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The Derivation without the Gap: Rethinking Groundwork I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2011

Berys Gaut  and
Samuel Kerstein
Berys Gaut
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
Samuel Kerstein
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Extract

At the core of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals lies his ‘derivation’ of the categorical imperative: his attempt to establish that, if there is a supreme principle of morality, then it is this imperative. Kant's argument for this claim is one of the most puzzling in his corpus. The received view, championed by Aune and Allison, is that there is a fundamental gap in the argument, which Kant elides by means of a simple but deadly confusion, thus robbing the argument of all validity. We will here contest the received view, as well as Korsgaard's alternative interpretation of the argument. In place of these positions we will offer a reconstruction of the derivation which reveals its coherence and force. We will show that it illuminates some interesting grounds for rejecting certain candidates, including a utilitarian principle, for status as the supreme principle of morality. While certainly not free of all defects, the argument will be shown to be far more powerful and interesting than it has commonly been held to be.

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 3 , March 1999 , pp. 18 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 1999

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References

1 Aune, Bruce, Kant's Theory of Morals (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), esp. pp. 34–43Google Scholar; Allison, Henry, ‘On a presumed gap in the derivation of the categorical imperative’, in Idealism and Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cummiskey, David, Kantian Consequentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Aune, , Kant's Theory, p. 34.Google Scholar He also says that the similar transition made in Groundwork II is just as obscure (ibid., p. 43).

3 See Allison, , ‘Presumed gap’, p. 146Google Scholar, for this formulation.

4 Ibid., p. 145.

5 Korsgaard, Christine, ‘Kant's analysis of obligation: the argument of Foundations I,’ The Monist, 72 (1989)Google Scholar, reprinted in her Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar, to which page numbers cited in the text refer. The numbering of the steps of the argument in the next paragraph is our own.

6 For evidence that, in Kant's view, to will is to act, see, for example, GMS 412.

7 We say ‘a sometimes actualized disposition’ because of Kant's suggestion that the good will is good through its willing, not merely through its disposition to will in a certain way.

8 In contrast, beings who have no inclinations, such as God and angels, though they possess good wills, do not act from duty: see Kant's remarks on the holy will and imperatives at GMS 414.

9 For a defence of this kind of reading of the good will, see Ameriks, Karl, ‘Kant on the good will’, in Hoffe, (ed.), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten: Ein kooperativer Kommentar (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1989).Google Scholar

10 The correctness of this claim has received extensive discussion in the recent literature, but we are not concerned to address this question here. See Stocker, Michael, ‘The schizophrenia of modern ethical theories’, Journal of Philosophy, 73 (1976), 453–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herman, Barbara, ‘On the value of acting from the motive of duty’, in her The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Baron, Marcia W., ‘Is acting from duty morally repugnant?’, in her Kantian Ethics (Almost) without Apology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).Google Scholar For discussion of whether actions contrary to duty could be done from duty and thus have moral worth, see Kerstein, Samuel, ‘The Kantian moral worth of actions contrary to duty’, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 53 (1999), 45–66.Google Scholar

11 See GMS 412. For discussion of this point, see Allison, Henry, ‘Autonomy and spontaneity in Kant's conception of the self’, in Idealism and Freedom: Essays on Kant's Theoretical and Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 129–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See, for example, KpV 81 and GMS 390.

13 See KpV 21. See also GMS 427 where Kant connects material principles to subjective ends.

14 KpV 22.

15 We find evidence that Kant had a hedonistic view of material principles not only in the second Critique, but in the Groundwork as well. See GMS 444. However, it has been argued by Reath, Andrews that Kant's theory is not hedonistic: ‘Hedonism, heteronomy and Kant's principle of happiness’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 70 (1989), 42–72.Google Scholar

16 It is also worth noting that moral pluraliste would deny that a single supreme principle of morality is required for the justification of particular duties: see Gaut, Berys, ‘Rag bags, disputes and moral pluralism’, Utilitas, 11 (1999), 37–48.Google Scholar