are based on natural relations; there is, for example, onomatopoeia. However, few words have this feature. For the majority of words it is quite arbitrary that they have the meanings they do, and this has led many to suppose that the regularities needed to sustain the connections between words and what they stand for are conventional rather than causal. But there are also those who deny that convention is an essential feature of language.

Against Necessitarianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer McKitrick
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Dispositional Properties

The laws of nature are at most physically necessary, and they are not metaphysically necessary. Dispositional Essentialists claim that if natural laws derive from powers, then the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. But the idea that properties have dispositional essences does not entail necessitarianism for several reasons. There might be no laws of nature. The laws might have exceptions, or be probabilistic. There are non-dispositional properties that could figure in contingent laws. The world might have contained different properties. Finally, even if a property has a dispositional essence, it might have had a slightly different causal profile. Furthermore, the Necessitarian’s views are less revisionary than they initially seem.

God and the Good

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-154
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Insole
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
External Object ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Will

This chapter studies Kant’s dramatic rupture, both with his own earlier position about the highest created good, and with any theological or philosophical tradition that he would have received (from scholastic or Lutheran sources). The unconditioned, that which is all-sufficient for practical reason and the will, is not, as it would be for traditional Christian theology, loving and knowing God. Pivotal here is Kant’s rejection of any ‘external object’ for the will and practical reason. Rather, the unconditioned, for Kant, is the will itself, in its activity of rational willing, or, as Kant puts it, the ‘good will’. Kant is convinced that only in this way is genuine human freedom protected.

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