Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:10:38.634Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Judge in the Mirror: Kant on Conscience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2014

Marijana Vujošević
Marijana Vujošević*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kant’s conception of conscience has been relatively neglected by Kant scholars and the secondary literature offers no explanation of whether (and if so, how) his treatments of conscience fit together. To achieve a fuller understanding of Kant’s general position on conscience, I question the widespread assumption that conscience is a feeling and account for the nature of conscience and its multiple functions. On my reading, conscience is ‘the internal judge’ whose verdict triggers certain emotional reactions. Through the moral self-evaluative activities of this inner judge, we come to know our character better. In the judgements of conscience, we take account of various psychological conditions while judging both whether these conditions stand in the way of our establishing moral maxims and whether we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. By arousing certain feelings, these judgements also move us to moral action.

Keywords

conscienceKantmoral self-appraisalguiltimputationmaximsubjective conditions of moral receptivity
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 2014 , pp. 449 - 474
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2014 

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

Guyer, Paul (2010) ‘Moral Feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals’. In Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 130–152.Google Scholar
Hare, R. (1993) Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths among us. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Heubült, Willem (1980) ‘Gewissen bei Kant’. Kant-Studien, 71, 445–454.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas (2002) Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas Sören (2002) ‘Gewissen als praktische Apperzeption: Zur Lehre vom Gewissen in Kants Ethik-Vorlesungen’. Kant-Studien, 93, 424–443.Google Scholar
Howard, Jason J. (2004) ‘Kant and Moral Imputation: Conscience and the Riddle of the Given’. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 78, 609–627.Google Scholar
Kahn, Samuel (forthcoming) ‘Kant’s Theory of Conscience’. In Pablo Muchnik and Oliver Thorndike (eds), Rethinking Kant, vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Makkreel, Rudolf A. (2002) ‘Reflective Judgement and the Problem of Assessing Virtue in Kant’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 36, 205–220.Google Scholar
Munzel, Felicitas (1999) Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The ‘Critical’ Link of Morality, Anthropology and Reflective Judgement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Paton, J. H. (1979) ‘Conscience and Kant’. Kant-Studien, 70, 239–251.Google Scholar
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter (ed.) (2008) Moral Psychology, vols 1–3, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thagard, Paul, and Finn, Tracy (2011) ‘Conscience: What is Moral Intuition?’ In Carla Bagnoli (ed.), Morality and the Emotions (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 150–170.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2006) ‘Kant on Conscience, “Indirect” Duty, and Moral Error’. International Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 293–308.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen (2008) Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar