This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Kant's treatment of happiness in ethics.

Analyzes the origin, structure and resolution of Kant's antinomies of reason from a systematic rather than a historical perspective, exploring the relationship between the theoretical antinomies and the practical antinomy in order to indicate their similarities and differences and to suggest the dependence of the latter on the former.

Kant commentators have recently begun to pay attention to Kant’s account of friendship. They have asked questions, such as: Is his description of friendship consistent and robust and does it provide an account of friendship that satisfies common intuitions and expectations of friendship? Their answers to these questions have often been negative. At the same time, many of these critics share a common understanding of two basic aspects of Kant’s account of friendship. Kant sees friendship as both a duty and (...) an ideal state. One critic, Patricia Flynn, considers the implications of this dual claim. She argues that the view that friendship is both duty and idea gives rise to a tension in the concept of friendship. This tension makes the duty of friendship different from all other Kantian moral duties and leaves us with a duty that we cannot achieve. My aim is to revisit Flynn’s argument and by reassessing Kant’s claims to show that there is indeed complexity in Kant’s understanding of friendship, but there is no conceptual problem that makes friendship a duty unlike all other duties or makes it an impossible duty. (shrink)

This paper explores Kant’s definition of happiness as it appears in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. Three accounts of happiness are considered: contentment, the satisfaction of all one’s inclinations, and, the satisfaction of a system of inclinations. The paper discusses the extent to which there is textual evidence for each of these accounts and considers the arguments of Watson, Paton, Gregor, and Beck in support of these various accounts. It concludes by arguing that the first account of (...) happiness is the weakest and that the third account is the strongest. (shrink)

This paper explores Kant’s definition of happiness as it appears in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. Three accounts of happiness are considered: contentment, the satisfaction of all one’s inclinations, and, the satisfaction of a system of inclinations. The paper discusses the extent to which there is textual evidence for each of these accounts and considers the arguments of Watson, Paton, Gregor, and Beck in support of these various accounts. It concludes by arguing that the first account of (...) happiness is the weakest and that the third account is the strongest. (shrink)

Kant claims that the faculty of judgment and the Critique of Judgment are necessary for the completion of the critical system. He states that judgment has a special role to play within the critical system. This view is reiterated by commentators such as Vleeschauwer who says that the third Critique “truly brings to completion the whole Critical philosophy” and Macmillan who calls the third Critique “the ‘crowning phase’ of Critical Philosophy.”.

In this paper, I consider the question of where illegal immigrants should go once their lives have been saved in hospitals and they are ready to be transferred to long-term care situations. I highlight three recent cases in which such a decision was made. In one case, the patient was kept at the hospital, in another the patient was repatriated to his home country, and in the third, the patient was discharged to his family. I consider the relevant moral values (...) and argue that for reasons of fairness we must develop a policy that treats similar cases in similar ways. In order to best uphold patient well-being and minimize costs, the plan proposed here calls for illegal immigrants to be covered by insurance for long-term care. (shrink)

The book consists of a preface and six chapters in which Aquila analyzes Kant's notion of representation. Aquila's analysis is characterized by his phenomenological interpretation and his use of the language of contemporary analytic philosophy. His account of Kant's theory of knowledge is critical and complex. He concludes again and again that there is ambiguity and unclarity in Kant's views. He systematically considers possible interpretations of Kant's claims but, in the end, he argues that only a phenomenological approach is satisfactory.