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The Demography of the Kingdom of Ends

I. Alone in the Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Daniel N. Robinson  and
Rom HARRE
Daniel N. Robinson
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Rom HARRE
Affiliation:
Oxford and Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
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Extract

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals' Kant is explicit, sometimes to the point of peevishness, in denying anthropology and psychology any part or place in his moral science. Recognizing that this will strike many as counterintuitive he is unrepentant: ‘We require no skill to make ourselves intelligible to the multitude once we renounce all profundity of thought’. That the doctrine to be defended is not exemplified in daily experience or even in imaginable encounters is necessitated by the very nature of morality which cannot be served worse ‘… than by seeking to derive it from examples’. Thus, the project of the moral philosopher begins with the recognition that the moral realm is not mapped by anthropological data and does not get its content therefrom. Rather, moral philosophy must be ‘completely cleansed’ of everything that is appropriate to anthropology:

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 69 , Issue 267 , January 1994 , pp. 5 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1994

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References

1 Kant, Immanuel (1964), Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated and analyzed by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row). Following Paton's translation, all page numbers are to Kant's second edition.

1 Kant,Immanuel (1964), Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated and analyzed by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row). Following Paton's translation, all page numbers are to Kant's second edition.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 31.

3 Ibid., 29.

4 Ibid., vi-vii.

5 Ibid., 13–14.

6 Ibid., 15–16.

7 Ibid., 70.

8 Ibid., 14.

9 Ibid., 35.

10 Ibid., 7.

11 Ibid., 9.

12 Ibid., 13.

13 Ibid., 74.

14 Ibid., 75.

15 Ibid., 76–77.

16 Ibid., 62.

17 Kant, Groundwork, op. cit.

18 Ibid.

19 In this one might question Gregor's assertion that the teleology of the will in Kant's philosophy is no more than a persuasive device. Gregor, M. J., (1963) Laws of Freedom (Blackwell: Oxford).Google Scholar

20 Ward, K. (1972) The development of Kant's View of Ethics (Blackwell:Oxford)Google Scholar

21 Kant, Groundwork, 46.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 6.

23 Ibid., 59.

24 Kant, I. 17 (1963) Lectures on Ethics Trans. L. Infield, (New York: Harper).Google Scholar

25 Beck, L. W.(1960) A Commentary on Kant's ‘Critique of Practical Reason’. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 242. Kant's discussion of the summum bonum appears in his Critique of Practical Reason, A810-B838. L. W. Beck, translator. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1956. Beck, it should be noted, is far less impressed with the importance of the summum bonum than was Kant himself.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.

27 Lukes, S., (1973) Individualism. (New York: Harper and Row).Google Scholar

28 Wittgenstein, L. (1953), Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell) (Sect. 265).Google Scholar