Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T08:12:04.283Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Autonomy, Progress and Virtue: Why Kant has Nothing to Fear from the Overdemandingness Objection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2018

Jens Timmermann
Jens Timmermann*
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is Kant’s ethical theory too demanding? Do its commands ask too much of us, either by calling for self-sacrifice on particular occasions, or by pervading our lives to the extent that there is no room for permissible action? In this article, I argue that Kant’s ethics is very demanding, but not excessively so. The notion of ‘latitude’ (the idea that wide duty admits of ‘exceptions’) does not help. But we need to bear in mind (i) that moral laws are self-imposed and cannot be externally enforced; (ii) that ‘right action’ is not a category of Kantian ethics – there is a more and a less, and lack of perfection does not entail vice; and (iii) that only practice makes perfect, i.e. how much virtue can realistically be expected can vary from agent to agent. The principle that ‘ought’ is limited by ‘can’ is firmly entrenched in Kant’s ethical thought.

Keywords

demandingnessautonomylatitudemoral progress
Type
Critical Exchange
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 379 - 397
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baron, Marcia (1995) Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Colby, Anne and Damon, William (1992) Some Do Care. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dyck, Corey W. (2012) ‘Chimerical Ethics and Flattering Moralists: Baumgarten’s Influence on Kant’s Moral Theory in the Observations and Remarks’. In Susan Meld Shell and Richard Velkley (eds), Kant’s Observations and Remarks: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 38–56.Google Scholar
Gregor, Mary, and Timmermann, Jens (eds) (2011) Immanuel Kant. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A German–English Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara (2007) ‘The Scope of Moral Requirement’. In Moral Literacy (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press), pp. 203–229. First published in 2001.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. (1971) ‘Kant on Imperfect Duty and Supererogation’. Kant-Studien, 61, 55–76.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. (2002) ‘Meeting Needs and Doing Favors’. In Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 201–243.Google Scholar
Hruschka, Joachim (1991) ‘Rechtfertigungs- und Entschuldigungsgründe: Das Brett des Karneades bei Gentz und bei Kant’. Goltdammer’s Archiv für Strafrecht, 138, 1–10.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997) Lectures on Ethics, Trans. Peter Heath, ed. Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2004) Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie. Ed. Werner Stark. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2011) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A German–English Edition . Trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor and Jens Timmermann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel ( forthcoming) Doctrine of Virtue. Trans. Mary J. Gregor, rev. and ed. Jeanine Grenberg and Jens Timmermann. Cambridge: Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Millgram, Elijah (2009) ‘John Stuart Mill, Determinism, and the Problem of Induction’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87, 183–199.Google Scholar
Moran, Kate (2017) ‘Demandingness, Indebtedness, and Charity: Kant on Imperfect Duties to Others’. In Matthew C. Altman (ed.), The Palgrave Kant Handbook (London: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 307–329.Google Scholar
Murphy, Liam (1993) ‘The Demands of Beneficence’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 22, 267–292.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Onora (2013) Acting on Principle: An Essay on Kantian Ethics. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1st edition 1975.Google Scholar
Pinheiro Walla, Alice (2015) ‘Kant’s Moral Theory and Demandingness’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 18, 731–743.Google Scholar
Pummer, Theron (2016) ‘Whether and Where to Give’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 44, 77–95.Google Scholar
Seymour, Melissa (2008) ‘Widening the Field for the Practice of Virtue: Kant’s Wide Imperfect Duties’. In Valerio Rohden, Ricardo R. Terra, Guido Antonio Almeida and Margit Ruffing (eds), Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants. Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, III (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter), pp. 423–433.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter (1972) ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1, 229–243.Google Scholar
Thorndike, Oliver (2008) ‘ Ethica Deceptrix: The Significance of Baumgarten’s Notion of a Chimerical Ethics for the Development of Kant’s Moral Philosophy’. In Valerio Rohden, Ricardo R. Terra, Guido Antonio Almeida and Margit Ruffing (eds), Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants. Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, III (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter), pp. 451–462.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2005) ‘Good But Not Required? Assessing the Demands of Kantian Ethics’. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2, 9–27.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2013) ‘Kantian Dilemmas? Moral Conflict in Kant’s Ethical Theory’. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 95, 36–64.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens ( forthcoming) ‘Emerging Autonomy: Dealing with the Inadequacies of the “Canon of Pure Reason” (1781)’. In Stefano Bacin and Oliver Sensen (eds), The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard (2006) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. New edition. London and New York: Routledge. First published in 1985.Google Scholar