Element contents
Kant on Self-Control
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2024
Summary
This Element considers Kant's conception of self-control and the role it plays in his moral philosophy. It offers a detailed interpretation of the different terms used by Kant to explain the phenomenon of moral self-control, such as 'autocracy' and 'inner freedom'. Following Kant's own suggestions, the proposed reading examines the Kantian capacity for self-control as an ability to 'abstract from' various sensible impressions by looking beyond their influence on the mind. This analysis shows that Kant's conception of moral self-control involves two intimately related levels, which need not meet the same criteria. One level is associated with realizing various ends, the other with setting moral ends. The proposed view most effectively accommodates self-control's role in the adoption of virtuous maxims and ethical end-setting. It explains why self-control is central to Kant's conception of virtue and sheds new light on his discussions of moral strength and moral weakness.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108885232Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 20 June 2024
References
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Allison, Henry E. (1990). Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, Henry E. (1996). Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant’s Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla (2003). Respect and Loving Attention. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 33, 483–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, Marcia W. (1995). Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Baxley, Anne Margaret (2010). Kant’s Theory of Virtue: The Value of Autocracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baxley, Anne Margaret (2015). Virtue, Self-Mastery and the Autocracy of Practical Reason. In Denis, Lara and Sensen, Oliver (eds.), Kant’s Lectures on Ethics: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 223–39.Google Scholar
Borges, Maria (2019). Emotion, Reason and Action in Kant. London: Bloomsbury Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cagle, Randy (2005). Becoming a Virtuous Agent: Kant and the Cultivation of Feelings and Emotions. Kant-Studien, 96, 452–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Alix (2018). Kant on Moral Feelings, Moral Desires and the Cultivation of Virtue. In Emundts, Dina and Sedgwick, Sally (eds.), 13/2015 Begehren / Desire, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Donald (1980) [1969]. How Is Weakness of the Will Possible? In Davidson, Donald (ed.), Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 21–42.Google Scholar
Denis, Lara (2006). Kant’s Conception of Virtue. In Guyer, Paul (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 505–37.Google Scholar
De Witt, Janelle (2018). Feeling and Inclination: Rationalizing the Animal within. In Sorensen, Kelly and Williamson, Diane (eds.), Kant and the Faculty of Feeling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engstrom, Stephen (1988). Conditioned Autonomy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 48, 435–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engstrom, Stephen (2002). The Inner Freedom of Virtue. In Timmons, Mark (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 289–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fahmy, Melissa Seymour (2009). Active Sympathetic Participation: Reconsidering Kant’s Duty of Sympathy. Kantian Review, 14, 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frierson, Patrick R. (2005). Kant’s Empirical Account of Human Action. Philosophers’ Imprint, 5, 1–34.Google Scholar
Frierson, Patrick R. (2014). Kant’s Empirical Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goy, Ina (2013). Virtue and Sensibility. In Trampota, Andreas, Sensen, Oliver and Timmerman, Jens (eds.), Kant’s ‘Tugendlehre’, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 183–207.Google Scholar
Grenberg, Jeanine (2010). What Is the Enemy of Virtue? In Denis, Lara (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 152–70.Google Scholar
Gressis, Rob (2010). Recent Work on Kantian Maxims I: Established Approaches. Philosophy Compass, 5, 216–27.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2000). Kant on Freedom, Law and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2005). Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom: Selected Essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2010). Moral Feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals. In Denis, Lara (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–52.Google Scholar
Henden, Edmund (2008). What Is Self-Control? Philosophical Psychology, 21, 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. Jr. (2002). Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. Jr. (2012). Virtue, Rules and Justice: Kantian Aspirations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Robert (1998). Weakness Incorporated. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 15, 349–67.Google Scholar
Johnson, Robert and Cureton, Adam (2017). Kant’s Moral Philosophy. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/kant-moral/.Google Scholar
Kahn, Samuel (2015). Kant’s Theory of Conscience. In Muchnik, Pablo and Thorndike, Oliver (eds.), Rethinking Kant, Vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 135–56.Google Scholar
Karbowski Thomason, Krista (2017). A Good Enough Heart: Kant and the Cultivation of Emotions. Kantian Review, 22, 441–62.Google Scholar
Kennett, Jeanette (2003). Agency and Responsibility: A Common-Sense Moral Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleingeld, Pauline (2017). Contradiction and Kant’s Formula of Universal Law. Kant-Studien, 108, 89–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1989). Kant’s Analysis of Obligation: The Argument of Foundations I. The Monist, 72, 311–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louden, Robert (2011). Kant’s Human Being: Essays on His Theory of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, Richard (1993). Kantian Moral Motivation and the Feeling of Respect. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 31, 421–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, Richard (2009). Kant’s Theory of Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mele, Alfred (1987). Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception and Self-Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Merritt, Melissa (2018). Kant on Reflection and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mischel, Walter (2014). The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control. New York: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Onora (1989). Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Papish, Laura (2007). The Cultivation of Sensibility in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Kantian Review, 12, 128–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papish, Laura (2018). Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Julia (2018). Kant’s Gesinnung. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 56, 497–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schönecker, Dieter (2013). Kant’s Moral Intuitionism: The Fact of Reason and Moral Predispositions. Kant Studies Online, 1, 1–38.Google Scholar
Sherman, Nancy (1990). The Place of Emotions in Kantian Morality. In Flanagan, Owen and Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg (eds.), Identity, Character and Morality, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 149–70.Google Scholar
Sussman, David (2001). The Idea of Humanity: Anthropology and Anthroponomy in Kant’s Ethics. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2000). Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims. The Harvard Review of Philosophy, 8, 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2006). Kant on Conscience, ‘Indirect’ Duty, and Moral Error. International Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 293–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2022). Kant’s Will at the Crossroads: An Essay on the Failings of Practical Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmons, Mark (1994). Evil and Imputation in Kant’s Ethics. Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, 2, 113–41.Google Scholar
Vujošević, Marijana (2014). The Judge in the Mirror: Kant on Conscience. Kantian Review, 19, 449–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vujošević, Marijana (2017). The Subjective Conditions of Human Morality: The Relevance of Kant’s Moral Psychology. Groningen: University of Groningen.Google Scholar
Vujošević, Marijana (2019). Kant’s Account of Moral Weakness. European Journal of Philosophy, 27, 40–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vujošević, Marijana (2020a). Kant’s Conception of Moral Strength. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 50, 539–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vujošević, Marijana (2020b). The Kantian Capacity for Moral Self-Control: Abstraction at Two Levels. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 102, 102–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Owen (2009). The Duty of Self-Knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 79, 671–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, Owen (2014). Kant on Moral Sensibility and Moral Motivation. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 52, 727–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Gary (1977). Skepticism about Weakness of Will. The Philosophical Review, 86, 316–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watzl, Sebastian (2022). Self-Control, Attention, and How to Live without Special Motivational Powers. In Brent, M. and Miracchi, Lisa (eds.), Mental Action and the Conscious Mind, New York: Routledge, pp. 272–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wehofsits, Anna (2020). Passions: Kant’s Psychology of Self-Deception. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 66, 1184–208.Google Scholar
Wilson, Eric Entrican (2015). Self-Legislation and Self-Command in Kant’s Ethics. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96, 256–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (1999). Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2018). Feeling and Desire in the Human Animal. In Sorensen, Kelly and Williamson, Diane (eds.), Kant and the Faculty of Feeling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 88–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2020). Kant and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 4
- Cited by