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A Frankfurter in Königsberg: Prolegomenon to any Future non-metaphysical Kant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2020

James Gordon Finlayson
James Gordon Finlayson*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

In this article I press four different objections on Forst’s theory of the ‘Right to Justification’. These are (i) that the principle of justification is not well-formulated; (ii) that ‘reasonableness and reciprocity’, as these notions are used by Rawls, are not apt to support a Kantian conception of morality; (iii) that the principle of justification, as Forst understands it, gives an inadequate account of what makes actions wrong; and (iv) that, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, Forst’s account veers towards a version of moral realism that is prima facie incompatible with Kantian constructivism. I then evaluate Forst’s theory in the light of a distinction made by Sharon Street between restricted and unrestricted constructivism. I show that Forst has reason to deny that it is either the one or the other, but he is not able to show that it is both or neither. I conclude that the arguments Forst advances in support of his constructivist theory of the right to justification entail that it is a metaphysical and comprehensive conception in the relevant, Rawlsian sense. Forst’s theory of the right to justification therefore fails to fulfil one of the main stated aims.

Keywords

right to justificationprinciple of justificationconstructivismForstRawlsScanlonHabermasnon-comprehensivenon-metaphysical
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Kant and the Frankfurt School , December 2020 , pp. 583 - 604
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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