Chung-ying Cheng’s Dialogue with Confucianism and Kant: A Gadamerian Critique

Gadamer’s hermeneutics offers several strategies for critiquing Chung-ying Cheng’s synthesis of Confucianism and Kant. Interpreting Kant’s Groundwork, Cheng argues that the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is too rigid: if the “life principle” is the ultimate root of Kant’s four types of duty, then human inclinations are good; Kant’s perfect duties turn out to be imperfect in some situations, while his imperfect duties such as benevolence (or ren, in Confucian philosophy) turn out sometimes to be perfect. Although Cheng’s synthesis does not satisfy the Groundwork’s universal aim, it does show how to apply Kant’s insights to empirical moral situations.

Tracking Value and Extending Duties

This chapter shows how both perfect and imperfect duties require both agents and institutions to take responsibility for tracking moral value across their respective contexts of right and duty. The casuistry that belongs to perfect duties is contrasted with the exercise of discretion essential to acting on an imperfect duty. A defense of juridical imperfect duties is offered. Citizens and officials of the state acting under the auspices of a juridical right or duty may need to exercise the kind of discretion that is the mark of an imperfect duty. Questions about moral change in the content and locus of duties are introduced.

Perfect Duties to Oneself as an Animal Being

This chapter considers the category of duties to oneself as an animal being: duties to avoid suicide and forms of self-mutilation, sexual self-abuse, and drunkenness and gluttony. Kant’s arguments for the claim that each of these types of action is morally wrong appeals to the “humanity formula” of his supreme principle of morality (the categorical imperative). Importantly, the role of teleology in some of Kant’s arguments is discussed and a distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ teleology is introduced. The chapter argues that while Kant mentions the natural purpose of one’s sexual powers in his argument against sexual self-abuse, his argument does not depend on it. However, as explained in later chapters, Kant’s ethics does rely on appeals to moral teleology, referring to the moral end of self-perfection.

Perfect Duties to Oneself Merely as a Moral Being

This chapter considers Kant’s arguments for the claims that lying, miserliness, and servility are violations of duties to oneself. Although his argument against lying appeals to natural teleology, namely, that the purpose of one’s power of communication is to accurately convey one’s thoughts, this chapter argues that the argument is fallacious and that the wrongness of lying is better explained by relating it to the duties of conscience and self-scrutiny—duties partly constitutive of the duty of moral self-perfection. In addressing the duty to avoid miserliness, the chapter considers how Kant’s conception of virtue and vice contrasts with his understanding of the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean. The chapter continues with the duty to avoid servility and its relation to Kant’s conception of ‘true noble pride’ to be found in the earlier lecture notes on ethics. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Kant’s so-called moral rigorism.

Kant's Doctrine of Virtue

This book is a reader’s guide to Kant’s final work in moral philosophy, The Doctrine of Virtue, Part II of the 1797 Metaphysics of Morals. The guide has five parts plus a conclusion. Part I, “Background,” includes two chapters: 1. “Life and Work” and 2. “Philosophical Background.” Part II, “General Introduction to The Metaphysics of Morals,” covers the introduction to the entire work and includes three chapters: 3. “On the Idea of and Necessity for a Metaphysics of Morals,” 4. “Mental Faculties, the Moral Law, and Human Motivation,” and 5. “Preliminary Concepts and Division of the Metaphysics of Morals.” Part III, “Introduction to The Doctrine of Virtue,” includes four chapters covering Kant’s dedicated introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: 6. “The Doctrine of Virtue as a Doctrine of Ends,” 7. “General Ends that Are Also Duties,” 8. “Radical Evil and the Nature of Virtue,” and 9. “The Science of Ethics.” Part IV, “The Doctrine of Elements,” is devoted to Kant’s system of duties of virtue that represents his normative ethical theory. It contains six chapters: 10. “Perfect Duties to Oneself as an Animal Being,” 11. “Perfect Duties to Oneself Merely as a Moral Being,” 12. Imperfect Duties to Oneself,” 13. “Duties of Love to Other Human Beings,” 14. “The Vices of Hatred and Disrespect,” and 15. “Friendship.” Part V, “The Doctrine of Methods of Ethics and Conclusion,” includes chapter 16 “Moral Education and Practice.” The book’s conclusion reflects on the significance of The Doctrine of Virtue for understanding Kant’s ethics.

Das Recht auf Asyl bei Emer de Vattel 1758: unvollkommenes Recht, vollkommenes Recht, Menschenrecht

When, within the framework of a highly controversial debate of the early 1990s in Germany on the right to asylum, Winfrid Brugger argued, a human right to asylum could not be based on sound reason, he referred to the supposed impossibility of an imputation of the plight of refugees to certain foreign states. In more recent debates, similar arguments have been brought forward and formulated as a problem of imperfect or perfect duties and rights. Much earlier, in 1758, Emer de Vattel already had discussed the right to asylum as a right that has aspects of both an imperfect right and a perfect right. This has mostly been ignored in the recent debate. In this article, I try to show how de Vattel reasoned. His argumentation limited the otherwise strong sovereignty of states by referring to the reasons of the moral legitimacy of their powers. This led him to the result that the per se perfect right to asylum, imperfect in relation to specific states, can, if states collectively fail to admit a refugee in urgent danger, become a claim against a specific country in the shape of a perfect right to self-help. I will briefly try to reconstruct some of de Vattel‘s ideas with concepts of Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy. The difference between Dworkin’s rule and Alexy’s Regel becomes relevant for understanding de Vattel’s perfect and human right to asylum. In the end, I will briefly investigate how much of de Vattel’s thought depends on assumptions a XXIst century thinker would probably not be ready to suppose any more. It will become clear that de Vattel’s thought on asylum is mostly independent from rather controversial assumptions of his work; it fits rather well to some recent approaches limiting sovereignty by human rights and concepts of territorial justice.

Eine Kantische Begründung individueller Klimapflichten

According to a well-known problem in climate ethics, individual actions cannot be wrong due to their impact on climate change since the individual act does not make a difference. By referring to the practical interpretation of the categorical imperative, the author argues that certain actions lead to a contradiction in conception in light of the climate crisis. Universalizing these actions would cause foreseeable climate impacts, making it impossible to pursue the original maxim effectively. According to the practical interpretation, such actions are morally wrong. The wrongness of these actions does not depend on making a difference, rather these actions are wrong because they make it impossible for others to act accordingly. Thus, apart from imperfect duties, for which has been argued convincingly elsewhere (Henning 2016; Alberzart 2019), we also have perfect duties to refrain from certain actions in the face of the climate crisis.

Nudging Charitable Giving: What (If Anything) Is Wrong With It?

Nudging techniques can help charities to increase donations. In this article, we first provide a systematic overview of prototypical nudges that promote charitable giving. Second, we argue that plenty of the ethical objections raised against nudges, such as the exploitation of power they involve and the arguably intrusive and deceptive nature, are not specific to nudging itself. Carefully designing nudges can help to avoid these worries. Third, given that most concerns boil down to the worry that nudges infringe on people’s autonomy, we analyze when this could nevertheless be justified. We differentiate between perfect duties, imperfect duties, and supererogatory acts and argue that nudges are (a) morally permissible (even when they violate autonomy) when it comes to perfect duties and can (b) provide the best available strategy when it comes to imperfect duties. That said, we also analyze the conditions under which nudging charitable giving is impermissible.

Schopenhauer, Buddhism, and Compassion

The focus of this chapter is Schopenhauer’s On The Basis of Morality (1841). His distinctive views are that compassion marks one’s being as spontaneously motivated to relieve another’s suffering as one’s own and that this requires a metaphysical explanation for how one identifies with another. The author defends these views and shows in some detail how they mirror the Mahayana account of compassion in Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva. Next, the author outlines Schopenhauer’s case for compassion being the sole basis of moral value and defends this claim against the Kantian view that acting beneficently cannot (rationally) override so-called perfect duties to others. Finally, the author explores how Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings cohere with Schopenhauer’s account of suffering and how mystical consciousness, as represented in Mahayana Buddhism’s “Middle Way,” coheres with Schopenhauer’s asceticism—the “denial of the will”—as the path to overcoming suffering.

Pflichtenkollision bei Achenwall/Pütter

In § 116 of Achenwall/Pütter Elementa Iuris Naturae the following possibilities of conflicts of duties are listed: “There can be a conflict 1. of prohibiting laws with each other, 2. of prescribing laws with each other, 3. of prescribing laws with prohibiting laws.” It will be examined in this article, whether the three theses can be made plausible by examples, and especially, whether thesis No. 1 is convincing in relation to the idea that perfect duties (or prohibiting laws) cannot come into conflict with each other. Fur­thermore the thesis of Immanuel Kant in his Metaphysics of Morals will be discussed, that there is no conflict of duties at all, but only a “contradiction of reasons of binding­ness”. Finally, the argument of Achenwall/Pütter, that the well known duty “bring your­self to perfection!” (Latin: “perfice te!”) may come into conflict with duties in respect to others, and that an argument for a right to act against others in cases of necessity can be given in this context (cf. Achenwall/Pütter, §§ 118, 205, 296).