Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:37:45.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Delusions of Virtue: Kant on Self-Conceit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2014

Kate Moran
Kate Moran*
Affiliation:
Brandeis University Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Little extended attention has been given to Kant’s notion of self-conceit (Eigendünkel), though it appears throughout his theoretical and practical philosophy. Authors who discuss self-conceit often describe it as a kind of imperiousness or arrogance in which the conceited agent seeks to impose selfish principles upon others, or sees others as worthless. I argue that these features of self-conceit are symptoms of a deeper and more thoroughgoing failure. Self-conceit is best described as the tendency to insist upon one’s own theoretical or practical conclusions at any cost, while still wanting to appear – to oneself or to others – as though one is abiding by the constraints of theoretical or practical reason. Self-conceit is thus less centrally the tendency to impose one’s will or inclinations upon others, and more centrally the tendency to reconstruct evidence and rationalize so that one may be convinced of one’s own virtue. While the conceited agent may ultimately impose her judgement upon others, she does so in order to preserve her delusion of virtue.

Keywords

KantImmanuelself-conceitself-loveself-deceptionarrogance
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 2014 , pp. 419 - 447
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2014 

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

Ameriks, K. (2013) ‘Is Practical Justification in Kant Ultimately Dogmatic?’. In M. Timmons and S. Baiasu (eds), Kant on Practical Justification (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 153–175.Google Scholar
Baumgarten, A. (1969) Ethica Philosophica. Hildesheim: G. Olms.Google Scholar
Beck, L. W. (1960) A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2007) ‘Belief in Kant’. Philosophical Review, 116, 323–360.Google Scholar
Darwall, S. (2006) The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dillon, R. (2004) ‘Kant on Arrogance and Self-Respect’. In C. Calhoun (ed.), Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 191–216.Google Scholar
Engstrom, S. (2010) ‘The Triebfeder of Pure Practical Reason’. In A. Reath and J. Timmermann (eds), Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 90–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esser, A. M. (2013) ‘The Inner Court of Conscience, Moral Self-Knowledge, and the Proper Object of Duty’. In A. Trampota, O. Sensen and J. Timmermann (eds), Kant’s Tugendlehre: A Comprehensive Commentary (Berlin: De Gruyter), 269–292.Google Scholar
Hill, T. E. (1998) ‘Kant’s Argument for the Rationality of Moral Conduct’. In P. Guyer (ed.), Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays (New York: Rowman & Littlefield), 249–272.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1902–) Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1992) Lectures on Logic, trans. and ed. J. M. Young. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996a) Critique of Practical Reason, trans. M. Gregor. In M. Gregor (ed.), Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996b) The End of All Things, trans. A. W. Wood.. In A. W. Wood and G. di Giovanni (eds), Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996c) The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor. In M. Gregor (ed.), Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996d) Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. G. di Giovanni. In A. W. Wood and G. di Giovanni (eds), Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996e) Toward Perpetual Peace, trans. M. Gregor. In M. Gregor (ed.), Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1997) Lectures on Ethics, trans. P. Heath. ed. P. Heath and J. B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1998) ‘Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2003) Theoretical Philosophy 1755–1770, trans. and ed. D. Walford and R. Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2008a) Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. R. Louden. In R. Louden and G. Zöller (eds), Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2008b) Essay on the Maladies of the Head, trans. H. Wilson. In R. Louden and G. Zöller (eds), Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2008c) Lectures on Pedagogy, trans. R. Louden. In R. Louden and G. Zöller (eds), Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2011a) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor and J. Timmermann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2011b) Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, trans. and ed. P. Frierson and P. Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kleingeld, P. (1998) ‘Kant on the Unity of Theoretical and Practical Reason’. Review of Metaphysics, 2, 311–339.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. (1996) Creating the Kingdom of Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Luther, M. (1883–2009) Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesammtausgabe. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar
Piper, A. (2013) Rationality and the Structure of the Self. vol. 2: A Kantian Conception Berlin: APRA Foundation.Google Scholar
Reath, A. (2006) ‘Kant’s Theory of Moral Sensibility’. In Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 8–32.Google Scholar
Ripstein, A. (2009) Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sensen, O. (2009) ‘Kant’s Conception of Human Dignity’. Kant-Studien, 100, 309–331.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, H. (1981) The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Sussman, D. (2008) ‘From Deduction to Deed: Kant’s Grounding of the Moral Law’. Kantian Review, 13, 52–81.Google Scholar
Timmermann, J. (2006) ‘Kantian Duties to the Self, Explained and Defended’. Philosophy, 81, 505–531.Google Scholar
Wood, A. (1996) ‘Self-Love, Self-Benevolence, and Self-Conceit’. In S. Engstrom and J. Whiting (eds), Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 141–161.Google Scholar