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  1. Individual Maxim Tokens, not Abstract Maxim Types.Samuel Kahn - 2024 - Kantian Review:1-17.
    I argue that Kant’s Categorical Imperative should be applied to individual maxim tokens rather than abstract maxim types. The article is divided into five sections. In the first, I explain my thesis. In the second, I show that my thesis disagrees with Rawls. In the third, I argue for my thesis on the basis of the wording of the Categorical Imperative and on the basis of considerations about autonomy. In the fourth, I argue for my thesis on the basis of (...)
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  2. Generating General Duties from the Universalizability Tests.Samuel Kahn - 2023 - Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy 31 (1):21-32.
    In this paper, I argue that Kant gives a philosophically plausible derivation of the general duty of benevolence and that this derivation can be used to show how to derive other general duties of commission with the universalizability tests.The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I explain Kant’s notion of a general duty. In the second, I introduce the universalizability tests. In the third, I examine and argue against an account in the secondary literature of how to (...)
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  3. The Apple of Kant's Ethics: i‐Maxims as the Locus of Assessment.Samuel Kahn - 2022 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (3):559-577.
    I want to distinguish between maxims at three levels of abstraction. At the first level are what I shall call individual maxims, or i‐maxims: maxim tokens as adopted by particular rational beings. At the second level are abstract maxims, or a‐maxims: abstract principles distinct from any individual who adopts them. At the third level are maxim kinds, or k‐maxims: sets of various action‐guiding principles that are grouped on the basis of their content. In this paper, I argue for the thesis (...)
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  4. Die Mannigfaltigkeit möglicher Maximen als Problem für Kants Theorie des obersten Prinzips der Moral.Jasper Lohmar - 2022 - Zeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie 5 (2):129-159.
    In this paper I highlight and discuss a problem for Kant’s conception of the categorical imperative that arises from the possibility of a differently fine-grained individuation of act types in the formation of maxims. The “Problem from the Manifold of Possible Maxims”, as it might be called, further develops and exacerbates the well-known “Problem of Relevant Descriptions.” In particular, I argue that there are cases in which the same act can be performed both under a universalizable and under a non-universalizable (...)
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  5. Obligatory Actions, Obligatory Maxims.Samuel Kahn - 2021 - Kantian Review 26 (1):1-25.
    In this paper, I confront Parfit’s Mixed Maxims Objection. I argue that recent attempts to respond to this objection fail, and I argue that their failure is compounded by the failure of recent attempts to show how the Formula of Universal Law can be used to demarcate the category of obligatory maxims. I then set out my own response to the objection, drawing on remarks from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals for inspiration and developing a novel account of how the Formula (...)
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  6. Die Gemeinsinnsmaxime als interkultureller Impuls. [REVIEW]Cristina Chitu - 2020 - Polylog. Zeitschrift Für Interkulturelles Philosophieren 44.
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  7. The Error in the Groundwork: Kant’s Revision of the Imperatives and Prudence as Technical Ability.Stefano Bacin - 2019 - Studia Kantiana 17 (1):29-48.
    The paper examines Kant’s self-criticism to the account of hypothetical imperatives given in the "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals". Following his corrections in the introductions to the third "Critique", the paper traces the consequences of that change in his later writings, specifically with regard to the status of prudence. I argue that the revision of the account of hypothetical imperatives leads to differentiate, and ultimately separate, two functions in prudence: the setting of ends through maxims, and the pragmatic rules (...)
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  8. Revisiting the Maxim-Law Dynamic in the Light of Kant’s Theory of Action.V. K. Radhakrishnan - 2019 - Kantian Journal 38 (2):45-72.
    A stable classification of practical principles into mutually exclusive types is foundational to Kant’s moral theory. Yet, other than a few brief hints on the distinction between maxims and laws, he does not provide any elaborate discussion on the classification and the types of practical principles in his works. This has led Onora O’Neill and Lewis Beck to reinterpret Kant’s classification of practical principles in a way that would clarify the conceptual connection between maxims and laws. In this paper I (...)
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  9. Imperatives and the Causality of Freedom in Kant’s “Antinomy of Pure Reason”.David Forman - 2018 - In Violetta L. Waibel, Margit Ruffing & David Wagner (eds.), Natur und Freiheit: Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. De Gruyter. pp. 1031-1038.
  10. Imperatives and the Causality of Freedom in Kant's Antinomy of Pure Reason.David Forman - 2018 - In Violetta L. Waibel, Margit Ruffing & David Wagner (eds.), Natur und Freiheit: Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. De Gruyter. pp. 1031-1038.
  11. Do We Always Act on Maxims?Sven Nyholm - 2017 - Kantian Review 22 (2):233-255.
    It is commonly thought that on Kant’s view of action, ‘everyone always acts on maxims.’ Call this the ‘descriptive reading.’ This reading faces two important problems: first, the idea that people always act on maxims offends against common sense: it clashes with our ordinary ideas about human agency. Second, there are various passages in which Kant says that it is ‘rare’ and ‘admirable’ to firmly adhere to a set of basic principles that we adopt for ourselves. This article offers an (...)
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  12. Kantian Moral Striving.Mavis Biss - 2015 - Kantian Review 20 (1):1-23.
    This paper focuses on a single question that highlights some of the most puzzling aspects of Kants disposition to duty, or strength of will? I argue that a dominant strand of Kant’s approach to moral striving does not fit familiar models of striving. I seek to address this problem in a way that avoids the flaws of synchronic and atomistic approaches to moral self-discipline by developing an account of Kantian moral striving as an ongoing contemplative activity complexly engaged with multiple (...)
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  13. The Formula of Universal Law: A Reconstruction.Matthew Braham & Martin van Hees - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (2):243-260.
    This paper provides a methodologically original construction of Kant’s “Formula of Universal Law” . A formal structure consisting of possible worlds and games—a “game frame”—is used to implement Kant’s concept of a maxim and to define the two tests FUL comprises: the “contradiction in conception” and “contradiction in the will” tests. The paper makes two contributions. Firstly, the model provides a formal account of the variables that are built into FUL: agents, maxims, intentions, actions, and outcomes. This establishes a clear (...)
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  14. Kant's Universal Law Formula Revisited.Sven Nyholm - 2015 - Metaphilosophy 46 (2):280-299.
    Kantians are increasingly deserting the universal law formula in favor of the humanity formula. The former, they argue, is open to various decisive objections; the two are not equivalent; and it is only by appealing to the humanity formula that Kant can reliably generate substantive implications from his theory of an acceptable sort. These assessments of the universal law formula, which clash starkly with Kant's own assessment of it, are based on various widely accepted interpretative assumptions. These assumptions, it is (...)
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  15. Kant's Categories of Freedom.Susanne Bobzien - 2013 - In Kant - Analysen, Probleme, Kritik (English translation of 1988 article).
    ABSTRACT: A general interpretation and close textual analysis of Kant’s theory of the categories of freedom (or categories of practical reason) in his Critique of Practical Reason. My main concerns in the paper are the following: (1) I show that Kant’s categories of freedom have primarily three functions: as conditions of the possibility for actions (i) to be free, (ii) to be comprehensible as free and (iii) to be morally evaluated. (2) I show that for Kant actions, although qua theoretical (...)
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  16. Sonhos de um Visionário e suas contribuições para a ética de Kant.Bruno Cunha - 2013 - Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã: Crítica E Modernidade 10:83-106.
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  17. The practical interpretation of the categorical imperative: A defense.Cristian Dimitriu - 2013 - Ideas Y Valores 62 (151):105-113.
    The article compares two different interpretations of Kant's categorical imperative −the practical and the logical one− and defends the practical one, arguing that it is superior because it rejects cases of free riding without necessarily rejecting cases of coordination or timing. The logical interpretation, on the other hand, leads to the undesirable outcome that it does not reject immoral cases of free riding, and to the desired outcome that it does not reject maxims of coordination/timing. Given that neither of them (...)
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  18. Appetimus sub ratione boni: Kant’s Practical Principles between Crusius and Leibniz.David Forman - 2013 - In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Boston: de Gruyter. pp. 323-334.
  19. Reliability of Motivation and the Moral Value of Actions.Paula Satne - 2013 - Studia Kantiana 14:5-33.
    Kant famously made a distinction between actions from duty and actions in conformity with duty claiming that only the former are morally worthy. Kant’s argument in support of this thesis is taken to rest on the claim that only the motive of duty leads non-accidentally or reliably to moral actions. However, many critics of Kant have claimed that other motives such as sympathy and benevolence can also lead to moral actions reliably, and that Kant’s thesis is false. In addition, many (...)
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  20. The Conditionality of Hypothetical Imperatives.Jamsheed Siyar - 2013 - Kantian Review 18 (3):439-460.
    Kant famously distinguishes between the categorical imperative (CI) and hypothetical imperatives (HIs), which are instrumental norms. On the standard reading, Kant subscribes to the of HIs, which takes HIs to be consistency requirements that bind agents in exactly the same way whether or not agents are subject to CI and whether or not they conform their choices to CI. I argue that this reading cannot be squared with Kant's account of an agent's disposition, in particular his claim that cognition of (...)
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  21. Principled and Unprincipled Maxims.David Forman - 2012 - Kant Studien 103 (3):318-336.
    Kant frequently speaks as if all voluntary actions arise from our maxims as the subjective principles of our practical reason. But, as Michael Albrecht has pointed out, Kant also occasionally speaks as if it is only the rare person of “character” who acts according to principles or maxims. I argue that Kant’s seemingly contradictory claims on this front result from the fact that there are two fundamentally different ways that maxims of action can figure in the deliberation of the agent: (...)
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  22. Kant on Lying as a Crime against Humanity.James E. Mahon - 2012 - Parmenideum 4 (2):63-88.
    In this article, I argue that there is no discrepancy between Kant's Doctrine of Right (The Metaphysics of Morals) (1797), which legally permits lies that do not deprive someone of their rights or property, and his On a Supposed Right to Lie from Love of Humanity (1797), which argues that it would be a crime to lie to a murderer about the whereabouts of the innocent person he is pursuing.
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  23. Maxims and Practical Contradictions.Richard Galvin - 2011 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 28 (4):407.
    According to Kant’s Universal Law Formula, maxims that cannot be conceived as universal laws denote duties of perfect obligation. In the recent literature, two versions of the Contradiction in Conception test have received the most attention. When acting on a maxim would violate a perfect duty, according to the Logical Contradiction Interpretation (LCI), universalizing the maxim would make it literally impossible to perform the action as described in the original maxim. According to the Practical Contradiction Interpretation (PCI), the locus of (...)
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  24. The Contingency of Evil: Rethinking the Problem of Universal Evil in Kant's 'Religion'.Ryan Kemp - 2011 - In Oliver Thorndike (ed.), Rethinking Kant: Volume 3. Cambridge Scholars Press.
    In this paper I explore how three seemingly incompatible Kantian theses–a libertarian notion of freedom, the inscrutability of one’s fundamental moral maxim, and the ubiquity of evil–can each be maintained without contradiction. I do this by arguing against the popular notion that in his 'Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason,' Kant attributes 'radical evil' to all human beings.
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  25. Foregrounding Desire: A Defense of Kant’s Incorporation Thesis.Tamar Schapiro - 2011 - The Journal of Ethics 15 (3):147-167.
    In this paper I defend Kant’s Incorporation Thesis, which holds that we must “incorporate” our incentives into our maxims if we are to act on them. I see this as a thesis about what is necessary for a human being to make the transition from ‘having a desire’ to ‘acting on it’. As such, I consider the widely held view that ‘having a desire’ involves being focused on the world, and not on ourselves or on the desire. I try to (...)
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  26. Recent work on Kantian maxims I: Established approaches.Rob Gressis - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (3):216-227.
    Maxims play a crucial role in Kant's ethical philosophy, but there is significant disagreement about what maxims are. In this two-part essay, I survey eight different views of Kantian maxims, presenting their strengths, and their weaknesses. Part I: Established Approaches, begins with Rüdiger Bubner's view that Kant took maxims to be what ordinary people of today take them to be, namely pithily expressed precepts of morality or prudence. Next comes the position, most associated with Rüdiger Bittner and Otfried Höffe, that (...)
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  27. Recent work on Kantian maxims II.Rob Gressis - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (3):228-239.
    Maxims play a crucial role in Kant's ethical philosophy, but there is significant disagreement about what maxims are. In this two-part essay, I survey eight different views of Kantian maxims, presenting their strengths and their weaknesses. In Part II: New Approaches, I look at three more recent views in somewhat greater detail than I do the five treatments canvassed in 'Recent Works on Kantian Maxims I: Established Approaches'. First, there is Richard McCarty's Interpretation, which holds that Kant's understanding of maxims (...)
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  28. Practical Reason: Categorical Imperative, Maxims, Laws.Kenneth R. Westphal - 2010 - In Will Dudley & K. Engelhard (eds.), Kant: Key Concepts. Acumen Publishing.
    This chapter considers the centrality of principles in Kant’s moral philosophy, their distinctively ‘Kantian’ character, why Kant presents a ‘metaphysical’ system of moral principles and how these ‘formal’ principles are to be used in practice. These points are central to how Kant thinks pure reason can be practical. These features have often puzzled Anglophone readers, in part due to focusing on Kant’s Groundwork, to the neglect of his later works in moral philosophy, in which the theoretical preliminaries of that first (...)
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  29. The form of the Maxim as the determining Ground of the will (The Critique of Practical Reason: §§ 4–6, 27–30).Otfried Höffe - 2009 - In Karl Ameriks (ed.), Kant's Moral and Legal Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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  30. Kant on Keeping a Secret.James Mahon - 2009 - Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture 44:21-36.
    In this article I address the neglected question of what kind of act keeping a secret is, and what Kant had to say about secret keeping. First, I provide a definition of keeping a secret, improving upon Sissela Bok's definition. I distinguish between keeping a secret and deception, incorporating Thomas Nagel. Then, I discuss what Kant had to say about keeping a secret, and advance an Kantian argument for the moral permissibility of secret-keeping.
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  31. The cultivation of sensibility in Kant's moral philosophy.Laura Papish - 2007 - Kantian Review 12 (2):128-146.
    In his later moral writings Kant claims that we have a duty to cultivate certain aspects of our sensuous nature. This claim is surprising for three reasons. First, given Kant’s ‘incorporation thesis’ − which states that the only sensible states capable of determining our actions are those that we willingly introduce and integrate into our maxims − it would seem that the content of our inclinations is morally irrelevant. Second, the exclusivity between the passivity that is characteristic of sensibility and (...)
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  32. Duty and Inclination.Audrey L. Anton - 2006 - Southwest Philosophy Review 22 (1):199-207.
  33. Il senso dell'etica: Kant e la costruzione di una teoria morale.Stefano Bacin - 2006 - [Bologna]: Il mulino.
    The book presents a reconstruction of the development of Kant’s ethical thought from the 1760s till the "Metaphysics of Morals" of 1797 with a focus on the evolution of Kant’s overall project in practical philosophy. The main steps in the development of his practical philosophy are interpreted as successive attempts to connect normative ethics with an innovative preliminary descriptive inquiry. The book reconstructs the different ways in which Kant focuses this plan, stressing both the unity and the breaks in Kant’s (...)
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  34. The Method of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Establishing Moral Metaphysics as a Science.Susan V. H. Castro - 2006 - Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles
    This dissertation concerns the methodology Kant employs in the first two sections of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Groundwork I-II) with particular attention to how the execution of the method of analysis in these sections contributes to the establishment of moral metaphysics as a science. My thesis is that Kant had a detailed strategy for the Groundwork, that this strategy and Kant’s reasons for adopting it can be ascertained from the Critique of Pure Reason (first Critique) and his (...)
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  35. Maxims in Kant's practical philosophy.Richard R. McCarty - 2006 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (1):65-83.
    : A standard interpretation of Kantian "maxims" sees them as expressing reasons for action, implying that we cannot act without a maxim. But recent challenges to this interpretation claim that Kant viewed acting on maxims as optional. Kant's understanding of maxims derives from Christian Wolff, who regarded maxims as major premises of the practical syllogism. This supports the standard interpretation. Yet Kant also viewed commitments to maxims as essential for virtue and character development, which supports challenges to the standard interpretation, (...)
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  36. Rethinking our maxims: Perceptual salience and practical judgment in Kantian ethics.Talbot Brewer - 2001 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (3):219-230.
    Some contemporary Kantians have argued that one could not be virtuous without having internalized certain patterns of awareness that permit one to identify and respond reliably to moral reasons for action. I agree, but I argue that this insight requires unrecognized, farreaching, and thoroughly welcome changes in the traditional Kantian understanding of maxims and virtues. In particular, it implies that one''s characteristic emotions and desires will partly determine one''s maxims, and hence the praiseworthiness of one''s actions. I try to show (...)
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  37. A Mandatory Reading of Kant's Ethics?Robert B. Pippin - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (204):386-393.
    Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. BY PAUL GUYER. (Cambridge UP, 2000. Pp. xii + 440. Price £12.95 or $19.95.) At the beginning of his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant claims that an ordinary view of morality would have it that moral experience is essentially the experience of obligation. There are clearly occasions, he notes, when our own and others’ interests would be greatly damaged were we to do what is morally required, and when no gain in satisfaction, (...)
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  38. Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims.Jens Timmermann - 2000 - The Harvard Review of Philosophy 8 (1):39-52.
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  39. The needs of understanding: Kant on empirical laws and regulative ideals.James R. O'Shea - 1997 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 5 (2):216 – 254.
    This article examines the relationship in Kant between transcendental laws and empirical laws (focusing on causal laws), and then brings a particular interpretation of that issue to bear on familiar puzzles concerning the status of the regulative maxims of reason and reflective judgment. It is argued that the 'indeterminate objective validity' possessed by the regulative maxims derives ultimately from strictly constitutive demands of understanding.
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  40. Maxims, “Practical Wisdom,” and the Language of Action.Ray Nichols - 1996 - Political Theory 24 (4):687-705.
    Only among barbarians is practice alone recognized in politics.Alexis de Tocqueville.
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  41. Kants Maximenethik und ihre Begründung.Michael Albrecht - 1994 - Kant Studien 85 (2):129-146.
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  42. Maxims in Kant's moral philosophy.Nelson Potter - 1994 - Philosophia 23 (1-4):59-90.
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  43. (1 other version)The metaphysical status of regulative maxims in Leibniz and Kant.Leroy E. Loemker - 1973 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 11 (1-2):141-147.
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  44. Maxims and the Application of the Categorical Imperative.Nelson Thomas Potter - 1969 - Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University
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  45. (1 other version)When is a Maxim fully universalizable ?Paul Dietrichson - 1964 - Kant Studien 55 (1-4):143-170.
  46. A commentary on Kant's Critique of practical reason.Lewis White Beck - 1960 - [Chicago]: University of Chicago Press.
  47. Kantian Maxims and Lying.Alexander R. Pruss - unknown
              Kant has claimed that lying is always wrong, even in response to a question from a murderer about the whereabouts of his intended victim. Christine Korsgaard has argued that although Kant’s second and third formulations in terms of respect for the humanity in persons and in terms of the Kingdom of Ends of the Categorical Imperative (CI) commit him to this claim, the first formulation in terms of universalizability does..
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