Kant's Moral Theory Research Articles

Incentives and beneficence

Whether an action is beneficent may depend on its effect on incentives for future behavior of the beneficiary. This strategic consideration makes our moral account of beneficence far more complex than most discussions suggest. Its effect on utilitarian and Kantian moral theories is discussed. In general, strategic incentive considerations recommend institutional rather than individual resolution of many problems, so that moral theory must in part be political and institutional.

Moral Theory Based on the ‘Heart’ versus the ‘Mind’: Schopenhauer's and Durkheim's Critiques of Kantian Ethics

Schopenhauer criticized Kant's moral theory on the grounds that it was non-empirical and inadequate, because it attempted to establish morality on the basis of reason and duty. Contrary to Kant, Schopenhauer argued that genuine morality is irrational, based on compassion, and a human product, hence that it could be studied empirically. Schopenhauer established the ‘science of morality’ which occupied the attention of a host of turn of the century precursors of the social sciences, especially Durkheim. Durkheim's version of the science of moral facts is compared and contrasted with Schopenhauer's critique of Kant, and it is demonstrated that Durkheim tends (o follow Schopenhauer's lead. Problems with Durkheim's and Schopenhauer's critiques of Kantian ethics are also discussed.

The Development of Character in Kantian Moral Theory

The Development of Character in Kantian Moral Theory

On the Relation of Pure Reason to Content: A Reply to Hegel's Critique of Formalism in Kant's Ethics

If Hegel is right in his critique of Kant's ethics as an formalism, then it is true that this has devastating consequences for Kantian moral theory, and that as many have assumed there remains very little to be said in favor of Kant's formalist orientation. In spite of the multifaceted character of Hegel's critique, its most serious challenge to Kant can be narrowed down to two related charges, both of which appear in paragraphs 135-41 of the Philosophy of Right. First, as and empty of content, Hegel tells us, the supreme law of Kant's ethics can specify particular moral duties only if some other moral principle or content is presupposed. The implication here is that Kant is wrong to insist upon the thoroughly critical character of his moral theory. His efforts to demonstrate how the categorical imperative is sufficient as the test by which we may derive a substantive system of moral rules in fact depend, Hegel thinks, on the prior adoption of uncritical premises. Secondly, as formal and empty, the categorical imperative cannot place adequate restriction on the kind of maxim that may be justified on moral grounds. So, in addition to resting on an uncritical or dogmatic foundation, Kant's ethics also fails to provide a satisfactory criterion for determining the moral worth of our maxims. The first of these two challenges (which parallels Hegel's central critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy) is potentially the most destructive one, in so far as it is taken to call into question the internal consistency of

Kant's Liberalism: A Reply to Rolf George

In his thoughtful paper, “The Liberal Tradition, Kant, and the Pox”, Rolf George joins the venerable argument about whether Kant should be accounted friend or foe of liberals. But this is not just a rehearsal of the debate over the compatibility of the Old Jacobin's defense of civil liberties and government by consent with his notoriously unpleasant doctrines of the absolute duty to obey the law or his ruthlessly retributive view of punishment. George advances the debate by suggesting that elements of Kant's moral theory are deeply incompatible with liberalism. And this is particularly striking when liberals like John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and Robert Nozick are quick to invoke Kant's name in defense of their own views. The attraction of Kant for these modern (and American) liberals is clear, for they hold individualistic moral theories and they reject utilitarianism. But, if George is right, there are aspects of Kant's thought which make him an unsuitable mascot.

Liberalism, Kant, Pox: A Reply to Rolf George

A paper which succeeds in being erudite, yet lively, and which tells an amusing tale without digressing from its theme, deserves great admiration. Such is Professor George's discussion of Kant and liberalism. He first points out briefly that in fact Kant exercised small influence on liberal thought in the nineteenth century. The bulk of his paper is devoted to the question of whether Kant was a liberal at all and to justifying his unconventional negative answer. In the course of so doing he presents the diverting tale of the ingenuous young aristocrat who solicits Kant's opinion as to whether one's wife should be inoculated against the pox. But the diversion is pertinent. Kant's two answers to the question reveal two different ways in which the Kantian moral theory, sententiously expressed in the so-called “categorical imperative”, might be incompatible with liberal opinion.

Aristotle, Kant and Rawls on Moral Motivation in a Just Society

John Rawls considers hisTheory of Justiceto be in the Kantian tradition. Generally there seems to be agreement among Rawls' critics that at least with respect to the procedural formulation of the principles of justice, it is difficult to call Rawls' position Kantian. In this article I will argue that Rawls' Kantianism is best understood as providing a motive source for acting upon known just standards of conduct. In this regard Rawls can be read as synthesizing aspects of Aristotle'sNicomachean Ethicsand Kant's moral reasoning to provide the rationale to explain why an individual who knows what is morally correct conduct in a given situation, makes such knowledge the source of his action. Demonstrating the Aristotelean roots of Rawls' Kantianism with respect to the problem of motivation for just conduct helps one understand how Kant's moral theory can be viewed in Rawls' words not as a “morality of austere command but … [as] … an ethic of mutual respect and self esteem” (1971, p. 251). Secondly, this view of Kant provides the basis for understanding the anti-corporatist aspect of Rawls' political theory that my reading of Rawls makes necessary.

Philosophical Lectures on the Constitution, Duty, and Religion of Man (review)

124 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY would seem that this latter notion is, in fact, more consistent with the spirit of Kant's moral theory. As an introduction to Kant's moral theory this short work is valuable and informative . It manages to present a fine condensation of a variety of materials which should certainly stimulate the serious student's curiosity about Kant's detailed analyses of moral value, freedom, the role of practical reason, and the question of universalizability. Despite minor quarrels about what is omitted in Acton's introductory work and despite disagreements of interpretation, his book is useful and, in certain respects, informative. GEORGE J. STAC~ SUNY, Brockport Philosophical Lectures on the Constitution, Duty, and Religion of Man. By Samuel Williams, LL.D. Edited by Merle Curti and William Tillman. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society; New Series, Vol. 60, Part 3. (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1970. Pp. 130. $7.00) This extraordinary composition was buried since 1805 in the vault of the Vermont Historical Society, where it was discovered recently by Merle Curti. He and William Tillman have edited the manuscript and added a biographical sketch of its author, who was a member of the American Philosophical Society. It now appears appropriately and elegantly in the Transactions of this Society. Samuel Williams graduated from Harvard College in 1761, engaged in the study of astronomy, meteorology, and other natural sciences, and in 1772 was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society. From 1780 to 1788 he was Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard. He then became minister of the church at Rutland, Vermont, and also published a newspaper and a magazine. He was unsuccessful in founding a college at Rutland, but became one of the founders of the University of Vermont at Burlington, where these lectures were delivered to the general public in 1805. At this time the New England clergy and the public generally were engaged in two bitter controversies: natural religion versus revealed religion (the Enlightenment versus the Great Awakening), and among the theologians, "Old Lights" versus "New Lights" in highly technical points of doctrine (over infant damnation, etc.). At Harvard and in Boston the conflicts had subsided into the compromise of Channing's Unitarianism, but in Vermont both the extreme rationalists (Ethan Allen) and the Old Light Calvinists were conspicuously active, though the liberal Universalists were gaining in popular favor. Into this heated atmosphere Samuel Williams, Congregational minister and distinguished natural scientist, stepped boldly. The chief themes of the ten lectures were: there should be no conflict between natural religion and Christianity, both of which were grounded in human nature and aimed at being reasonable; and the "metaphysical" quarrelings of the theologians were not essential for a true conception of The System of Grace. The world's Creator had established two wonderful orders for the benefit of man: the natural order of cause and effect, and the natural order of morality and Grace for the liberation of man from the burdens of guilt. Both orders, as universal matters of fact, were miraculous, wonderful creations, both revealed to reasonable men, and both inexplicable as a universal system. Scientific ("philosophical") explanation is based on different types of causes with different effects, discovered by different sciences. This was generally understood among scientists. But it was not generaly known that the natural moral order and the system of grace-through-sacrifice was rooted in the "reli- BOOK REVIEWS 125 gious principle" of human nature. A truly enlightened philosopher should know that among primitive religions, among classical religions, as well as in modern times men had vainly sought to free themselves from the burdens of guilt by elaborate sacrifices, and that God himself had finally revealed the only successful, "natural.... system of grace" through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The power of Christianity to free men from guilt is the real truth, which reasonable men should know. To be "awakened" to the Divine Grace was a sign of genuine enlightenment. However mysterious this power may be, a philosopher or natural scientist in morals should accept this power as revealed, miraculous, and natural. But other reasonable men might not be satisfied unless they could prove that the...

The Source of Kant's Mature Moral Theory

Some thirty years ago Klaus Reich claimed that Kant's abandonment of feeling as the source of our moral appraisals was due to his reading of Plato and the Stoics, and more interestingly that it led him to the fundamental concept of his mature moral theory, the autonomy of the will. Despite the obvious importance of the latter claim, it seems to have gone either unnoticed or unchallenged, at least in the English philosophical literature. This is particularly surprising since, apart from holding any view as to the legitimacy of singling out the source of Kant's mature moral theory, more obvious influences than those of Plato and the Stoics seem to have played such a role : the variant of Lutheran Christianity, Pietism, Rousseau, and the cultural context of the Enlightenment.

Are Kant's First Two Moral Principles Equivalent?

Are Kant's First Two Moral Principles Equivalent? JOHN E. ATWELL "AcT m SUCHA WAY that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end." 1 By referring to this moral principle (hereafter, the principle of personality ) as the se~:ond formula of the moral law, Kant suggests the view, later made explicit, that it is in some sense equivalent with the first formula, that is, the principle of universality (or the categorical imperative): "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." 2 Writers on Kant's moral theory disagree, notoriously, on many points of interpretation and criticism, but most of them agree in objecting to the claim that the two aforementioned principles are equivalent, s (I am leaving out of consideration the third principle, as well as variations on the first and second.) In the main, however, these critics fail to support fully their objection, for they neither examine closely the second principle nor explain what it means (in general or for Kant) for two moral principles to be equivalent or nonequivalent. I intend to do both, in hopes of determining whether or not the objection is valid. First, however, a qualification. I shall interpret the principle of personality as if it read: "Act in such a way that you always treat other persons never merely as means, but always at the same time as ends." There are two main reasons for this reformulation. First, it allows me to ignore the question of what Kant meant by the phrase "treat humanity." This is a troublesome notion even when supplemented by "in your own person or in the person of any other," and since: it tends to obscure an already "dark saying" (Carritt's expression) without adding anything that "'person" cannot be construed to signify, I shall omit it. Secondly, the reformulation serves to exclude from consideration so-called "duties to oneself." I doubt that there are any such duties (unless "duties" in "duties to oneself" is understood as For discussing with me the contents of this paper I am especially indebted to my former colleague, Donald E. Salter, and my wife. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik tier Sitten, Academy eel., IV, 429. I am using, with occasional alteration, the translation by H. ]. Paton, The Moral Law (London: Hutchinson Univ. Library, 1948). Hereafter, references to the Grundlegung axe cited as "Gr" followed by the Academy ed. page number in IV. = Gr, 421. = Kant doesn't use the term "equivalent," but he does say, referring to the three main principles, "The aforesaid three ways of r~presenting the principle of morality axe at bottom so many formulations of precisely the same law... (Gr, 436). That most critics do object to this contention needs no citation. [273] 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY having quite a different meaning than it has in "duties to others"). But if there are, they do not fall within the province of the principle to be dealt with here. Besides, it is not at all clear how one could possibly violate a duty to oneself when this means, as here it must, treating oneself merely as a means. In order to determine whether two moral principles are equivalent or not, we must first come to some understanding as to what a moral principle is. I emphasize "some" because I am not prepared to state the nature of a moral principle (if there is one), nor do I see any need to try. It is sufficient for my purposes to say something in general about the task of a moral principle, about the setting in which it is used, about the primary user, and so on. Because one might claim that two principles are not equivalent when actually they were simply employed differently, this discussion is at the same time indispensable. Speaking generally now, a moral principle is meant to be (or to provide), in varying degrees of specificity, a moral criterion, that is, a criterion for deciding what one ought and ought not to do. When faced...