Kantian Ethics Research Articles

NORM, ONTOLOGY, CONCEPTUAL SCHEME: NORMATIVE HEIDEGGERIANISM IN PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL CONSIDERATION

This article reconstructs the normative strategy of interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time in modern analytical philosophy, and also proposes a theoretical framework for understanding this strategy as a historical phenomenon. The article describes the development of the normative direction in the interpretation of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Its first branch—the socio-normative, or the neopragmatist one—is associated with such philosophers as John Haugeland and Robert Brandom. The second one—the ethico-normative, or postneopragmatist one—branch is represented by Steven Crowell and Sacha Golob. It is shown that the first group of normativists focused mainly on implicit social norms and structures of conformity, while the second—focuses primarily on Kantian ethics and Christina Korsgaard’s interpretation of Kant, as well as on the inferentialist philosophy of language of Robert Brandom. The conceptual schemes used by each of the representatives of these approaches are reconstructed. The connections of different approaches within the framework of the normative direction with each other are shown. The concept of a relay race is proposed, which can describe normative Heideggerianism as a historical phenomenon. It is shown that the development of normative Heideggerianism can be characterized as theoretical progress in relation to the accuracy of the interpretation of Heidegger’s texts. The grounds for the comparative “progressiveness” of different normative approaches in the updates of the basic normative conceptual scheme that they involve are clarified. It is also shown that the progress of the normative conceptual scheme in the direction of flexibility and adaptation to Heidegger’s text is fraught with a loss of meaningfulness of the very concept of norm. It is argued that the concept of norm, despite the loss of its empirical content, can be used to translate Heidegger’s concepts for pragmatic reasons.

Realizing morality: Kantian ethics and the role of education

Resumo Neste ensaio argumentarei em defesa da ideia de que a educação moral representa um elemento de suma importância para aplicação da ética kantiana e que, apesar de o filósofo não ter elaborado uma teoria sistemática sobre o tema, ele é formulado de modo explícito em algumas obras e pressuposto de modo tácito em outras. Para isso, recorro a três aspectos que me parecem importantes na perspectiva de legitimação do tema: 1) a educação moral como direito humano fundamental; 2) sua tarefa enquanto exercício da faculdade de julgar e como fenômeno social; e 3) o papel do Estado no seu fomento. Estes três aspectos podem não cobrir tudo o que a educação moral significa para Kant, mas sem eles não é possível a sua compreensão.

An Alternative Revolution: Isabelle de Charrière’s Politics of Care

How does patriotism shape societies? What might it look like if patriotism were aligned with care rather than violence? In this article, I analyze Dutch-Swiss author Isabelle de Charrière’s novel Trois femmes (1797) through the lens of care ethics, particularly Sarah Clark Miller’s notion of a “duty to care.” Charrière’s novel examines the limits of Enlightenment theories of moralism (especially Kantian morality and duty) by putting theory into practice with a group of three women: a former French aristocrat, a wealthy mixed-race Creole woman, and an Alsatian servant. The three women live together as immigrants in Germany after fleeing France in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and they are bound together by a shared love of country. I propose that Charrière blends patriotism and care in radical ways that break down hierarchies of gender, race, and class and that belie the fiction of equality promised by the French Revolution.

«Философы всегда будут восхищаться Кантом…»

The topics of this issue, devoted to the tercentenary of Immanuel Kant’s birth, focus on his practical philosophy, most notably on the problems of free will in the light of the debates at the end of the eighteenth century; on the concept of human dignity and its reflection in daily life and in the main legal documents of the Russian Federation; on the possibility of deriving positive duties from the categorical imperative; and on the relevance of Kantian ethics to modern-day realities. The issue of the reception of Kant’s philosophy in Russia is also discussed, using as an example the article by Russian religious philosopher Alexey Vvedensky in the historical context of Kant’s early reception and subsequent fate in the twentieth century.

Justifying a morally permissible breach of contract: kantian ethics, nozickian justice, and vaccine patents.

Although some have argued that COVID-19 vaccine patents are morally justified, a broader argument on the morality of breaching contracts is necessary. This article explores the ethics of breaching unfair contracts and argues that it is morally justified to breach contracts with pharmaceutical companies concerning vaccine patents. I offer two arguments to support this view. Firstly, contracts may be breachable in some situations. The ones I point out are that contracts can be broken when the costs of not violating vaccine patents are too high or when the process for agreement is not fair, or when an urgent ethical issue needs to be addressed and it is possible to compensate the other party for their loss. Secondly, I argue that because the contracts with the pharmaceutical companies do not treat people as ends in themselves, there is no moral obligation to respect them.

Kantian Ethics, Feminism, and Worries about Emotional Detachment

Kantian Ethics, Feminism, and Worries about Emotional Detachment

Employers have a Duty of Beneficence to Design for Meaningful Work: A General Argument and Logistics Warehouses as a Case Study

Artificial intelligence-driven technology increasingly shapes work practices and, accordingly, employees’ opportunities for meaningful work (MW). In our paper, we identify five dimensions of MW: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, autonomy, self-esteem and recognition. Because MW is an important good, lacking opportunities for MW is a serious disadvantage. Therefore, we need to know to what extent employers have a duty to provide this good to their employees. We hold that employers have a duty of beneficence to design for opportunities for MW when implementing AI-technology in the workplace. We argue that this duty of beneficence is supported by the three major ethical theories, namely, Kantian ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. We defend this duty against two objections, including the view that it is incompatible with the shareholder theory of the firm. We then employ the five dimensions of MW as our analytical lens to investigate how AI-based technological innovation in logistic warehouses has an impact, both positively and negatively, on MW, and illustrate that design for MW is feasible. We further support this practical feasibility with the help of insights from organizational psychology. We end by discussing how AI-based technology has an impact both on meaningful work (often seen as an aspirational goal) and decent work (generally seen as a matter of justice). Accordingly, ethical reflection on meaningful and decent work should become more integrated to do justice to how AI-technology inevitably shapes both simultaneously.

Epistemic Analysis of Kantian Ethics of Duty Call vis-a-vis Paranormal in Nigerian Society Among Nigerian Clergymen

Epistemic Analysis of Kantian Ethics of Duty Call vis-a-vis Paranormal in Nigerian Society Among Nigerian Clergymen

The Systematic Unity of the Theoretical and Axiotic in Salomon Maimon’s Late Philosophy

By a close reading of Salomon Maimon’s 1794 Essay on a New Logic or Theory of Thinking, this article shows, first, how Maimon radically criticized his previous metaphysical systems while painstakingly reestablishing Kantian transcendental philosophy on a theory of reflexive cognition. Second, it shows how he employed this theory to ground innovative accounts of both formal and transcendental logic, including a reformulation of Kant’s schematism. Third, it shows how he employed it to ground his axiotic philosophy. Specifically, he argued that his reflexive theory of cognition constituted the necessary condition for the theories of Kantian morality, natural rights, works of art, and finally for a metaphysics according to which God creates the world ex nihilo. Maimon’s achievement is impressive and unique. It is a theory of the systematic unity of theoretical and axiotic philosophy that rivals other Enlightenment systems and, if anything, anticipates later works of Hans Wagner and Werner Flach.

Mehmet S. Aydın's Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of religion is a field that studies religious issues from a philosophical point of view. Mehmet S. Aydın, who wrote the most widely read work in the field of philosophy of religion in Turkey, entitled Philosophy of Religion, has remarkable studies in this field as a thinker trying to reconcile religion and philosophy. According to Aydın, thoughts that can be described as philosophical ones should first of all have the characteristics of "rationality, comprehensiveness, objectivity and consistency". The main aim of a philosopher of religion is to try to show the integrity of knowledge by reconciling the knowledge revealed by religion and science with a philosophical perspective that includes these basic features. According to Aydın, who was influenced by the philosophy of the process, the relationship between God and the Realm is not static. This relationship, which takes its roots from the Qur'an, is in a creative development that evolves towards innovation. Aydın does not intend to establish religion. Aydın is trying to "establish a pure and universal moral religion with liberal and democratic character by purging religion from its historical interpretations", that is, to understand religion from the Qur'an. Unlike Kant's morality of duty, which he was inspired by, Aydın; He says that religion affects every aspect of life. He draws attention to the need to solve the problems of religious life with modern life. In this context, the subject of the research is about Aydın's understanding of philosophy of religion in general and his contributions to the philosophy of religion. Studies that reveal Aydın's ideas in the field of philosophy of religion are rare. This study is important in terms of contributing to the gap in the literature. In the research; Based on Mehmet S. Aydın's various works and other studies on him, it is aimed to reveal Aydın's philosophy of religion understanding by determining Aydın's ideas about philosophy of religion and the basic principles behind these ideas. The theoretical research design, which is included in the qualitative research method, was preferred. While creating the data, Mehmet S. Aydın's Philosophy of Religion, God-World Relationship, Islamic Philosophy Writings were preferred as the main source and various studies in the literature were also used. Based on these works, the document analysis method was preferred in order to extract the ideas and terminology of the thinker about the philosophy of religion and to classify them in a problem-oriented manner. In conclusion; What the philosopher of religion basically wants to do is to establish a bridge between the field of theology and the field of social sciences, to allow information exchange, as well as to try to show the integrity of knowledge by reconciling the information revealed by religion and science. Aydın, who thinks that religion is related to every aspect of life; He states that "it is not necessary to deny one's own religious and moral values, and their own historical values ​​in order to become this or that intellectual". This will be achieved by learning and adopting religious and cultural values, and most importantly, by putting them into practice. Aydın's main goal was the idea of ​​bringing the "man of the Qur'an", that is, the true pious, back on the stage of life in his individual and social self.

CONSCIENCE AS AN INTERNAL SPIRITUAL FORM OF CULTURE IN I. KANT'S ETHICS

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problem of conscience as an internal spiritual form of culture in I. Kant's ethics. The author, investigating the problem of conscience, proves that the conscience of I. Kant sends to the transcendental field, it is, according to the philosopher's teachings, a kind of gift from God to man. Conscience is embedded in a person from the beginning, it is an inner voice from above. It is primarily a person's responsibility before God. The author brings up for discussion the central idea of I. Kant, namely: conscience is a contradictory combination of pure and practical reason, as a product of the manifestation of an earthly and heavenly gift.

Принципізм в біоетиці: особливості та можливі обмеження

Advantages and disadvantages of one of the most influential methodological approaches in bioethics – principlism – are considered. The practical origins of principlism in bioethics and its theoretical origins in the philosophy of principles are revealed. The main philosophical sources of bioethics are indicated, which include utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, rule-based theory of general morality, virtue ethics, and feminist ethics. The irreducibility of principlism to any of these theories in particular and at the same time its appeal to each of them was revealed. In medical ethics, principlism appears primarily as an important practical approach that allows instrumentalization of decision-making in ethically complex situations of treating patients, conducting biomedical and clinical research. The sources of the original four principles, which are recognized by the majority of theorists of principlism, have been clarified. Among such sources, the so-called Belmont report, which names three principles, is of secondary but big importance: the principle of respect for the individual; the principle of beneficence and the principle of justice. The main arguments, classical formulation and typical contexts of application of the four principles of bioethics presented by Tom Beaucamp and James Childress as the generally accepted basis of principlism are presented: respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice. European bioethicists subsequently complement and develop these four principles with other principles: dignity, integrity and vulnerability. The main directions of criticism of principlism are revealed: lack of specificity, uncertainty of practical application of ethical theory, possible contradiction between principles. The need for constant and systematic practice of applying ethical principles in making medical decisions is defined as an antidote to these shortcomings of principlism. It is noted that Beaucamp and Childress see such permanent practice through specification and balancing procedures.

Ethics and Banking: Do Banks Divest Their Kind?

A growing group of institutional investors use divestment strategically to deter misconducts that are harmful for the climate and society. Based on Kantian ethics, we propose that divestment represents investors’ universal and absolute moral commitment to socially responsible investing (SRI). Following categorical and hypothetical imperatives and reciprocity as a norm, we hypothesize how institutional investors’ commit to SRI through a divestment strategy against ethically reprehensible behaviour of banks, especially when these investors represent banks themselves. Using a hand-collected database of the revelation dates of enforcement actions on banks, we find evidence that banks are less likely to divest equity holding on banks with misconduct (fined banks) than their non-bank institutional investors peers. Banks that commit to invest responsibly by signing for the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) are not significantly more likely to divest on fined banks stocks than non-signatory banks. Moreover, divestment of fined banks whose own legitimacy to operate is in question is not significantly different from non-fined banks divestment. We find that European banks are more inclined to sell their holdings permanently on fined banks than their United States peers. Therefore, bank’s moral commitment to SRI via divestments is influenced more by cultural and reciprocity norms than their moral commitment to participate in the PRI.

Taking Freedom Seriously: Kantian Ethics versus the Ethics of Kant

ABSTRACT No understanding of morality has more zealous or influential defenders among academic philosophers than Kant’s. Yet as Michael Rosen demonstrates in The Shadow of God, there is a sense in which Kant’s critics take his conception of freedom more seriously nowadays than his defenders. As a result, contemporary versions of “Kantian ethics” often end up challenging what Rosen calls “the ethics of Kant,” not just the claims of rival moral theories. Rosen supports this surprising conclusion with some powerful arguments, showing that we cannot make sense of Kantian moral philosophy or its extraordinary impact on modern philosophy while detaching it from Kant’s conception of transcendental freedom. But Rosen overstates the continuity between Kant and the Idealist philosophers that he inspired. Thinkers like Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel took Kant’s concept of transcendental freedom far more seriously than defenders of Kantian ethics do today. But precisely because they did so, they felt compelled to address a whole new set of problems, which could be solved only by radically transforming the conception of freedom that they received from Kant.

Who is Haunted by the Shadow of God? Dialectical Notes on Michael Rosen's Narrative of (Failed) Secularization

ABSTRACT In The Shadow of God, Michael Rosen argues that modern moral philosophy in the tradition of German Idealism is profoundly shaped by religious views these thinkers could not overcome. However, a closer look at Rosen’s critique of Kant’s and Kantian conceptions of morality raises the possibility that Rosen’s view may itself be haunted by the shadow of God. In particular, Rosen appears to believe that a moral imperative of respect for human dignity necessarily requires a religious-transcendent grounding, such that there is no purely moral answer to the question of why such respect is owed. In relegating morality to an impersonal realm that alienates us from our personal understandings of the good, Rosen fails to recognize not only that Kantian morality is meant to alienate us from certain ends (e.g., racist or sexist), but that it is also meant to overcome alienation. This is because Kantian morality is not so much impersonal, as it is interpersonal: it recognizes us as belonging to a community of free and equal persons, who are autonomous when we morally reflect on, or even reject, certain ends.

Hume’s Empiricism versus Kant’s Critical Philosophy (in the Times of Artificial Intelligence and the Attention Economy)

The article exposes how one of the most fundamental oppositions in the history of modern philosophy – the opposition between Hume’s empiricism and Kant’s critical philosophy – is embedded in the current debate on the impact of artificial intelligence (in particular, the algorithmic selection of content) on human society. Hume’s empiricism – with its deduction of subjectivity based on a process of habituation – corresponds to the functioning of recommending algorithms, while Kant’s idea of autonomous subjectivity corresponds to the ideals underlying today’s ethical attempts towards the regulation of artificial intelligence. According to such ethics, the use of empirical data can endanger humans; whereby our attention can be easily caught by sensationalist content and our autonomy replaced by the agency of machinic intelligence. However, as argued in the present article, such ethical positioning also reproduces the gap between the empirical reality and normative principles, which is why transcendental (Kantian) ethics should be supplemented with Hume’s immanent and practical reasoning.

The Lacanian Subject and the Philosophy of Education: Diagnostic with, or without, Therapeutic?

Jacques Lacan’s ethical insights come up when he engages, inter alia, with Aristotelian and Kantian ethics. Tackling Aristotle’s ethics, Lacan complicates how human life would be best lived and fulfilled, and discussing Kant’s ethics, he sheds a different light on moral duty. In both cases, Lacan emphasizes the role of desire and law in the subject’s actions. Many Lacanian insights constitute a fertile context for political philosophy and philosophy of education to explore the ethic character of the subject. However, some postmodern political philosophers who draw on fundamental Lacanian concepts have theorized the “Self–Other” relationship in a way that ends up in a problematic ontological accommodation of evil. In this paper, I outline the aforementioned to highlight the following lacuna: much of the literature in educational philosophy that has utilized Lacan’s theory to deal with ethics has not addressed, head-on, whether the Lacanian subject is ethical, unethical, or none of these. Treating the subject as ethical or unethical would entail that Lacanian theory can mainly offer “diagnoses”. Treating the Lacanian subject as ethically neutral and, thus, as plastic, entails that Lacan’s theory leaves more ample space for “therapy”. My aim in this paper is to show that some unanswered questions regarding the (un)ethical subject in Lacan’s theory must be tackled if the philosophy of education that transfers Lacan’s ideas to the ethical educational context is to avoid self-contradiction.

Can Kant tell us what to do? Intentions, dilemmas, and the long journey towards moral perfection

The “received view” on Kantian ethics holds that perfect duties enjoy absolute priority over imperfect duties. More recently, several Kantian scholars have reassessed this situation, arguing that imperfect duties may remain binding even if they imply breaching a perfect duty. In this article, I argue that both positions rely on a misunderstanding of the bindingness of Kantian duties. Genuine Kantian duties, I claim, remain binding even when they cannot be fulfilled. We must always strive for a total completion of our duties; what it means for us to strive for it, however, will vary depending on our peculiar situation.

An Ethico-Philosophical Disquisition of Homosexuality

The practice of homosexuality in several nations has been the subject of intense controversy recently. In addition to eroding the sense of identity of individuals who practice it, homosexuality—also known as same-sex relationships or marriage—has also been condemned for undermining the order of creation and endangering the survival of many societies. This paper examines homosexuality as an act and its consequent implications for the community in which the actor belongs. The paper employs the method of critical analysis; hence, using Kantian ethics, the utilitarian view, situation ethics, sexual ethics, and Christian ethics to look at the issue of homosexuality; and also, the natural law theory of morality, which states that since what is natural is morally right and what is unnatural is morally wrong, homosexuality as an act is unnatural, hence it is morally wrong. To conclude, we are of the opinion that an unauthentic lifestyle has detrimental consequences for society in general and the individual in particular

Hegel and Nietzsche on Self-Judgment, Self-Mastery, and the Right to One’s Life

Abstract Nietzsche’s views regarding suicide are usually interpreted as a response to Christian, Kantian, and Schopenhauerian ethics. Here, they are defended on the basis of his notion of life as an aesthetic phenomenon in order to provide extramoral responses to such challenges as the following: a) whether the self can deliver the right kind of judgment regarding her life, b) how suicide can be considered an empowerment of the will, and c) whether suicide can be considered an exercise of freedom by the subject who thereby cancels the very grounds and means for will and action. Reconstructed as a response to Hegel’s argument against suicide on the grounds that one is not the master of oneself and that one therefore lacks the proper means to judge one’s life, Nietzsche’s position provides the epistemic footing to ground an alternate notion of self-mastery as well as the necessary insight regarding one’s life. It is shown that this reading of Nietzsche’s argument is in alignment with his non-dualism and expressivist views regarding agency. Finally, a response is formulated to the socially-grounded arguments prohibiting suicide on the basis of this reading of Nietzsche’s position.