Kant's Moral Philosophy (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 123 Kant's Moral Philosophy. By H. B. Acton. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1970. Pp. 71. Paper $1.95) As part of an introductory series entitled "New Studies in Ethics," this brief study of Kant's ethics is a fine job of condensation which does pretty much what it is intended to do. The concentration, as one would expect, is on Kant's Grundlegung, with occasional references to the Lectures on Ethics, The Doctrine o[ Virtue, and the Critique o/ Practical Reason. A brief introduction to the background and influences on Kant's ethics is provided which indicates Kant's sympathy with the doctrine of moral sentiment in his essay, Enquiry into the Distinctness o/ the Fundamental Propositions o/Natural Theology and Morality. In discussing the essential principles of Kantian ethics, H. B. Acton deals with the attempt to expunge all "sensuous motives" from ethical prescription, including the denial of the moral value of actions done from a "pathological" (emotional or passional) motive . En passant, reference is made to Kant's notion that one should act out of reverence or respect (Achtung) for the moral law, a "moral feeling" which only a rational being aware of the moral law can have (p. 14). What is not mentioned is that this notion of respect seems to have an empirical or psychologistic content which seems to undermine Kant's intention to construct "a pure moral philosophy." Kant's long footnote referring to the use of "respect" does not quite obviate the charge of empirical reference (Acton suggests that it does) since it is said that "respect . ... is not a feeling received through influence, but is sel/-wrought by a rational concept" (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic o/ Morals, trans. T. K. Abbott [Chicago, 1949], p. 19, note 1). It seems that one could have "respect" for a principle of compassion which would conform to Kant's requirements. In subsequent sections Acton deals briefly (and in a somewhat cursory manner) with the distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives, duties to oneself, and (quite substantially) with the question of universalizability. In this latter discussion, reference is made to the social consequences of universalizing certain maxims (p. 25), but no reference is made to the illogical consequences of universalizing such maxims even though Kant explicitly states that one could not universalize a maxim that one may borrow money with a false promise to repay it because "it could never hold as a universal law of nature and be consistent with itself; rather it must necessarily contradict itself" (ibid., p. 45). While Acton agrees with Paton that Kant puts his arguments coneerning universalizing certain maxims in a "prudential way" (p. 26), he only mentions in passing the influence which Kant's conception of nature has on his ethics (p. 48), despite the fact that Kant construes universalizability in ethics as analogous to the form of "universal laws of nature." Despite this omission, Acton does include lucid discussions of the empirical content in Kant's appeal to the "means" which individuals have to perform right actions (pp. 30-31), the question whether one is motivated by "the mere form of a universal legislation," the "law giving" nature of moral principles (p. 38), and the influence of certain notions in Rousseau's thought on Kant's ethics (p. 43). In the concluding chapters of this work Aeton proffers a good exposition of Kant's conception of freedom and the moral argument for immortality. Perhaps one may question whether Acton is correct in asserting that Kant entirely rejected the notion that God "made" the moral law (p. 53). For one could appeal to the Opus postumum for counterevidence. Thus, Kant avers that "the categorical imperative represents human duties as divine commandments" (p. 570) and that "the concept of God is the Idea of a moral being which, as such, judges and issues universal commands" (p. 614). On this point, Acton refers without comment to Kant's view that neither man nor God is the author of moral laws (Lectures on Ethics) and subsequently states that, for Kant, man obeys a law he recognizes as his when he obeys the moral law (p. 53). It 124...