Kant and a Problem of Motivation

Abstract

In The Moral Problem, Michael Smith argues that there is an on-going tension in discussions among moral philosophers between the putative objectivity of morality, the practicality of moral judgments, and Hume’s view of motivation. From an agent’s point of view, putatively objective claims imply cognitivism, the view that moral judgments express beliefs about the way the world is morally. But if moral judgments are practical and on Hume’s view of motivation dependent on the desires of an agent, then from a moral standpoint, we risk making claims that the agent cannot be motivated to act upon. In this sense the problem, which Smith calls the moral problem, is a problem of motivation. It is a problem of how beliefs about putatively objective morality considerations can universally motivate individuals with differing motivational psychologies. Smith considers the tension to be metaethical and that its resolution is the primary task of moral philosophers. Secondary to such problems, on his view, are problems of normative ethics. The tension is a meta-ethical problem, and it may be the primary problem of contemporary moral philosophy in the descriptive sense that it has garnered widespread attention. As with any philosophical problem, however, it is worth questioning whether it should receive the attention it does. To this end, we should consider what Kant maintains, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, is the primary problem of moral philosophy. For Kant, the primary problem is not