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.

Mental Faculties, the Moral Law, and Human Motivation

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-60
Author(s):  
Mark Timmons
Keyword(s):  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Human Motivation ◽  
Practical Principle ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals

This chapter addresses the following topics pertaining to Section II of the general introduction to The Metaphysics of Morals: 1. Kant’s conception of the faculty of desire and its relation to the faculties of feeling and cognition; 2. The significance of Kant’s distinction between will and choice in relation to human freedom of the will; 3. The distinction between maxims and imperatives as two fundamental types of practical principle; and 4. Kant’s conception of both nonmoral and moral motivation—the latter fundamental for understanding Kant’s theory of virtue. The chapter establishes Kant’s background ideas on these ideas and faculties and also addresses aspects of his theory of action.

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.

From Deduction to Deed: Kant's Grounding of the Moral Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Intelligible World ◽  
Supreme Principle

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant presents the moral law as the sole ‘fact of pure reason’ that neither needs nor admits of a deduction to establish its authority. This claim may come as a surprise to many readers of his earlier Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In the last section of the Groundwork, Kant seemed to offer a sketch of just such a ‘deduction of the supreme principle of morality’ (GMS 4: 463). Although notoriously obscure, this sketch shows that Kant hoped to base the moral law in the freedom that rational agents can claim as members of the ‘intelligible world’ that transcendental idealism makes available to us. In contrast, the second Critique abandons all aspirations of deriving morality from more basic notions of freedom and practical rationality.

Humanity as an Idea, as an Ideal, and as an End in Itself

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dean
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Anthropology ◽  
Empirical Application ◽  
Rational Part ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Rational Idea

AbstractKant emphasizes that moral philosophy must be divided into two parts, a ‘purely rational’ metaphysics of morals, and an empirical application to individuals, which Kant calls ‘moral anthropology’. But Kant gives humanity (die Menschheit) a prominent role even in the purely rational part of ethics – for example, one formulation of the categorical imperative is a demand to treat humanity as an end in itself. This paper argues that the only concepts of humanity suited to play such a role are the rational idea of humanity, and the rational ideal derived from this idea, which Kant discusses inCritique of Practical Reasonand other texts.

scholarly journals Kants Freiheitsargument. Diskussion von Heiko Puls: Sittliches Bewusstsein und Kategorischer Imperativ in Kants Grundlegung: Ein Kommentar zum dritten Abschnitt. Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. 318 S.

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-89
Author(s):  
Rocco Porcheddu
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Consciousness ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Freedom Of Will ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Objective Value ◽  
Kategorischer Imperativ ◽  
The One

Heiko Puls’ work Sittliches Bewusstsein und Kategorischer Imperativ in Kants Grundlegung: Ein Kommentar zum dritten Abschnitt, presents an attempt to show that, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s argumentation for the objective value of the categorical imperative is almost based upon the same principle as the one presented in the second Critique. More precisely, Puls claims that, like in the Critique of Practical Reason, the Groundwork operates with some kind of fact of reason-theory, which means that our consciousness of the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of our freedom of will. Accordingly, there is no conclusion from a kind of non-moral consciousness of freedom to the freedom of will and from here to the objective value of the categorical imperative, as many interpreters assume. Due to the ambitiousness of his main thesis and his detailed and subtle way of arguing, Puls’ work represents an important and innovative contribution to recent research on Kant’s Groundwork. Nevertheless, his interpretations sometimes seem to favour analysis of loose philological relationships over closer looks on the contexts of passages. Or he focuses excessively on isolated textual evidences for his readings without appropriately recognising the various other evidences against it. In what follows, I give examples for this criticism.

The Ideal of the Highest Good and the Objectivity of Moral Judgment

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Nataliya Palatnik
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Objectivity ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Ideal World ◽  
The Core ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Ideal

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.

Unstable Autonomy: Conscience and Judgment in Kant's Moral Philosophy

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Moyar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this paper I argue that Kant's claims about conscience in his moral writings of the 1790s reveal a fundamental instability in his moral philosophy. The central issue is the relationship between the moral law as the form of universality and the judgment of individuals about specific cases. Against Thomas Hill's claim that Kant has only a limited role for conscience, I argue that conscience has a comprehensive role in Kantian deliberation. I unpack the claims about conscience in the Metaphysics of Morals to show that they describe conscience as both a basic act of self-consciousness and as an all-things-considered judgment. I outline the role of conscience in moral motivation, and argue that taken together Kant's writings about conscience reveal a way to rethink Kant's conception of the Fact of Reason.

Rationalizing: Kant on Moral Self-Deception

SATS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Noller
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Sensus Communis ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility

Abstract Kant’s moral philosophy is challenged by the so-called “Socratic Paradox”: If free will and pure practical reason are to be identified, as Kant argues, then there seems to be no room for immoral actions that are to be imputed to our individual freedom. The paper argues that Kant’s conception of rationalizing (“Vernünfteln”) helps us to avoid the Socratic Paradox, and to understand how immoral actions can be imputed to our individual freedom and responsibility. In rationalizing, we misuse our capacity of reason in order to construct the illusion according to which we are not bound to the absolute demand of the moral law, but rather subject to exceptions and excuses. Finally, the paper interprets the three rules of “common sense” (sensus communis) in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment in terms of an antidote to rationalizing.

La morale kantienne et la philosophie transcendantale

Dialogue ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marceline Morais
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Will ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
The Right

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to discuss the transcendental status of Kant's moral philosophy. Despite what is usually thought among scholars, we intend to demonstrate that morality for Kant is not part of transcendental philosophy. We shall at first recall the reasons that have driven Kant to separate morality from the transcendental philosophy. Kant's position seems both firm and clear: morality, although involving a priori concepts such as the moral law, is not a transcendantal knowledge because its major concept, the will, is not pure enough; it refers somehow to experience. On the other hand, after considering the positions of renowned scholars such as Gueroult, Delbos, and Höffe, who claim that Kant's morality became partially or totally transcendantal since the writing of the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, we suggest that Kant had then found the right way to establish on a critical basis a future metaphysics of morals.

scholarly journals Deduction of morality and freedom in Kant’s ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Milica Smajevic
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
The Third ◽  
Direct Contrast ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Radical Shift ◽  
Objective Validity

In the third section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant seeks, on the basis of the idea of the necessary presumption of freedom, to provide a deduction of the supreme moral principle and to prove its objective validity. Three years later, in the Critique of Practical Reason, he explicitly denies the possibility of making such deduction, and by changing methodological assumptions, tries to show that awareness of the moral law as a fact of reason is the basis for the deduction of freedom. In this paper we will argue that a direct contrast between Kant?s two texts clearly shows that a radical shift in his thought has taken place. The purpose of this text is to show that Kant had reasons to be dissatisfied with the deduction of the moral law offered in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, which led him to change his argumentative course when writing the Second Critique.

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