In this essay I argue that Kant remained committed to the necessity and fundamental importance of education throughout his career. Like Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724–90), Kant holds that a ‘total transformation’ of schools is necessary, and he holds this view not only in the 1770s but in his later years as well. In building my case I try to refute two recent opposing interpretations – Reinhard Brandt’s position that Kant’s early ‘education enthusiasm’ was later replaced by a politics enthusiasm, and (...) Manfred Kuehn’s view that the increasing importance of autonomy in Kant’s mature ethics leads him to de-emphasize education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kant's Theory of Virtue: The Value of AutocracyRobert B. LoudenAnne Margaret Baxley. Kant's Theory of Virtue: The Value of Autocracy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xvi + 189. Cloth, $85.00.Back in the early 1980s, Anglophone philosophers began to seriously explore the nature and role of virtue in Kant's ethics. This development itself was the result of a confluence of three other phenomena: (1) the growing (...) influence of virtue ethics within contemporary ethical theory; (2) the simultaneous publication of the first two complete English translations of Kant's important late work, The Doctrine of Virtue (Tugendlehre); and (3) repeated claims made by virtue ethicists that Kant had denied the importance of virtue for ethical theory.Anne Margaret Baxley's book, Kant's Theory of Virtue, is the most informative and comprehensive discussion of the nature and role of virtue in Kant's ethics currently available. Making careful use of the relevant Kantian texts (including not only Kant's published works but also lecture transcriptions from his ethics courses and some of his unpublished notes and reflections on ethics and religion), an important text by Friedrich Schiller (Über Anmut und Würde), one of Kant's early Romantic critics, as well as a wide swath of contemporary [End Page 142] secondary literature written by virtue ethicists as well as Kant scholars, Baxley demonstrates incisively that virtue, far from being neglected by Kant, is vitally significant to his ethical theory.Baxley's distinctive approach to Kant's conception of virtue is signaled in her subtitle: The Value of Autocracy. Autocracy—understood here as rational self-rule over sensibility—is, Baxley holds, "the overriding metaphor throughout Kant's treatment of virtue as a character trait, and it provides the key for understanding his particular conception of virtue" (52). This accent on autocracy results in a somewhat sterner Kantian virtue ethics than others have argued for. As Baxley herself notes, "[A]t first glance, autocracy looks as if it amounts to a rigid, repressive form of self-rule, one requiring the suppression or wholesale extirpation of sensible feelings and inclinations" (49). In an effort to show that first appearances are in this case deceiving, Baxley stretches the metaphor of autocracy (or, as she puts it, "reconstructs" Kant's claims about virtue) into the following three-pronged theory:[A]utocracy involves containing feelings and desires at odds with duty (the containment model), but it also involves maintaining feelings and inclinations to accord with moral concerns (the maintenance model), as well as cultivating feelings and inclinations that promote morally good ends (the cultivation model).(173; see also 126–36)Strictly speaking, however, when Kant himself uses the term ‘autocracy' (‘Autokratie') in discussing virtue (and he actually only does so once in his published writings—other terms such as ‘moral strength' [‘moralische Stärke'] and ‘courage' [‘Tapferkeit'] are used much more often), it refers exclusively to what Baxley calls the containment model, not the maintenance model or the cultivation model. Autocracy, Kant states in the Tugendlehre, "comprises a consciousness of the capacity to become master of one's inclinations that oppose the law" (6.383). Nevertheless, even if Baxley is asking the metaphor of autocracy to carry a bit more weight than Kant intended, her own reconstruction of Kant's theory of virtue is very well articulated and defended. And she is certainly correct in holding that Kantian virtue, correctly considered, entails not merely containing those feelings and desires that are opposed to duty, but also maintaining and cultivating those that are conducive to the moral life.Three important, interrelated aspects of her account that deserve highlighting are the following:Virtue and radical evil. Kant's account of radical evil, as presented in part 1 of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, forms an integral but underexplored component of his theory of virtue, and his belief in the existence of a universal human propensity to evil is the clearest example of how his understanding of virtue differs from the more familiar Aristotle-inspired accounts favored by contemporary virtue ethicists. As Baxley correctly emphasizes, on Kant's view virtue is "a corrective... to our propensity to evil... (shrink)

Among moral attributes true virtue alone is sublime. … [I]t is only by means of this idea [of virtue] that any judgment as to moral worth or its opposite is possible. … Everything good that is not based on a morally good disposition … is nothing but pretence and glittering misery. 1.

Contemporary philosophers have grown increasingly skeptical toward both morality and moral theory. Some argue that moral theory is a radically misguided enterprise that does not illuminate moral practice, while others simply deny the value of morality in human life. In this important new book, Louden responds to the arguments of both "anti-morality" and "anti-theory" skeptics. In Part One, he develops and defends an alternative conception of morality, which, he argues, captures more of the central features of both Aristotelian and (...) Kantian ethics than do other contemporary models, and enables the central importance of morality to be convincingly reaffirmed. In Louden's model, morality is primarily a matter of what one does to oneself, rather than what one does or does not do to others. This model eliminates the gulf that many anti-morality critics say exists between morality's demands and the personal point of view. Louden further argues that morality's primary focus should be on agents and their lives, rather than on right actions, and that it is always better to be morally better--i.e. it is impossible to be "too moral." Part Two presents Louden's alternative conception of moral theory. Here again he draws on the work of Aristotle and Kant, showing that their moral theories have far more in common than is usually thought, and that those features that they share can be the basis for a viable moral theory that is immune to the standard anti-theory objections. Louden reaffirms the necessity and importance of moral theory in human life, and shows that moral theories fulfill a variety of genuine and indispensable human needs. (shrink)

Kant's anthropological works represent a very different side of his philosophy, one that stands in sharp contrast to the critical philosophy of the three Critiques. For the most part, Kantian anthropology is an empirical, popular, and, above all, pragmatic enterprise. After tracing its origins both within his own writings and within Enlightenment culture, the Element turns next to an analysis of the structure and several key themes of Kantian anthropology, followed by a discussion of two longstanding contested features - viz., (...) moral anthropology and transcendental anthropology. The Element concludes with a defense of the value and importance of Kantian anthropology, along with replies to a variety of criticisms that have been levelled at it over the years. Kantian anthropology, the author argues, is 'the eye of true philosophy'. (shrink)

Toward a Genealogy of 'Deontology' ROBERT B. LOUDEN [A]ny choice of a conceptual scheme presupposes values. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History tN Va'HICS AS ELS~.WHEI~, the basic categories used by writers to mark the conceptual terrain of their field profoundly affect readers' understanding of what is important within the field. And in ethics , most writers who habitually employ the currently accepted categories of their discipline have no knowledge of the particular history of these categories -- of (...) who first coined them, of the purposes for which they were originally intended, of how their meanings have shifted over the years, of how ascending categories have displaced descending ones, of who is primarily responsible for their current meanings, etc. As an illustration of this claim, I propose to examine the history of'deontology' in ethics, with an aim to making the recent topographical shifts within the field less "unknown to ourselves. ''~ Who was the first author to employ "the general, ugly, and familiar head- 1Cf. Nietzsche's opening remark in The Genealogy of Morals: "We are unknown to ourselves, we seekers after knowledge [w/r Erkennendon]" . It is perhaps worth noting at the outset that the following exercise in moral genealogy is not terribly Nietzschean -- I myself accept very little of the specifics of his attack on morality. However, I do concur with Nietzsche's general conviction that moral philosophers.. (shrink)

Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View essentially reflects the last lectures Kant gave for his annual course in anthropology, which he taught from 1772 until his retirement in 1796. The lectures were published in 1798, with the largest first printing of any of Kant's works. Intended for a broad audience, they reveal not only Kant's unique contribution to the newly emerging discipline of anthropology, but also his desire to offer students a practical view of the world and of humanity's (...) place in it. With its focus on what the human being 'as a free-acting being makes of himself or can and should make of himself,' the Anthropology also offers readers an application of some central elements of Kant's philosophy. This volume offers an annotated translation of the text by Robert B. Louden, together with an introduction by Manfred Kuehn that explores the context and themes of the lectures. (shrink)

Arthur W. H. Adkins's writings have sparked debates among a wide range of scholars over the nature of ancient Greek ethics and its relevance to modern times. Demonstrating the breadth of his influence, the essays in this volume reveal how leading classicists, philosophers, legal theorists, and scholars of religion have incorporated Adkins's thought into their own diverse research. The timely subjects addressed by the contributors include the relation between literature and moral understanding, moral and nonmoral values, and the contemporary meaning (...) of ancient Greek ethics. The volume also includes an essay from the late Adkins himself illustrating his methodology in an analysis of the "Speech of Lysias" in Plato's _Phaedrus_. _The Greeks and Us_ will interest all those concerned with how ancient moral values do or do not differ from our own. Contributors include Arthur W. H. Adkins, Stephanie Nelson, Martha C. Nussbaum, Paul Schollmeier, James Boyd White, Bernard Williams, and Lee Yearley. Commentaries by Wendy Doniger, Charles M. Gray, David Grene, Robert B. Louden, Richard Posner, and Candace Vogler. (shrink)

In several texts, Kant announces that there are three distinct mental faculties: cognition, desire, and feeling. This trinitarian commitment should give us pause, for many people operate instead with a dualist model of reason and emotion, where desire and feeling are usually squished together under emotion. Here, as elsewhere, the Kantian model is more complicated. On Kant's view, each of the three faculties has its own specific work to do and generates its own kinds of representations. We do not simply (...) have emotions that... (shrink)

This 2002 book was the first English translation of Friedrich Schleiermacher's mature ethical theory. Situated between the better-known positions of Kant and Hegel, Schleiermacher's ethics represents an under-explored and singular option within the rich and creative tradition of German idealism. Schleiermacher is known to English readers primarily as a theologian and hermeneuticist, but many German scholars have argued that it is in fact his philosophical work in ethics that constitutes his most outstanding intellectual achievement. The lectures, which were not published (...) in his lifetime, are thought to span the years 1812–17 and address such topics as ethics as a descriptive science, ethics as a study of the action of reason on nature, and doctrines of goods, virtue, and duties. This volume presents them in an accessible new translation by Louise Adey Huish, together with an introduction by Robert Louden that sets them in context and assesses their achievement. (shrink)

This 2002 book was the first English translation of Friedrich Schleiermacher's mature ethical theory. Situated between the better-known positions of Kant and Hegel, Schleiermacher's ethics represents an under-explored and singular option within the rich and creative tradition of German idealism. Schleiermacher is known to English readers primarily as a theologian and hermeneuticist, but many German scholars have argued that it is in fact his philosophical work in ethics that constitutes his most outstanding intellectual achievement. The lectures, which were not published (...) in his lifetime, are thought to span the years 1812–17 and address such topics as ethics as a descriptive science, ethics as a study of the action of reason on nature, and doctrines of goods, virtue, and duties. This volume presents them in an accessible new translation by Louise Adey Huish, together with an introduction by Robert Louden that sets them in context and assesses their achievement. (shrink)

In this chapter, Louden focuses primarily on Schiller’s rich but elusive concept of aesthetic education, in an attempt to answer the following key questions: Why does Schiller place so much weight on aesthetic education? What exactly does he think it will accomplish, and why is it so important to him? Finally, what exactly does Schiller mean by “aesthetic education?” In elucidating Schiller’s position on aesthetic education, Louden also responds to two important criticisms of his account; viz.: (1) Is (...) it circular? (2) Won’t aesthetic education be crushed by the tremendous weight that Schiller places on it? How can aesthetic education possibly achieve all of the ambitious goals that he claims flow out of it? (shrink)

Kant's anthropological works represent a very different side of his philosophy, one that stands in sharp contrast to the critical philosophy of the three Critiques. For the most part, Kantian anthropology is an empirical, popular, and, above all, pragmatic enterprise. After tracing its origins both within his own writings and within Enlightenment culture, the Element turns next to an analysis of the structure and several key themes of Kantian anthropology, followed by a discussion of two longstanding contested features - viz., (...) moral anthropology and transcendental anthropology. The Element concludes with a defense of the value and importance of Kantian anthropology, along with replies to a variety of criticisms that have been levelled at it over the years. Kantian anthropology, the author argues, is 'the eye of true philosophy'. (shrink)

Kant is widely admired – and sometimes also widely criticized – as the founding father of transcendental philosophy. But in much of my own writing, I have been concerned with a very different Kant: an impure rather than a pure Kant, an a posteriori rather than an a priori Kant, a naturalistic rather than a transcendental Kant. This other Kant has often been overlooked by professional philosophers, and when not overlooked, he is often regarded as shallow and unoriginal. My aim (...) in this paper is to demonstrate not only the existence but also the importance and originality of Kant, the naturalist. Without Kant’s naturalism, we lack what he called the empirically-informed “eye of true philosophy” that gives its possessors a necessary “broadened way of thinking” and provides philosophy with “dignity, i. e., an absolute worth.”. (shrink)

The movement back to Kant in our century is a movement back to the eighteenth century: one wants to regain a right to the old ideals and the old Schwärmerei—for that reason an epistemology that “sets boundaries,” which means that it permits one to posit as one may see fit a beyond of reason [ein Jenseits der Vernunft].What is Nietzsche’s aim in his celebrated but perplexing book Beyond Good and Evil? Is this work simply the paradigmatic case of Bernard Williams’s (...) claim that with Nietzsche, “resistance to the continuation of philosophy by ordinary means is built into the text, which is booby-trapped, not only against recovering theory from it, but, in many cases, against any systematic exegesis that assimilates it .. (shrink)

This volume sheds new light on Immanuel Kant’s conception of anthropology. Neither a careful and widespread search of the sources nor a merely theoretical speculation about Kant’s critical path can fully reveal the necessarily wider horizon of his anthropology. This only comes to light by overcoming all traditional schemes within Kantian studies, and consequently reconsidering the traditional divisions within Kant’s thought. The goal of this book is to highlight an alternative, yet complementary path followed by Kantian anthropology with regard to (...) transcendental philosophy. The present volume intends to develop this path in order to demonstrate how irreducible it is in what concerns some crucial claims of Kant’s philosophy, such as the critical defense of the unity of reason, the search for a new method in metaphysics and the moral outcome of Kant’s thought. (shrink)

At present, one more book on modern philosophy that opens with a chapter on Descartes, closes with one on Kant, and includes discussions of usual suspects such as Locke and Hume (among others) in-b...

Book Reviews Anne Margaret Baxley, Kantian Review, FirstView Article.

In Interpreting Kant’s Critiques, Karl Ameriks collects many of his most important essays on Kant’s theoretical philosophy, practical philosophy, and aesthetics—demonstrating at once a breadth of philosophical concern that is rare for contemporary Kant scholars, a detailed familiarity with a wide range of both English- and German-language literature, and a willingness to defend interpretations of Kant’s texts that challenge current assumptions.

Folk epistemology—the idea that one can't help believing that one's beliefs are true—provides an alternative to political theorists' inadequate defenses of democracy. It implicitly suggests a dialectical, truth-seeking norm for dealing with people who do not share one's own beliefs. Folk epistemology takes us beyond Mill's consequentialist claim for democracy (that the free array of opinions in a deliberative democracy leads us to the truth); instead, the epistemic freedom of the democratic process itself makes citizens confident that evidence for one's (...) beliefs have not been distorted by a corrupt system. Since the starting point of folk epistemology is the meta-conviction that people believe that what they believe is true, it should also serve as a starting point for more rigorous scholarship that seeks to understand why people believe what they believe, instead of dismissing them as “irrational” if one disagrees with their beliefs. (shrink)

Folk epistemology—the idea that one can't help believing that one's beliefs are true—provides an alternative to political theorists' inadequate defenses of democracy. It implicitly suggests a dialectical, truth-seeking norm for dealing with people who do not share one's own beliefs. Folk epistemology takes us beyond Mill's consequentialist claim for democracy (that the free array of opinions in a deliberative democracy leads us to the truth); instead, the epistemic freedom of the democratic process itself makes citizens confident that evidence for one's (...) beliefs have not been distorted by a corrupt system. Since the starting point of folk epistemology is the meta-conviction that people believe that what they believe is true, it should also serve as a starting point for more rigorous scholarship that seeks to understand why people believe what they believe, instead of dismissing them as “irrational” if one disagrees with their beliefs. (shrink)

In Two Faces of Liberalism, John Gray pursues the dual agenda of condemning familiar liberal theories for perpetuating the failed “Enlightenment project,” and promoting his own version of anti‐Enlightenment liberalism, which he calls “modus vivendi.” However, Gray's critical apparatus is insufficient to capture accurately the highly influential “political” liberalism of John Rawls. Moreover, Gray's modus vivendi faces serious challenges raised by Rawls concerning stability. In order to respond to the Rawlsian objections, Gray would have to reinstate the aspirations and principles (...) characteristic of Enlightenment theories of liberalism. (shrink)

Rawls ‘s political liberalism abandons the traditional political‐theory objective of providing a philosophical account of liberal democracy. However, Rawls also aims for a liberal political order endorsed by citizens on grounds deeper than what he calls a “modus vivendi” compromise; he contends that a liberal political order based upon a modus vivendi is unstable. The aspiration for a pluralist and “freestanding” liberalism is at odds with the goal of a liberalism endorsed as something deeper than a modus vivendi compromise among (...) competing comprehensive doctrines. A liberalism that is supported “for its own sake” rather than as a compromise must necessarily be based on some conception of the good, of the sort that political liberalism eschews. (shrink)

In The Social Cage, Alexandra Maryanski and Jonathan H. Turner challenge the widespread assumption that humans are by nature?social animals.? They do so by examining the behavior of great apes, who, they conclude, prefer freedom and mobility over close social ties. With the coming of post?industrial society, according to Maryanski and Turner, people may now have a chance to regain the autonomy that evolution has equipped them to enjoy. Despite weaknesses, mostly involving the ethnographic record and the assumption that men (...) and women share the same natural desire for autonomy, the book is a valuable attempt to return a biological perspective to sociological analysis. (shrink)

In the long aftermath of such modernist suspicions about the still dominant "official" Enlightenment culture, the very title of the recently translated book by Hans Blumenberg is a bluntly direct invitation to controversy--The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. For Blumenberg, when Giordano Bruno, condemned to burn at the stake in 1600, defiantly turned his face from a crucifix offered him as a last chance at redemption, the heroic gesture should be seen as just that, heroic and historically decisive, a rejection (...) of the reality of the Incarnation, and the expression of a decisively new form of thought. "The Nolan" did cross a real threshold that separates modernity from pre-modernity. The new, for Blumenberg is new, not belated, and what's more heretical still in our post-Nietzschean, post-Heideggerean world, better than the old. The "self-assertion" of modernity is, in a simple word, "legitimate.". (shrink)

In popular parlance the term "liberalism" denotes a collection of welfarist and progressive social policies, but I am here concerned with liberalism as the theoretical framework within which familiar debates over distributive justice and the scope of state power typically are conducted. To be sure, liberalism in this sense is a complex doctrine, but its core has been well captured by Martha Nussbaum.

We desperately need to know more of the biological details of the onset and progression of breast cancer. The disease is of startlingly high incidence (approaching 1 in 9 women), our current therapies for the disease are inadequate once it has metastasized, and the disease is characterized by excessive morbidity and mortality.Most of the growth and differentiation of the mammary gland occurs relatively late in life: during sexual maturation, and then cyclically during pregnancy and lactation. Normal as well as malignant (...) growth is regulated by endocrine hormones as well as by local tissue factors, such as polypeptide growth factors, Cancer seems to progress as hyperplastic ductal or lobular epithelial growth, acquiring progressive genetic changes (including those of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes) leading to clonal outgrowths of progressively more malignant cells. The nature of proliferative controls and the relevant genetic changes are the subjects of the current review. (shrink)

Merker's insightful broad review fertilely recasts the mind/brain issue, but the phenomenological appeals require additional considerations of behavioral and neural flexibility. Motor equivalences and perceptual constancies may be cortical contributions to a “robotic” tectal orientation mechanism. Intermediate “third layers” of associative neural networks, each with a few diffusely summing convergence-divergence modules, may be the economical expedient by which evolution has extended the limited unity-in-diversity of sensorimotor coordination to perception, action, thinking, and memory. (Published Online May 1 2007).