Drawing on a wide range of Kant's recorded thought beyond his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, this essay presents an overview of Kant's account of practical agency as embodied practical agency and argues against the intellectualized interpretations of Kant's account of practical agency presented by Christine Korsgaard and Henry Sidgwick. In both Kant's empirical-psychological and metaphysical descriptions of practical agency, he presents a recognizably human practical agent that is broader and deeper than the faculty of reason alone. This agent (...) chooses action from a reflective distance, but not from the complete affective distance of reason. We choose neither as reason alone, nor even as the sum of all of our ‘higher’ faculties, of cognition (including reason), feeling, and desire, in Kant's view. Instead, we choose as an agent that also has ‘lower’, ‘sensible’ faculties, of cognition (including sense), feeling, and desire, which together comprise our ‘sensibility’. These mental states of sensibility are not merely confused versions of our higher cognitions, feelings, or desires, and so different from them in degree only, but are instead distinct from our higher states in kind also; and these distinct sensible states are not dependent on our higher states and so on a commitment to the value of humanity, for example. For this reason, a choice in favour of sensible states and in opposition to the moral law need in no way undermine its own foundations and thus be incoherent, as Korsgaard and Sidgwick argue, but instead only immoral. Because Kant does not reduce the problem of immoral choice to one of insufficient reflection and ensuing confusion, he does not view moral progress in cognitive terms alone, whether in the form of a clearer understanding of the moral law, improved judgment in applying it, or deeper insight into our own nature as practical agents. Kant instead recognizes the crucial importance of cultivating our feelings and desires over the course of a lifetime both as a way to make ourselves worthy of the humanity within us directly and also as a way to facilitate future moral choices. (shrink)

Kantian constructivists locate the source of normativity in the rational nature of valuing agents. Some further argue that accepting this premise thereby commits one to accepting the intrinsic or unconditioned value of rational nature itself. Whereas much of the critical literature on this “regress on conditions” argument has focused either on the cogency of the inference from the value-conferring capacity of the will to the unconditional value of that capacity itself or on the plausibility of the initial constructivist premise, my (...) aim is to press the argument from a different direction by asking just how Kantian the constructivist needs to be in order to support a regress on conditions argument. Specifically, I maintain that the argument succeeds only given a full-fledged Kantian moral psychology, including a presupposition of transcendental freedom. If correct, this could have implications regarding the compatibility of Kantian ethics and philosophic naturalism. (shrink)

Robin Barrow claims in his ?Moral education's modest agenda? that ?the task of moral education is to develop understanding, at the lowest level, of the expectations of society and, at the highest level, of the nature of morality???[that is, that moral education] should go on to develop understanding, not of a particular social code, but of the nature of morality ? of the principles that provide the framework within which practical decisions have to be made? [Barrow, R. 2006. Moral education's (...) modest agenda. Ethics and Education 1, no. 1: 3?13.]. Barrow's words are noteworthy not only because he sets out to define the ?modest? agenda of moral education in terms of principles, but also because he asserts that education is important for teaching students to understand morality in such terms. However, even though he is arguing that understanding morality is important in terms of principles, he says little about their function or status, or how we cultivate ourselves so that we act in agreement with and are motivated by the principles of practical reason. In this article I therefore discuss two distinctive features of human beings and offer a Kantian notion of morality as a response to Barrow's development of an understanding of morality in terms of principles. I argue that the principles Kant suggests are constitutive of action, and that we both develop our understanding and also value our humanity when we act in agreement with and are motivated by the suggested principles, and cultivate our predispositions (technical, pragmatic and moral). Moreover, I argue that we reach the goal of ?a progressive organization of citizens of the earth into and toward the species as a system that is cosmopolitically united? [Kant, I. 2006b. Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Trans. Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] when we, inter alia, value our humanity and comply with the principles of practical reason, in practice. (shrink)

Political liberals argue that the classical conception of autonomy must be discarded because it is sectarian and metaphysical. This article rejects that a commitment to autonomy necessarily leads to sectarianism and questions the notion that respect for persons is separable from the commitment to autonomy. It defends a Kantian approach to autonomy, as belonging to the standpoint of practical reason, and argues that in this approach autonomy is a norm regulating how we should treat each other as opposed to a (...) good to be promoted. This approach also avoids the metaphysical idea of autonomy as self-origination of binding principles. (shrink)

“James Tiptree Jr.” is a pseudonym of Alice B. Sheldon, US Air Force intelligence officer, CIA analyst, experimental psychologist, and one of the most important and highly acclaimed science fiction writers of the twentieth century. Sheldon’s work as Tiptree deals with a variety of important feminist concerns—among them, sexism, misogyny, objectification, sexual assault, the “otherness” of women, and silencing. This paper explores in a philosophical mode some of the important insights about objectification conveyed in one of Tiptree’s most well-known stories, (...) “’And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side.” These insights lead naturally to a characterization of sexual objectification that both avoids problems with standard philosophical characterizations and also sheds important light on the relationship between objectification and silencing. (shrink)

Although it does not appear on many traditional lists of the virtues, respect for human dignity is an important virtue in its own right that is characterized as much by emotions as by other mental states and actions. The virtue of respect for human dignity essentially involves the dispositions to feel the emotion of respect for the dignity of others and an emotional sense of one’s own dignity. As exemplified by Nelson Mandela, this virtue also involves a keen perceptual sensitivity (...) to humiliating and degrading treatment, along with dispositions to protest, correct, and prevent such treatment. The person with the virtue of respect for human dignity also will be disposed to feel indignation toward willful violations of human dignity, compassion for those whose dignity is violated, and various positive emotions in response to victories for human dignity. Although this virtue closely resembles other, more widely recognized, virtues, such as justice and love, it nevertheless is appropriate to treat respect for human dignity as a distinct virtue, as well as an emotion. (shrink)

Writers like Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood understand Kant's idea of rational nature as an end in itself as a commitment to a substantive value. This makes it hard for them to explain the supposed equivalence between the universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative, since the former does not appear to assert any substantive value. Nor is it easy for defenders of value-based readings to explain Kant's claim that the law-giving nature of practical reason makes all beings (...) with practical reason regard the idea of a rational nature as an end in itself. This article seeks to replace these value-based readings with a reading of the idea of rational nature as an end that fits better with the overall argument of the Groundwork. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the normative content of Kant's formula of humanity (FH). More specifically, does FH, as some seem to think, imply the specific and rigid prescriptions in 'standard' deontological theories? To this latter question, I argue, the answer is 'no'. I propose reading FH largely through the formula of autonomy and the formula of the kingdom of ends, where I understand FA to describe the nature of the capacity of humanity-a capacity for self-governance. The latter, I suggest, (...) is akin to the capacity for planning and intentional action described in Michael Bratman's work. A significant part of what FH requires, I then propose, is that we exercise these capacities for planning in such a way that we accommodate and coordinate with the (permissible) plans and intentions of others. Kant himself, as do many commentators, emphasizes the idea that our human capacities give us a distinctive kind of value. On my interpretation, by contrast, what is fundamentally important is not the value of the capacities but rather what they make possible: distinctive ways of mistreating (using) persons, but also a distinctive kind of morally desirable relationship. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper addresses a question about the moral status of Artificial Intelligence (AI): will AIs ever become moral patients? I argue that, while it is in principle possible for an intelligent machine to be a moral patient, there is no good reason to believe this will in fact happen. I start from the plausible assumption that traditional artifacts do not meet a minimal necessary condition of moral patiency: having a good of one's own. I then argue that intelligent machines are (...) no different from traditional artifacts in this respect. To make this argument, I examine the feature of AIs that enables them to improve their intelligence, i.e., machine learning. I argue that there is no reason to believe that future advances in machine learning will take AIs closer to having a good of their own. I thus argue that concerns about the moral status of future AIs are unwarranted. Nothing about the nature of intelligent machines makes them a better candidate for acquiring moral patiency than the traditional artifacts whose moral status does not concern us. (shrink)

Many of its students are first drawn to Kant's practical philosophy because it seems to promise a theory of morality both objective and practicable. Moral theory, as Kant conceives of it, must abst...

Recently there has been a somewhat surprising interest among Kantian theorists in the moral standing of animals, coupled with a no less surprising optimism among these theorists about the prospect of incorporating animal moral standing into Kantian theory without contorting its other attractive features. These theorists contend in particular that animal standing can be incorporated into Kantian moral theory without abandoning its logocentrism: the claim that everything that is valuable depends for its value on its relation to rationality. In this (...) essay I raise doubts about the prospects for accommodating animal moral standing within a logocentric Kantianism. I argue instead that the best way to incorporate animal moral standing into Kantian theory is to admit more radical departures from Kant’s position by maintaining that consciousness is a locus of moral standing independent from rationality. I propose that we should attribute moral standing to all conscious animals because the capacity of consciousness is the criterion distinguishing individuals whose well-being generates reasons from individuals whose well-being fails to do so. We need such a criterion because we speak of the well-being of things, such as artifacts and meteorological phenomena, which clearly lack moral standing. Having already argued against the Kantian view that the criterion of moral standing is rationality, I proceed to argue that consciousness is also superior to its other principal rival for the criterion of moral standing: life. On the view that emerges from this discussion, we have obligations to show concern for conscious individuals by treating their well-being as providing us with reasons for action; the view thus endorses the criterion of moral standing typically advanced by utilitarians. On this view we also have a distinct class of obligations to show respect for conscious rational individuals; the view thus endorses the Kantian claim that persons have a distinctive moral status in virtue of their possession of rational capacities. In this essay thus begin to show how a principal insight of each leading approach to modern moral theory may be captured in a unified theory. (shrink)

This paper analyses the thorny interpretative puzzle surrounding the connection between humanity and the good will. It discusses this puzzle: if the good will is the only good without qualification, why does Kant claim that humanity is something possessing an absolute value? It explores the answers to this question within Kantian scholarship; answers that emanate from a commitment to the human capacity for freedom and morality and to actual obedience to the moral law. In its final analysis, it endorses Richard (...) Dean’s good will reading as the most reflective of Kant’s ethics. It claims that in order for a person to reach the moral ideal of acting rightly and giving priority to moral law, he must always honour his duties to himself. Accordingly, it argues that before a person can be deemed as an object of respect, he must first respect the right of humanity in his own person. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard’s argument for the claim that one should not only value one’s own humanity but also the humanity of all other persons, ‘the publicity of reasons argument’, has been heavily criticized and I believe rightly so. However, both in an early paper and in her most recent work, Korsgaard does not rely on controversial, Wittgensteinian ideas regarding the publicity of reasons, but instead she uses a different argument to justify interpersonal morality, which I will refer to as ‘the argument (...) from the sufficiency of agency’. The goal of this paper is to evaluate whether the argument from the sufficiency of agency can succeed where the publicity of reasons argument fails. I will argue that although the argument from the sufficiency of agency is potentially more promising, it fails to justify a categorical and universal principle of interpersonal morality. I argue, however, that this failure has less to do with the argument from the sufficiency of agency itself and more with Korsgaard’s specific version of it. This leaves open the possibility that other Kantian constructivist arguments from the sufficiency of agency might be more successful. (shrink)

Most Kantian constructivists try to ground universal duties of interpersonal morality in certain interactions between individuals, such as communication, argumentation, shared action or the second-person standpoint. The goal of this paper is to present these, which I refer to as arguments from the second-person perspective, with a dilemma: either the specific kind of interaction that is taken as a starting point of these arguments is inescapable, but in that case the argument does not justify a universal principle of interpersonal morality. (...) Or interaction does have a principle of interpersonal morality among its necessary conditions of possibility, but such forms of interactions are merely optional. I argue that proponents of arguments from the second-person perspective have failed to provide a convincing response to this dilemma and that this failure is systematic. This suggests that the success of Kantian constructivism depends on the success of arguments from the first person. (shrink)

Kant offers the following argument for the formula of humanity (FH): Each rational agent necessarily conceives of her own rational nature as an end in itself and does so on the same grounds as every other rational agent, so all rational agents must conceive of one another's rational nature as an end in itself. As it stands, the argument appears to be question-begging and fallacious. Drawing on resources from the formula of universal law (FUL) and Kant's claims about the primacy (...) of duties to oneself, I propose a contractualist reconstruction of this puzzling line of reasoning. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity and elsewhere, Korsgaard defends a Kantian ethical theory by arguing that valuing anything commits one to valuing humanity as the source of all value. I reconstruct Korsgaard’s influential argument to show how she can resist many of the objections that critics have raised. I also show how the argument fails because, at a crucial point, it begs the question in favor of the value of humanity. It thus fails for internal reasons that do not depend (...) on rejecting Korsgaard’s metaethical constructivism or her conception of rational agency. (shrink)

Literature on the mental capacities and cognitive mechanisms of the great apes has been silent about whether they can act autonomously. This paper provides a philosophical theory of autonomy supported by psychological studies of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie chimpanzee behavior to argue that chimpanzees can act autonomously even though their psychological mechanisms differ from those of humans. Chimpanzees satisfy the two basic conditions of autonomy: (1) liberty (the absence of controlling influences) and (2) agency (self-initiated intentional action), each of (...) which is specified here in terms of conditions of understanding, intention, and self-control. In this account, chimpanzees make knowledge-based choices reflecting a richly information-based and socially sophisticated understanding of the world. Finally, two major theories of autonomy (Kantian theory and two-level theory) are rejected as too narrow to adequately address these issues, necessitating the modifications made in the present approach. (shrink)

Eudaimonists deny that eudaimonism is objectionably egoistic, but the way in which they do so commits them to eschewing an important insight that has been a central motivation for eudaimonism: the idea that an individual must, in the end, organize her life in such a way that it is good for her. In this paper I argue that the egoism objection prods eudaimonists to make a choice between (what we might roughly call) welfare-prior and excellence-prior eudaimonism, and I make some (...) preliminary remarks on behalf of welfare-prior eudaimonism. (shrink)

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)