The paper connects two central ethical views, both with a rich tradition, sentimentalism and contractualism. From the former, it also borrows the response-dependentist metaphysics. The idea of combining the two has been sketched before, but not systematically and explicitly; for instance, in various comments on classical authors, especially on Kant and elsewhere, most prominently in Habermas. Here is the kernel of the present proposal. Our initial practical intuitions are emotion-based and the values, when detected, are response-dependent. This is the starting (...) point borrowed from sentimentalism. These intuitions get improved by reflection, and by dialogue that crucially involves perspective taking. If all goes well, this results in insights, in particular into principles that all rational parties can agree about in a kind of “contract.” This brings two traditions, the one of David Hume and Adam Smith, and the other of Kant, together. The resulting theory would be a kind of sentimentalist, response-dependentist contractualism. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between empirical psychology, transcendental critique, and phenomenology in Kant’s discussion of respect for the moral law, particularly as that is found in the Critique of Practical Reason. I first offer an empirical-psychological reading of moral respect, in the context of which I distinguish transcendental and empirical perspectives on moral action and defend H. J. Paton’s claim that moral motivation can be seen from two points of view, where “from one point of view, [respect] is the (...) cause of our action, but from another point of view the moral law is its ground.” Then, after a discussion of a distinction between first- and second-order transcendental/practical perspectives where reasons for action are first-order practical judgments while the conditions of possibility for those reasons’ authority are expressed in second-order judgments, I turn to a third kind of perspective: the properly phenomenological one. I explain the general notion of Kantian phenomenology with an example of the experience of time from Kant’s Anthropology before applying this to a phenomenological reading of the discussion of respect in the Critique of Practical Reason. I end by noting that on my account, in contrast to that of Jeanine Grenberg, the distinctive phenomenology of respect is not systematically important for grounding claims in moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper focuses on responding to Jeanine Grenberg’s claim that my discussion of Kant’s feeling of respect leaves no meaningful room for investigating feeling first-personally. I first make clear that I do think that feelings can be investigated first-personally, both in that they can be prospective reasons for action and in that – at least in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment – there are feelings that we should have. I then show that at the time of writing the (...) “Incentives” chapter of the second Critique, Kant had not yet determined an a priori basis for aesthetic normativity. On this basis, I argue that the “Incentives” chapter provides a sort of consolation prize for not having an transcendental account of feeling. In that sense, it’s a properly transcendental analysis of feeling in which Kant examines feeling from within and a priori to show that there are good reasons to have certain feelings. I end by acknowledging the extent to which, on this reading, I agree with Grenberg that Kant is doing a transcendentally significant form of phenomenology here, while I also highlight some remaining areas of disagreement. (shrink)