Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Project

This opening chapter explains the book’s overarching aims, themes, structure, and approach. The book’s aim is to critically assess Nietzsche’s ethical thought and its significance for contemporary (broadly analytic) moral philosophy. It does this in two main ways: by developing a charitable but critical reconstruction of his ethics; and by using Nietzsche to contribute to a range of longstanding issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The chapter locates Nietzsche’s ethical project in his ‘revaluation of all values’, outlining a variety of interpretive and philosophical puzzles this raises. It then gives a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book’s topics and direction, and addresses some methodological matters bearing on its interpretive and philosophical ambitions.

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Principal Parts

Nietzsche is one of the most subversive ethical thinkers of the Western canon. This book offers a critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. It develops a charitable but critical reading of his thought, pushing some claims and arguments as far as seems fruitful while rejecting others. But it also uses Nietzsche in dialogue with, so to contribute to, a range of long-standing issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The book is divided into three principal parts. Part I examines Nietzsche’s critique of morality, arguing that it raises well-motivated challenges to morality’s normative authority and value: his error theory about morality’s categoricity is in a better position than many contemporary versions; and his critique of moral values has bite even against undemanding moral theories, with significant implications not just for rarefied excellent types but also us. Part II turns to moral psychology, attributing to Nietzsche and defending a sentimentalist explanation of action and motivation. Part III considers his non-moral perfectionism, developing models of value and practical normativity that avoid difficulties facing many contemporary accounts and that may therefore be of wider interest. The discussion concludes by considering Nietzsche’s broader significance: as well as calling into question many of moral philosophy’s deepest assumptions, he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.

Schiller's Critique of Kant's Moral Psychology: Reconciling Practical Reason and an Ethics of Virtue

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Kantian Morality ◽  
Kantian Moral Theory

Mention of the name of Friedrich Schiller among both critics and defenders of Kant's moral philosophy has most often been with reference to the well known quip:“Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure.Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person.““Sure, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely,And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you.''This attention, however, has served to obscure the fact that Schiller truly intended his remark as a joke, representing a serious, if understandable, misinterpretation of Kantian morality. Though Schiller's various attempts to articulate a theory of moral motivation include important divergences from Kant's account, they represent a response to a set of problems that arise in the context of Kantian moral theory. As such, they may be of greatest interest to moralists who are working within the Kantian tradition. In this paper, I clarify certain points of Schiller's critique of Kant's account of moral motivation and place them in the context of his broader project of reconciling Kantianism and an ethics of virtue.

Simplicity and Authority: Reflections on Theory and Practice in Kant's Moral Philosophy

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Timmermann
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Ethical Systems

AbstractWhat is the proper task of Kantian ethical theory? This paper seeks to answer this question with reference to Kant's reply to Christian Garve in Section I of his 1793 essay on Theory and Practice. Kant reasserts the distinctness and natural authority of our consciousness of the moral law. Every mature human being is a moral professional—even philosophers like Garve, if only they forget about their ill-conceived ethical systems and listen to the voice of pure practical reason. Normative theory, Kant argues, cannot be refuted with reference to alleged experience. It is the proper task of the moral philosopher to emphasize this fact. The paper also discusses Kant's attempts to clarify his moral psychology, philosophy of value and conception of the highest good in the course of replying to Garve's challenge.

scholarly journals Charting Moral Psychology’s Significance for Bioethics: Routes to Bioethical Progress, its Limits, and Lessons from Moral Philosophy

Diametros ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (64) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Klenk
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Decision Situation ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
Radical Revision

Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of (1) the decision situation, (2) the origin and legitimacy of their moral concepts, (3) efficient options for implementing (legitimate) decisions, and (4) how to change and improve some parts of their moral framework. Second, metaethical considerations suggest that moral psychology may lead to the radical revision of entire moral frameworks and thus prompt the radical revision of entire moral frameworks in bioethics. However, I show that bioethics must either relinquish these radical implications of moral psychology and accept that there are limits to progress in bioethics based on moral psychology or establish an epistemic framework that guides radical revision.

Practical Reason and Moral Psychology in Aristotle and Kant

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bernard Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Long Time ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
English Speaking World

For a long time, it seemed that Aristotelians and Kantians had little to say to each other. When Kant the moralist was known in the English-speaking world primarily from his Groundwork and his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant's conceptual vocabulary of “duty,” “law,” “maxim,” and “morality” appeared quite foreign to Aristotle's “virtue,” “end,” “good,” and “character.” Yet ever since philosopher Mary Gregor's Laws of Freedom, published in 1963, made Kant's The Metaphysics of Morals central to the interpretation of his ethical thought, it has become clear that such “Aristotelian” terms as virtue, end, good, happiness, and character are also central to Kant. Aristotelians and Kantians now see that they have plenty to say to each other, and they have gone from being adversaries to sharing a sometimes unprincipled urge to merge central aspects of Aristotle's and Kant's ethical thought.

scholarly journals Rationalizing (Vernünfteln)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Sticker
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Moral Transgressions

Kant was a keen psychological observer and theorist of the forms, mechanisms and sources of self-deception. In this Element, the author discusses the role of rationalizing/Vernünfteln for Kant's moral psychology, normative ethics and philosophical methodology. By drawing on the full breadth of examples of rationalizing Kant discusses, the author shows how rationalizing can extend to general features of morality and corrupt rational agents thoroughly (albeit not completely and not irreversibly). Furthermore, the author explains the often-overlooked roles common human reason, empirical practical reason and even pure practical reason play for rationalizing. Kant is aware that rationality is a double-edged sword; reason is the source of morality and of our dignity, but it also enables us to seemingly justify moral transgressions to ourselves, and it creates an interest in this justification in the first place. Finally, this Element discusses whether Kant's ethical theory itself can be criticised as a product of rationalizing.

scholarly journals A Crítica da razão prática e o estoicismo

DoisPontos ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valério Rohden
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Precise Determination ◽  
Ancient Ethics ◽  
The Subject

No presente trabalho será demonstrada a estreita, embora discreta, relação da filosofia moral de Kant com a ética antiga, especialmente com o estoicismo de Cícero. O tema será explicitado mediante uma aproximação entre as obras da Crítica da razão prática e Sobre os fins (De finibus), respectivamente de cada um desses autores. Será destacada a crítica de Kant à identificação entre virtude e felicidade e sua reformulação sintética no conceito de “sumo bem”. Na conclusão se torna claro que a realização moral da razão, reivindicada por Cícero, encontra na reformulação de Kant sua determinação mais precisa. The crises of practical reason and stoicism Abstract The present paper shows the close albeit subtle relation of Kant’s moral philosophy to ancient ethics, especially Cicero’s Stoicism. The subject is made explicit by means of a rapprochement between the Critique of practical reason and De finibus, so as to be highlight Kant’s criticism of the classical identifying of virtue and happiness and his synthetical recasting of the concept of the supreme good. The essay concludes by making clear that the moral actualization of reason, reclaimed by Cicero, finds in Kant’s reformulation its most precise determination.

scholarly journals Between Kantian Rationalism and Moral Mysticism: The Search for the Grounding of Morality in the Philosophy of A. Jokubaitis

Politologija ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Aistė Noreikaitė
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
First Person ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Moral Subject ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
The One ◽  
Implicit Normativity

Although it is common to associate the thought of A. Jokubaitis with political philosophy, this article argues that his texts also allow us to talk about a specific moral philosophy of A. Jokubaitis. At the center of it we find an attempt to articulate and discuss the grounding ideas of morality. The article argues that the first two ideas – an idea of unconditional character of morality and an idea of ontological grounding – are related to Kant’s influence on A. Jokubaitis philosophy. These two ideas allow us to explain morality as an autonomous part of reality, which is different from the empirical one but nonetheless real. This part of reality is grounded in the first-person perspective of a moral subject and can be characterized by implicit normativity and unconditionality. The first-person perspective structures a radically different relation to our reality, which allows us to be agents, not simply spectators. Such an interpretation of Kant allows to associate A. Jokubaitis with his contemporary Kantians, such as Ch. Korsgaard, B. Herman, O. O’Neill, and A. Reath. However, the third idea, the one of a person, which becomes more visible in his book Politinis idiotas, transcends the Kantian conception of practical reason and encourages to perceive morality and its grounding in a much wider context. The concept of a person allows A. Jokubaitis to distance himself from Kantian rationalism and integrate social and mystical aspects of morality, which he has always found important.

Reconstruction in Moral Philosophy?

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Braddock ◽  
Alexander Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals ◽  
Ethical Project

AbstractWe raise throe issues for Kitcher’s Ethical Project: First, we argue that the genealogy of morals starts well before the advent of altruism-failures and the need to remedy them, which Kitcher dates at about 50K years ago. Second, we challenge the likelihood of long term moral progress of the sort Kitcher requires to establish objectivity while circumventing Hume's challenge to avoid trying to derive normative conclusions from positive ones ‘ought’ from ‘is’. Third, we sketch ways in which Kitcher’s mctacthical opponents could respond to his arguments against them.

Kant's Justification of Ethics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Ware
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Historical Contextualization ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Moral Normativity ◽  
Moral Requirements

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.

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