Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:42:19.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultivating Virtue: Moral Progress and the Kantian State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Chris W. Surprenant
Chris W. Surprenant
Affiliation:
Boston University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

After examining the ethical and political writings of Immanuel Kant, one finds an apparent paradox in his philosophy as his perfectionist moral teachings appear to be linked to his anti-perfectionist political theory. Specifically, he writes that the perfection of moral character can only take place for an individual who is inside of civil society, a condition where no laws may legitimately be implemented expressly for the purpose of trying to make individuals moral. Kant believes that living in civil society is a necessary condition for an individual to refine his talents and reason completely, a process required by morality. I believe, however, that the connection between his moral and political theory runs much deeper than simply facilitating the refinement of talents. Kant's moral theory focuses on an individual's cultivation of virtue, but this cultivation cannot be most satisfactorily completed unless that individual is a member of civil society. Put differently, civil society plays a necessary role in cultivating an individual's character so that he is able to act from maxims consistent with the moral law, out of the respect for the law itself. However, because he believes that civic laws primarily intended to encourage moral cultivation cannot be implemented legitimately, it seems curious that this condition should play such a significant role in Kant's moral philosophy. Through this examination of Kant's moral and political theory, it will be shown that Kant's political society establishes a condition necessary for an individual's complete cultivation of virtue, not by implementing laws that make men moral but by weakening the forces of heteronomy, thereby removing barriers to moral action.

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 90 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2007

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

, Aristotle. (1985). Nicomachean Ethics, transl. Irwin, Terence (Indianapolis: Hackett).Google Scholar
Beiser, Frederick. (1992). Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Höffe, Otfried. (1994). lntmanuel Kant (Albany: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), transl. Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1983). ‘Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan intent’ (UH). transl. Humphrey, Ted, in Immanuel Kant: Perpetual Peace and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1996). ‘Religion within the boundaries of mere reason’ (Rel), transl. Giovanni, George di, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1999). ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’ (GR), transl. Gregor, Mary in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1999). ‘Critique of Practical Reason’ (CPrR), transl. Gregor, Mary, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1999). ‘On the common saying: that may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice’ (TP), transl. Gregor, Mary, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1999). ‘Toward perpetual peace’ (PP), transl. Gregor, Mary, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1999). ‘The Metaphysics of Morals’ (MM), transl. Gregor, Mary, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Kaufman, Alexander. (1999). Welfare in the Kantian State (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. (1996). Creating the Kingdom of Ends (New York: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munzel, G. Felicitas. (1999). Kant's Conception of Moral Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Murphy, Jeffrie G. (1994). Kant: The Philosophy of Right (Macon: Mercer University Press).Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (2000). Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Rosen, Allen D. (1993). Kant's Theory of Justice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1979). Emile: Or, On Education (EM), transl. Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books).Google Scholar
Wood, Allen. (1999). Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar