Professor Predrag Cicovacki (USA)
The Problem of Moral Authority in Kant and Post-Kantian Ethics

Session 4: Teaching Kant: On the First and the Second Reading of the Same Text (Exercise)

In reading a philosophical text, we always have two fundamental task: (i) to understand it, and (ii) to evaluate it. Since we are already familiar with Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals , and presumable have already understood its mains claims and assumptions, we will attempt a critical evaluation of the specific text, section I of this work. The main claims made by Kant in this section could be reconstructed as follows:

1. Nothing in the world could be called good without qualification except a good will.

2. Our reason is not preoccupied with happiness but with an idea of another and far worthier purpose: reason's sole function must be to produce a good will in itself and not one good merely as a means.

3. The good will is not the sole and complete good, yet it is a condition of any other good, even of the desire for happiness.

4. The concept of duty: We can do things (i) for purely selfish reasons, or (ii) in accordance with duty, or (iii) from duty. To have a moral worth, an action must be done from duty. Kant: duty is the necessity of action done from pure respect for the practical law.

5. Universal conformity to practical law: I ought never to act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should become a universal law. (Example: making a false promise.)

6. Neither science nor philosophy is needed to know what we have to do in order to be honest and good, and even wise and virtuous; when made aware of the principle of “universalizability,” even an ordinary human being knows well how to distinguish what is good from what is bad, and how to distinguish what is consistent and inconsistent with duty.

Our homework for this class will be to study these claims, and formulate our critical opinion about each one of them individually, and all of them as a hole. In class, we will compare our critical remarks on these views.

Literature

• Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals , trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), section I, pp. 7-19.