Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T00:52:37.851Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Autonomy and the Self as the Basis of Morality

from V - Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

By
Bernard Reginster
Edited by
Allen W. Wood  and
Songsuk Susan Hahn
Allen W. Wood
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Songsuk Susan Hahn
Affiliation:
Université Concordia, Montréal, Québec
Get access

Summary

THE SOURCE OF NORMATIVITY AND THE PARADOXES OF SELF-LEGISLATION

In the Preface to the Grundlegung, Kant announces that he will pursue two main objectives, respectively, to “seek out” and then to “establish” the “supreme principle of morality.” The first objective is achieved in the first two sections of the book, in what is an essentially descriptive enterprise. Kant shows there that morally good actions are those actions done from duty, regardless of one’s inclinations, and proceeds to derive from this idea of acting from duty a supreme moral principle, on the basis of which the moral agent can determine with what particular duty he is expected to comply in particular circumstances – the categorical imperative. In the book’s third section, Kant then turns to the normative question, which arises out of the skeptical worry that morality might be little more than “a phantom of the brain,” or that those moral obligations we take to be objective and unconditional are in fact not rational requirements at all, but mere fantasies.

In a few transitional pages at the end of the second section, Kant develops a view that forms a crucial preliminary to the argument of the final section. Before he can attempt to establish the normative authority of the supreme principle of morality he described previously, he must specify where that authority must be sought in the first place – that is to say, he must formulate a view about the source of normativity. Suppose we are told that we should help the needy, and we want to know whether this is a legitimate requirement. To go about answering that question, we must first figure out what to look for – or what will count as a justification of this claim.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (1790–1870) , pp. 387 - 433
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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

Allison, Henry E. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beiser, Frederick C.Hegel. New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Beiser, FrederickSchiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Clark, Maudemarie. Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. “Autonomy, Necessity, and Love.” In Necessity, Volition, and Love, 129–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul. Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, Paul “Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Inquiry 50, no. 5 (2007): 444–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, Dieter. “Fichte’s Original Insight.” In Contemporary German Philosophy. Trans. Lachterman, D.. 1:15–53. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Henrich, Dieter “Kant’s Deduction of the Moral Law: The Reasons for the Obscurity of the Final Section of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.” In Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays, ed. Guyer, Paul, 303–41. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas. “Kant’s Argument for the Rationality of Morality.” In Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, 97–122. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Hussain, Nadeem. “Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche’s Free Spirits.” In Nietzsche and Morality, eds. Leiter, B. and Sinhababu, N., 157–91. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Hussain, Nadeem “The Return of Moral Fictionalism.” Philosophical Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004): 149–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janaway, Christopher. Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Kain, Patrick. “Self-Legislation in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 86 (2004): 257–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katsafanas, Paul. “Practical Reason and the Structure of Reflective Agency.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2008.
Kerstein, Samuel. Kant’s Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine “Kant’s Analysis of Obligation: The Argument of Foundations I.” Monist 72, no. 3 (1989): 311–40. Reprinted in Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. The John Locke Lectures. Published as Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, ChristineThe Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosch, Michelle. Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosch, Michelle “Kierkegaard’s Ethicist: The Place of Fichte in Kierkegaard’s Construction of the Ethical.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 88 (2006): 261–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leiter, Brian. Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Neuhouser, Frederick. Fichte’s Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuhouser, FrederickThe Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Onora. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory.” Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980): 515–72.Google Scholar
Rawls, JohnA Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Reath, Andrews. “Autonomy of the Will and the Foundation of Morality.” In Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory, 121–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reath, Andrews “The Categorical Imperative and Kant’s Conception of Practical Rationality.” Monist 72, no. 3 (1989): 384–410. Reprinted in Reath, Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory, 67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reath, Andrews “Legislating the Moral Law.” Nous 28 (1994): 435–64. Reprinted in Reath, Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory, 92–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reginster, Bernard. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, John. Nietzsche’s New Darwinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, JohnNietzsche’s System. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneewind, J. B.The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Sally. “Metaphysics and Morality in Kant and Hegel.” In The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Ed. Sedgwick, Sally, 306–23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedgwick, Sally “On the Relation of Pure Reason to Content: A Reply to Hegel’s Critique of Formalism in Kant’s Ethics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1988): 59–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. J. “Constructing Normativity.” Philosophical Topics 32 (2004): 451–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Stephen. The Unity of the Self. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, AllenKant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Young, Julian. Schopenhauer. New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Reference edition of Kant’s works: Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenshaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1910)
CPrR, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Macmillan, 1985) [cited by Akademie edition volume and page numbers in the margins]
MM, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) [cited by Akademie edition volume and page numbers in the margins]
LHP, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995) [cited by volume and page numbers]
Reference edition of Schopenhauer’s works: Arthur Schopenhauer Sämtliche Werke (Wiesbaden: Brockaus, 1949)
PP, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, trans. E. F. J. Payne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974) [cited by volume, paragraph, and page numbers]
BGE, Beyond Good and Evil, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1966)
D, Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)
GM, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1969)
WP, The Will to Power, ed.. Walter Kaufmann and trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1968)
SD, Sickness unto Death: Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, trans. H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980)
Beiser, Frederick C., The Early Political Writings of the German Romantics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) [cited by page numbers]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
In “Kierkegaard’s Ethicist: The Place of Fichte in Kierkegaard’s Construction of the Ethical,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2006), Michelle Kosch explicitly claims that Fichte’s account of moral normativity should be interpreted along constructivist lines
Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
This is the view developed by Michelle Kosch in Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×