Kingdom Of Ends Research Articles

The Market in the Kingdom of Ends

In the literature on the Moral Limits of the Markets, Kant’s moral philosophy is often employed to assess the amoral or immoral nature of the commercial sphere. Markets and morality are antipodes since the instrumentality of market transactions excludes or undermines moral values. The kingdom of ends, where everything has either a price or a dignity, closes the door to market logic. The present paper challenges this view, which is also endorsed by business ethics authors advocating for Moral Purism. I will show that Kant imagined a market within the Kingdom of Ends where everyone pursues their own aims while assisting others in pursuing theirs. This model, built on the universalization of the maxim of mutual assistance and the duty of honoring the spirit of mutually beneficial contracts, can be employed to judge the morality of real (empirical) market transactions.

Инструментарий этического анализа компьютерных игр: ответ на вызовы нового просвещения

The authors of the idea of a “new Enlightenment”, Ernst von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman, in their 2018 report to the Club of Rome analyse the causes of the explosive development of science and technology in the Modern period and come to the conclusion that their triumph and existential threats stem in many ways from the ideals of Enlightenment, so that the future of humankind depends crucially on an ideological rethinking of man’s status in the world. They stress the need to enhance the responsibility of the individual so that each individual becomes conscious of sharing the destiny of the whole of mankind and the world. I argue that in the framework of Enlightenment 2.0 the Kantian concept of social development, which is closely linked with the moral ideal — the kingdom of ends — may form the basis of the concept of society in which individual freedom and social development are interconnected and the mutually determining elements of the human being in whom freedom can be exercised only if it contributes to social good. The Kantian interpretation of social development as the human being forming the sphere of free being can be the basis of a critical assessment of the content of video games in terms of their media impact on the shaping of the ideology of modern society. I show that the boundaries of the exercise of freedom in a video game, supported by artificial intelligence, influence the way an individual perceives society and his/her place in it. I come to the conclusion that video games, which express a certain idea about society, can contribute to or impede the formation of a new ideological foundation of society whose aim, according to Enlightenment 2.0, should be overcoming the antagonism between the individual and the collective.

Натурализируя Канта

The third formulation of the Categorical Imperative rarely receives the attention devoted to its predecessors. This paper aims to develop a naturalistic approach to morality inspired by Kant’s conception of moral agents as legislating in a Kingdom of Ends. Positions derived from the third formulation, John Rawls’s Kantian Constructivism and T. M. Scanlon’s Contractualism, cleave closely to Kant in idealising the process of legislation. For Rawls, the citizens of the Kantian Reich can be reduced to one, a representative of all, who deliberates behind the veil of ignorance using minimax reasoning. Scanlon includes other lawmakers, but any potential diversity among them is overridden by trans­historical canons of reason. By contrast, I view morality as developing historically through the interactions among people with different views and conflicting aims. The task of moral theory is to construct an appropriate methodology to govern their deliberations. My naturalised Kant takes the first steps. Morality arises from the recognition of problematic situations, identified first by listening to the complaints of actual people, by judging whether they are warranted, and by seeking to amend them when the warrant is confirmed. Societies (and individuals) make moral progress when they deliberate (or simulate deliberations) in accordance with three norms. All those potentially affected should be included; the best available information should be used; and participants should aim for an outcome all can accept. How far is naturalised Kant from the great philosopher? I leave the answer to the scholars.

Genesis of Moral Freedom in Kant

In Kant’s writings, we can discover four key moments in the realization of moral freedom: i) The original possibility of being free, ii) The act described by Kant as radical evil, iii) The opposite act, that is, an inner conversion to good, and, finally, iv) The long process of the self-development of virtue extending to immortality. There are further issues such as the double concept of moral evil, and practical temporality. Moral freedom is originally located (and presupposed in Kant’s transcendental deduction) in the individual, her decisions, and the maxims or principles that guide her actions, even though a community (as both a „kingdom of ends” and social reality) provides the scope wherein all this takes place and its socially and historically-situated shapes. This paper tries to systematize these crucial stages of Kant’s moral philosophy with the focus on the concept of virtue.

Kantian Ethics Towards A Justifiable Business And Trade Practices: Envisaging A Humanitarian Society

The Kantian code of ethics is guided by pure practical reason and since reason is consistent and permits no exceptions to favor the lawmaker or its adherent, the moral law is also consistent and inflexible. This nature of the law is very significant for trade as trade norms cannot be flexed to favor a particular nation or company. This paper believes that Kantian cosmopolitanism should be the credo of business and trade. The reason for this assertion is because the ultimate goal of humanity is a prosperous living of all people in a spirit of unity. Humanity is at its best when rising above the barriers of race, caste and creed. And Kant's ethics has always recommended a path for humanity that leads to this cohesion. Ethical commonwealth, cosmopolitanism, League of Nations and Kingdom of ends have in themselves this one-point agenda to envisage a humanitarian society that takes pride in peaceable solidarity of human existence.

Teaching Human Rights: Toward a Kingdom of Ends

The author argues that the current practices of human rights education produce anti-educational orthodoxies that result from a divorce between human rights and human rights education and human dignity, moral autonomy, and the right to justification.

Teologia moral.

Kant’s doctrine of moral theology is mainly explored, though not exclusively, in the “Doctrine of the method” in the Critique of Judgment, concerning the faculty of teleological judgment. This doctrine is closely related to his concept of final end <Endweck>. According to Kant, only the human being is considered final end, an “end that requires no other end as a condition of its possibility” (KU, §84, AA 05: 396). In order to things can exist in conformity with this end, Kant introduces in this context the admission, not only of an intelligent being as the author of the world, but also a moral being who is both regent and moral legislator. Many questions have arisen in the contemporary debate on these topics, such as the parallelism between Kant’s approach of the final end in the second part of the Critique of Judgment and Religion, the collective character of the concepts of God and highest good, the relationship between the concept of final end - related to the concepts of moral world, kingdom of ends, ethical community – and political community, or the questions that arise from the cosmopolitan conception of the human nature.
 Recebido / Received: 17.11.2019.Aprovado / Approved: 2.12.2019.

Why Kant Animals Have Rights?

Abstract It has become increasingly common for animal ethicists to advance deontological theories of animal rights, as opposed to merely welfarist theories of animals’ moral significance. Kantians, however, have not been so quick to adapt. The gates to the Kingdom of Ends are closed to any who lack rational autonomy. Christine Korsgaard’s recent work, however, has made a concerted effort to find a place for animals within Kant’s Kingdom of Ends. I argue that Korsgaard can have animal rights or Kantian ethics, but not both.

Situating the Self in the Kingdom of Ends: Heidegger, Arendt, and Kantian Moral Phenomenology

Situating the Self in the Kingdom of Ends: Heidegger, Arendt, and Kantian Moral Phenomenology

Engagement for Freedom

This article presents Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of the tension between existence and politics and the role of political commitment in existentialist philosophy. Based on Sartre’s concept of engagement, the article analyzes the transition from the personal to the political perceived as a movement from personal moral consciousness to the awareness of the importance of the individual as a social actor and citizen in society. Sartre’s concept of political engagement can be characterized as critical intellectual commitment and “Socratic Citizenship.” Accordingly, this article is also an acknowledgment of the two important philosophers of ecoethica, Tomonbu Imamichi and Peter Kemp, both committed public intellectuals who said that the role of the philosopher is to contribute to the public affair of cosmopolitan society. Thus, the article presents the political engagement in four major parts: (1) From the existential to political engagement, (2) Political commitment as a struggle for human freedom, (3) The Socratic Citizenship, and (4). Conditions of authentic political action. Political engagement represents an effort to realize the respect owed to each individual as a universal singular, as well as that owed to freedom and democracy in the Kingdom of Ends.

Kant's Philosophy of Communication

Kant's Philosophy of Communication

All Kings in the Kingdom of Ends

Kant’s “kingdom of ends” formulation uses a political model to illuminate some moral ideals. Kant scholars have mostly failed to explore what we might think of as the politics of the kingdom of ends, and how far it reflects Kant’s own political ideas — his Rousseauian and republican ideas. My paper will look at the kingdom of ends through the eyes of a political philosopher. Among other things, the paper will consider Kant’s view that a king — if there is one — ought to rule in a republican spirit. And it will reject the interpretation that sovereignty in the kingdom of ends is reserved for God: the whole point of the model is that people should think of themselves as sharing in sovereignty. There is also a question about the relation between the kingdom of ends and Kant’s observations on dignity in the Groundwork. Is dignity a concept within the model — the dignity of a law-maker — or is it something with real application in moral life, which the kingdom-of-ends model helps illuminate? I shall argue that it is both of these.

Ludic Constructivism: Or, Individual Life and the Fate of Humankind

In The Grasshopper, Bernard Suits argues that the best life is the one whose essence is game-play. In fact, only through the concept of game-play can we understand how anything at all is worth doing. Yet this seems implausible: morality makes things worth doing independently of any game, and games are themselves subject to moral evaluation. So games must be logically posterior to morality. The current paper responds to these objections by developing the theory of Ludic Constructivism.Constructivist theories such as Kant’s explain normativity in a way that is both objective and cognitivist but also mind-dependent. Roughly, constructivists ground normative structures in rational procedures. But rational agency is diverse: it is realized in different ways and to different degrees by different agents. Yet Kantian Constructivism requires a strong identity of rational procedures across rational agents.Ludic Constructivism avoids this challenge by rejecting this strong identity of agency, instead building a normative framework out of the ingredients of Suits’s definition of game-play. We want to play the best games we can. In order to do so we must play games with a certain structure: they must be nested multiplayer games in which everyone who is capable of self-originating activity is engaged as a fellow player rather than a plaything. Nested games – games that are constructed out of other games – go best when each game contributes to the value of each other game in the nest. Such game nests are “reciprocating value-maximization structures”. Our lives go best when we design, play, and revise the game of our Individual Life and we also embed that game within the highest-order nested game of Fate of Humankind.In this way, Ludic Constructivism delivers a normative system that expands Kant’s Kingdom of Ends, and a life that meets Aristotle’s conception of pleasure.

‘Kingdom of Ends’ as Economic Model: Whether Transition is Possible?

Abstract The article considers the connection between ethics, in particular Kant’s practical philosophy, and economics. The author examines historical reasons for Kant’s ethic not to have become part of the economic discourse and interprets modern business processes from Kant’s perspective. The article aims to demonstrate the possibilities of applying the philosophical instruments of Kant’s morals to concrete economic issues.

The afterlife: beyond belief

When a Christian refers to the future full realization of the kingdom of God in an afterlife, it is typically assumed that she is expressing (or implying) beliefs about the existence and activity of God in conjunction with supernatural beliefs about an otherworldly realm and the possibility of one’s personal survival after bodily death. In other words, the religious language is interpreted in a realist fashion and the religious person here is construed as a religious believer. A corollary of this widely-held realist view is the assumption that if one were to conclude that there is no good reason to believe the asserted claims—for example, no reason to believe that we may survive our bodily deaths in a heavenly realm—then there is no reason to engage in the use of such religious language and the practices which accompany it. I argue that this assumption is false—that there is a meaningful way to use such language in a religious context that does not rest on believing supernatural claims. Against the backdrop of Kant’s discussion of a kingdom of ends understood as a regulative ideal, I argue that religious discourse about the kingdom of God being brought to fruition may be reinterpreted as a useful fiction to draw our attention to and engage our emotions with a distinctive ideal of restorative justice. Though I and others have previously offered fictionalist accounts of language about God, I extend the view here to some religious language about the afterlife.

From One Utopia to Another: Kant, Spicer, and Moral Agency

This essay explains, contextualizes, and integrates three distinct and practical utopias—Kant’s Kingdom of Ends, a covenant between practitioners and scholars, and a balance between organizational unity and individual integrity. The integration of these utopias can lead to the creation of a common utopia that, in turn, can provide a foundation for the enactment of moral agency in public service. While individual and institutional change tends to be slow and difficult, this reframed reform agenda, which can potentially unite practitioners, scholars, and competing political interests, is key to an invigorated citizenship, pursuit of the common good, and an enduring commitment to the public interest and democratic governance.

Examples of Perfectionism

Examples of Perfectionism

Disentir de Kant

Muguerza is a great connoisseur of Kant, but his criticisms of the Kantian moral have been growing over time. He has dissented from the Kantian principle of universalization, has priorized the principle of autonomy and has also criticized the Kantian Kingdom of Ends, by proposing its own conception of moral individualism, based on the alternative of dissent. This article discusses some of Muguerza’s criticisms of Kant, especially those concerning the universalist and imperative character of his moral philosophy. Other objections to Kantian moral individualism are also discussed, coming from feminist ethics and from neuroethics. Finally, an axiological interpretation of morality it’s suggested, according to which Kant’s and Muguerza’s principles can be considered as conflicting values. By priorizing one or the other set of values different conceptions of ethical individualism arise.

On Speaking Matter, Boundary, and Place

Philosophy must learn to hear the speaking of matter.-John McCumber, On Philosophy, 229IJohn McCumber's On Philosophy: Notes from Crisis opens with tracing the multiple crises from which philosophy suffers today back to the problem- atic presumption that certain human beings are unable to attain rational enlightenment because they lack the natural endowment to do so. The belief is these humans lack the capacity to accomplish effective self-legislation in keeping with the norms of pure reason, especially those formulated by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. McCumber points out that this belief in effect excludes sizeable segment of the human species, notably women and those considered savages by Kant, from membership in the Kingdom of Ends. Yet in the last half-century these same human beings have been clamoring from the four quarters of the earth to be heard: they have raised their voices, they have found their voices, where before under various colonialist regimes these voices were stifled and muted. This clamor has been multivocal. In addition to racial groups of every description, the chorus includes women from around the word-women who seek not only a different but an effective say in determining their own destinies.To this muilti-voiced body (in Fred Evans' phrase) McCumber brings new perspective. Arguing on the basis of certain understanding of how adequate bases of justification are to be found for scientific findings-an understanding emerging from the work of Thomas Kuhn and Arthur Fine-he proposes that in successful scientific experiment matter is allowed to speak: it forward with its own voice, to McCumber spots convergence between the way that matter is allowed to in science and how women's and subalterns' voices have begun to be heard in the contemporary world. In both cases, what was formerly considered mere brutematter, something debased and without intelligence, calls for an audience. In each instance, we have to do with the speaking of matter.A third circumstance of comparable dynamics is furnished by AA meetings, such as that described in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, where situation of brutal honesty encourages the intense articulation of the experience of hitting Bottom and of having no choice but that between life and death. In all three instances, an initial circumstance of lacking apposite concepts (and the words to signify them) leads to search for adequate expression in concepts (principles, universals, laws) that will illuminate situations otherwise characterized by confusion, loss, suffering, and disorientation. McCumber sees the process of seeking conceptually clarified insight as parallel to, indeed as actually involving, the employment of reflective judgment in Kant's sense of the term.A moment ago I said that in McCumber's view matter comes forward with its own voice, to speak. This so to speak is at the heart of the issue: in what sense of matter can speaking happen? Is it literally matter that speaks, as Mc- Cumber sometimes implies provocatively?1 Or is the speaking metaphoric only, borrowing from matter certain force and density that is transferred to human speaking in its thrust and moment? In that case, what is from sheer matter would also be its weight, its being located below us (on the earth, in our bodies) such that we must out and up from it. I suspect that the distinction between literal and metaphoric that I have just invoked in order to construe Mc- Cumber's very strong claims reduces and simplifies the situation unduly, sorting things out too neatly for what McCumber really wants to say.What he wants to say is something more forceful and more alarming philo- sophically. If matter speaks, it speaks not with sense of voice but with its own kind of voice. For borrowed (or transferred) in this context entails be- ing modeled on the human voice taken as the only voice that counts as voice, as authentic, full-throated voice. …

Sonhos de um Visionário e suas contribuições para a ética de Kant

Neste artigo, argumentarei a favor da ideia de que os aspectos fundamentais do sistema da metafísica da moral já estavam presentes na reflexão de Kant contextualizada no período entre 1764 -1766. Tendo como referência o texto publicado em 1766, intitulado Sonhos de um Visionário explicados por Sonhos da Metafísica, buscarei demonstrar, a partir da reflexão de Kant sobre o mundo espiritual, os primeiros traços de um novo modo de se compreender a metafísica como problema da vontade, que introduzirá, em consequência, as primeiras indicações na literatura referentes às noções de autonomia, liberdade, formalismo, imperativo categórico, reino dos fins e sentimento moral.