Supervisors: Robert Pippin, James Conant, Matthew Boyle, and Stephen Engstrom Address: Corpus Christi College University of Cambridge Trumpington Street Cambridge, UK CB2 1RH http://anastasiaberg.com
Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one h... more Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, resp...
The dominant reception of Kant accords him the view that our capacity for feeling and our capacit... more The dominant reception of Kant accords him the view that our capacity for feeling and our capacity for self-determination are essentially independent of one another: feelings, therefore, are essentially un-free. The negative aim of the dissertation is to argue against this standard interpretation; the positive aim is to offer an alternative. ,I demonstrate that the standard interpretation is not only alien to our ordinary ways of self-understanding but that it moreover threatens the internal coherence of the Kantian account itself. I develop an alternative by examining Kant’s account of how reason motivates the agent: first, in the account of the feeling of moral respect, and, second, in the account of moral character. I argue that moral respect does not name one particular feeling among many but that implicit in Kant’s account is the previously unrecognized idea that human feeling is a unique mode of self-consciousness—disclosing the subject to herself as rational and efficacious, i.e., as a moral agent. The distinctively human capacity for feeling emerges as the form of self-consciousness constitutive of practical agency, i.e., of freedom. This understanding of feeling allows us to reevaluate Kant’s account of moral character. Drawing on an Aristotelian understanding of the logical structure of capacities and activities I argue that character is the activity of maintaining one’s identity as a practical agent—an activity that consists in maintaining the agent’s structure of motivation. I then attend to the apparent tension between Kant’s rigorism—the claim that an agent is of either wholly good or wholly evil character—and his nuanced account of the grades of moral imperfection. In addition to good and bad character, I claim, we must find room for moral immaturity, or the partial acquisition of moral character. To do this we must recognize the acquisition of moral character as a form of rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our rational capacities for feeling. Thus, on this alternative interpretation of Kant’s account, feeling and character do not oppose, but are rather the constitutive conditions of freedom.
It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the ‘Opacity Thesis,’ the claim that we cannot know t... more It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the ‘Opacity Thesis,’ the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Thus understood, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant’s account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law’s determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant’s concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one’s action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself as pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness”. Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will’s self-consciousness but is born of it.
Kant's account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one h... more Kant's account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling; on the other hand, the subject's grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the 'intellectualists' and 'affectivists,' an effect of the determination of the will by the law-whether it be a mere effect or the motivating cause of action-but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant's general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject's recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i.e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity.
Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one h... more Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, resp...
The dominant reception of Kant accords him the view that our capacity for feeling and our capacit... more The dominant reception of Kant accords him the view that our capacity for feeling and our capacity for self-determination are essentially independent of one another: feelings, therefore, are essentially un-free. The negative aim of the dissertation is to argue against this standard interpretation; the positive aim is to offer an alternative. ,I demonstrate that the standard interpretation is not only alien to our ordinary ways of self-understanding but that it moreover threatens the internal coherence of the Kantian account itself. I develop an alternative by examining Kant’s account of how reason motivates the agent: first, in the account of the feeling of moral respect, and, second, in the account of moral character. I argue that moral respect does not name one particular feeling among many but that implicit in Kant’s account is the previously unrecognized idea that human feeling is a unique mode of self-consciousness—disclosing the subject to herself as rational and efficacious, i.e., as a moral agent. The distinctively human capacity for feeling emerges as the form of self-consciousness constitutive of practical agency, i.e., of freedom. This understanding of feeling allows us to reevaluate Kant’s account of moral character. Drawing on an Aristotelian understanding of the logical structure of capacities and activities I argue that character is the activity of maintaining one’s identity as a practical agent—an activity that consists in maintaining the agent’s structure of motivation. I then attend to the apparent tension between Kant’s rigorism—the claim that an agent is of either wholly good or wholly evil character—and his nuanced account of the grades of moral imperfection. In addition to good and bad character, I claim, we must find room for moral immaturity, or the partial acquisition of moral character. To do this we must recognize the acquisition of moral character as a form of rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our rational capacities for feeling. Thus, on this alternative interpretation of Kant’s account, feeling and character do not oppose, but are rather the constitutive conditions of freedom.
It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the ‘Opacity Thesis,’ the claim that we cannot know t... more It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the ‘Opacity Thesis,’ the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Thus understood, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant’s account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law’s determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant’s concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one’s action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself as pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness”. Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will’s self-consciousness but is born of it.
Kant's account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one h... more Kant's account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling; on the other hand, the subject's grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the 'intellectualists' and 'affectivists,' an effect of the determination of the will by the law-whether it be a mere effect or the motivating cause of action-but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant's general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject's recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i.e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity.
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