Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-31T17:52:12.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Empty, Useless, and Dangerous? Recent Kantian Replies to the Empty Formalism Objection*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2013

Fabian Freyenhagen
Fabian Freyenhagen*
Affiliation:
University of Essex, [email protected]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Like two heavyweight boxers exchanging punches, but neither landing the knock-out blow, Kantians and Hegelians seem to be in a stand-off on what in contemporary parlance is known as the Empty Formalism Objection. Kant's ethics is charged with being merely formal and thereby failing to provide the kind of specific guidance that any defensible ethical system should have the resources to provide. Hegel is often credited with having formulated this objection in its most incisive way, and a wealth of Kantian responses has been deployed to answer it. In this paper, I take up the objection as it appears in §135R of Elements of the Philosophy of Right in order to scrutinise the contemporary debate between the two camps. I propose that there are, in fact, three different, albeit connected objections and examine (what I take to be) the best Kantian replies to them. I will not adjudicate which of these replies is the most accurate interpretation of Kant's texts, nor trace the particular historical context in which Hegel takes up Kant's ethics, nor the way the Empty Formalism Objection fits into Hegel's wider system. This is partly because of constraints of space, and partly because many of the contemporary Kantian replies — for better or for worse — treat the Empty Formalism Objection as a self-standing philosophical problem, irrespective of its historical context or systematic place in Hegel's theory. My limited aim here is to show that, even if one grants — for argument's sake — the legitimacy of such a non-contextual approach, significant difficulties remain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain , Volume 32 , Special Issue 1-2: Special Issue on Kant and Hegel , 2011 , pp. 163 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2011

Footnotes

*

This paper substantially overlaps with my, ‘The Empty Formalism Objection Revisited: §135R and recent Kantian responses’, in T. Brooks (ed.) (2011), Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Essays on Ethics, Politics, and Law. Oxford: Blackwell. For comments and criticisms on earlier drafts, my thanks go to audiences at talks in Newcastle, Stirling, and Dublin, as well as at the Hegel Society of Great Britain and UK Kant Society 2010 Joint Conference in Oxford. Special thanks are due to Thom Brooks, Rowan Cruft, Katerina Deligiorgi, Wayne Martin, David McNeill, Bob Stern, Lea Ypi, and the fellow members of the Cambridge Forschungskolloquium (Manuel Dries, Martin Eichler, Raymond Geuss, Michael Hampe, Richard Raatzsch, Jörg Schaub, and Christian Skirke).

References

Ameriks, K. (2000), ‘The Hegelian Critique of Kantian Morality’, in Kant and the Fate of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 309–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reprinted from Moen, M. & den Ouden, B. (eds) (1987), New Essays on Kant. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Arendt, H. (1994), Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin [first published 1964].Google Scholar
Halter, M. (1998), Stories of Deliverance: Speaking with Men and Women who Rescued Jews from the Holocaust, trans. Bernard, M.. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. [1807], Phänomenologie des Geistes [abbreviated as ‘PS’]. Reprinted in Hegel, G. W. F. (1986), Werke (Volume 3). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Translated as (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit by Miller, A. V.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. [1821], Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts [abbreviated as ‘PR’]. Reprinted in Hegel, G. W. F. (1986), Werke (Volume 7). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Translated as (1991) Elements of the Philosophy of Rights by Nisbet, H. B.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, D. (1994), The Unity of Reason: Essays on Kant's Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, B. (1993), The Practice of Moral Judgement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, B. (2007), Moral Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1785], Grundlegung der Metaphysik der Sitten [appreviated as ‘G’]. Akademie edition 4: 395–463.Google Scholar
Translated as (1996), ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’ in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Gregor, M. J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 41–108.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1787], Kritik der praktischen Vernuft [appreviated as ‘KpV’], 5: 1–163.Google Scholar
Translated as (1996), ‘Critique of Practical Reason’ in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Gregor, M. J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 137–271.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1793], Metaphysik der Sitten [appreviated as ‘MS’], 6: 203–493.Google Scholar
Translated as (1996), ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’ in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Gregor, M. J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 362–603.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996), Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knowles, D. (2002), Hegel and the Philosophy of Right. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. (1998), A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century (second edition). London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neill, O. (1989), Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. (2000), Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Herman, B.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stern, R. (2007), ‘Freedom, Self-Legislation and Morality in Kant and Hegel: Constructivist vs. Realist Accounts’ in Hammer, E. (ed.), German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stern, R. (2009), ‘The Autonomy of Morality and the Morality of Autonomy’ in Journal of Moral Philosophy 6.3: 395–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, J. (2007), Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, A. (1990), Hegel's Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar