Aims, Abstracts, and Why ‘Beyond Duty’?

Since the publication of my last book, Virtue, Rules, and Justice: Kantian Aspirations (OUP, 2012), I have continued to write essays and reviews on fundamental issues in Kantian moral theory as well as practical ethics, but in this recent work I focus on different problems and develop new themes in these areas. For example, I explain some fundamental Kantian concepts, such as autonomy and dignity, and also address potentially influential objections from Rüdiger Bittner and Michael Rosen. Clarifying and revising earlier work, I articulate an understanding of ...

Beyond Duty

This is a collection of essays on Kantian moral theory and practical ethics with the aim of developing Kantian ethics and making it accessible and relevant to contemporary problems. With a new emphasis on ideals beyond the strictest requirements of moral duty, the book expands the core aspects of Kantian ethics and offers a broader perspective on familiar moral problems. Some essays explain Kantian concepts, others review work of leading contemporary philosophers, and still others raise challenging ethical questions for more general audiences. Having previously written on finding value in nature, Hill develops an ethical ideal of appreciation of people and their lives, distinguishing this from both respect and beneficence. Hill argues that this has important implications about how we should think about close personal relationships, such as friendships, families, and relationships with people with disabilities. The first part focuses on Kantian moral theory. Topics include the structure of Kant’s argument in the Groundwork, his idea of imperfect duties to oneself, autonomy, and human dignity. Rawls’ constructivism is defended against O’Neill’s objections, and Kantian ethics defended against the charge of utopian thinking. The second part focuses on practical ethics. Topics include the ethics of suicide, philanthropy, conscientious objection, and tragic choices when it seems that every alternative offends against human dignity. An essay on moral education contrasts Kantian and Rawlsian perspectives. Another essay traces the role of self-respect in Rawls’ theory of justice and contrasts a Kantian conception. Two final essays develop and illustrate the ideal of appreciation.

Kant and Animals

This is an edited collection devoted to the topic of the role of animals within Kant’s philosophy. It addresses key issues within both his theoretical and practical philosophy. It examines the place of Kant’s model of animal minds in the historical and contemporary contexts. It addresses the question of whether Kant’s philosophy of mind allows for animals to be capable of intentional representations of spatiotemporal objects. It explores how Kant treated the issue of animal nature as it manifests in humans and non-humans alike, and questions how Kant’s scientific theory attempted to accommodate animals within his broader Enlightenment worldview. It also addresses traditional worries about the moral status of animals within Kant’s and Kantian moral theory. Kant notoriously denied that we have direct obligations to animals, and the question persists as to whether Kantian moral theory provides the right account of the moral status of non-human animals. Several papers in this collection address the question and whether Kant’s views can be defended or ought to be rejected altogether on this basis alone. The collection considers the relevance of Kantian theory for our understanding of contemporary challenges facing human beings with regard to our relationship to animals.

Directionality and Virtuous Ends

This chapter examines the question of the moral status of animals in Kantian moral theory. Kant’s view that all our duties regarding non-human animals are duties to ourselves is widely thought to capture neither the content of these duties nor their ground. The chapter, therefore, focuses on the supposed problem of the directionality of our moral obligations. It seeks to articulate and defend an account of Kant’s understanding of the directionality of duty, and to deploy it to explain and defend his notorious claim that our duties regarding animals are duties to ourselves. More generally, we seek to explain the relation between the content of a duty and its directionality. The chapter identifies three possible sources of the directionality problem: the issues of it involving the wrong content, or a kind of instrumentality, or a kind of contingency. It argues that the contingency worry is the key one and suggests a response to it.

Introduction

This is an edited collection devoted to the topic of the role of animals within Kant’s philosophy. It addresses key issues within both his theoretical and practical philosophy. It examines the place of Kant’s model of animal minds in the historical and contemporary contexts. It addresses the question of whether Kant’s philosophy of mind allows for animals to be capable of intentional representations of spatiotemporal objects. It explores how Kant treated the issue of animal nature as it manifests in humans and non-humans alike and questions how Kant’s scientific theory attempted to accommodate animals within his broader Enlightenment worldview. It also addresses traditional worries about the moral status of animals within Kant’s and Kantian moral theory. Kant notoriously denied that we have direct obligations to animals, and the question persists as to whether Kantian moral theory provides the right account of the moral status of non-human animals. Several papers in this collection address the question and whether Kant’s views can be defended or ought to be rejected altogether on this basis alone. The collection considers the relevance of Kantian theory for our understanding of contemporary challenges facing human beings with regard to our relationship to animals.

Integration and authority: rescuing the ‘one thought too many’ problem

Four decades ago, Bernard Williams accused Kantian moral theory of providing agents with ‘one thought too many’. The general consensus among contemporary Kantians is that this objection has been decisively answered. In this paper, I reconstruct the problem, showing that Williams was not principally concerned with how agents are to think in emergency situations, but rather with how moral theories are to be integrated into recognizably human lives. I show that various Kantian responses to Williams provide inadequate materials for solving this ‘integration problem’, and that they are correspondingly ill-positioned to account for the authority of morality, as Williams suspected all along.

Constructivism, moral realism, and the possibility of Kant's rational religion

In this article I challenge Kantian constructivism both as an interpretation of Kant's own philosophical commitments and on its own merits as a moral theory, and argue in favour of a moral realist interpretation of Kant. I do so by focusing on Kant's own religious views and the question of whether a Kantian moral theory can be religiously neutral. I show that constructivist readings have severe problems on both fronts, while realist readings of Kant do not. This provides strong evidence that realist forms of Kantian ethics are preferable both as readings of Kant and as approaches to moral theory.

The Green’s Gambit

This chapter argues that reasons are underdetermined and often left out of value-based discussions of nature. The chapter offers a rough sketch of Kantian moral theory – particularly the first two formulations of the Categorical Imperative – to suggest that the primary charge of environmentalism ought to be that of encouraging deeper justification of actions. It utilizes the Endangered Species Act, the argument from ecosystem services, and the case of a stolen kidney to suggest that cost-benefit analysis and related methodologies are insufficient for addressing the broad ethical considerations of environmentalists.