Kant on Moral Sensibility and Moral Motivation

Abstract

Nobody can or ever will comprehend how the understanding should have a motivating power; it can admittedly judge, but to give this judgment power so that it becomes a motive able to impel the will to performance of an action-to understand this is the philosopher's stone.-Lectures on Ethics (MPC, AA 27:1428). i n t r o d u c t i o n in contrast to his rationalist predecessors, Kant argues that feeling plays a positive role in moral life. Yet the exact nature of this role is far from clear. As much as Kant repeats that moral motivation must proceed from a "feeling of respect" (Gefühl der Achtung), he maintains with equal insistence that to act out of respect for the law is simply to recognize its value and authority. In what way, then, is respect for the law a feeling? And what place does this feeling have-if any-in Kant's ethics? Despite the large body of secondary literature devoted to this topic, the details of Kant's position still remain elusive. 1 In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), for example, Kant argues that our recognition of the moral law must elicit both painful and pleasurable feelings in us. It must be painful, he explains, insofar as

Kant on space, time, and respect for the moral law as analogous formal elements of sensibility

“…See DeWitt (2014) and Ware (2014). Respect is the marker of reason's transformative activity, through which sensibility as a whole acquires the form it must have if the practical subject is to be moved by her representation of the good.…”

“…Owen Ware argues that we should think past the 'intellectualist vs. affectivist' framework that characterizes contemporary debates on the issue. See DeWitt (2014) and Ware (2014). 16 I have significantly modified Gregor's translation of the text inside the parentheses, which reads as follows in the original German: '(wenn es mir erlaubt ist, diese sonst gar nicht angemessene Benennungen, bloß der Analogie wegen, hier zu gebrauchen)' (CPrR 5: 90).…”

“…For a more widely known objection along the same lines, seeWilliams (2006). 10 See, for example,(Ameriks, 2006;Guyer, 2008;Ware, 2014). 5 Because Guyer so willingly embraces this dualist reading of Kant, his position is especially instructive.…”

“…I mean them to refer to our sensible capacity insofar as it bears upon either the practical or theoretical use of reason. 10 See, for example,(Ameriks, 2006;Guyer, 2008;Ware, 2014). 11(Guyer, 2008, p. 165) 12 See CPrR 5: 34 for some particularly helpful remarks.…”

Why Does Kant Think We Must Believe in the Immortal Soul?

“…For example, the question of how to interpret Kant's account of the feeling of respect for the moral law is frequently unpacked through the affectivist/intellectualist framework (cf. Ware [2014]). But I would argue that it should be invoked more widely than it often is, applying to such diverse issues as how to interpret Kant's view of moral weakness, how to understand the source of moral evil more generally, and, as will be discussed here, the role of the practical postulates.…”