Kant, casuistry and casuistical questions

Abstract

Interest in the role of casuistry and casuistical questions in Kant's Doctrine of Virtue (DV), i.e. the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, has grown in recent years. My own position is formulated in Schuessler (2012, in German), the main thesis of which will be retained here in an updated form and with some shifts of emphasis. I hold that the casuistical questions concerning perfect duties in the DV are not intended to represent casuistry in Kant's sense. Casuistry and casuistical questions are neither equivalent in the DV nor do they serve the same purposes. K E Y W O R D S casuistry, doctrine of virtue, education, KantInterest in the role of casuistry and casuistical questions in Kant's Doctrine of Virtue (DV), i.e. the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, has grown in recent years. My own position is formulated in Schuessler (2012, in German), the main thesis of which will be retained here in an updated form and with some shifts of emphasis. I hold that the casuistical questions concerning perfect duties in the DV are not intended to represent casuistry in Kant's sense. Casuistry and casuistical questions are neither equivalent in the DV nor do they serve the same purposes. In Kant's view, casuistry is an art of finding submaxims for the exercise of imperfect duties. This excludes the use of casuistry in the domain of perfect duties (whether legal or ethical), and indeed, if properly understood, Kant does not use it in this context. He, of course, asks casuistical questions with respect to perfect duties, but casuistical questions can be answered without casuistry. For Kant, casuistical questions are mainly didactical classroom exercises to test whether pupils have acquired sufficient knowledge of ethics. In this regard, the questions concerning perfect ethical duties are meant to elicit the response that such duties do not allow for exceptions even in apparently hard cases.The first section deals with Kant's remarks about casuistry and casuistical questions in the DV. The next section discusses the research literature on the subject. The following section addresses the casuistical questions on perfect duties to oneself. The penultimate section turns to the casuistical questions on imperfect duties of love. The final This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.