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Kant's Grundlegung: a Reply to Dieter Schönecker
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Volume 12 (2007) contains a review of my little edition-cum-commentary of Kant's Grundlegung (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2004; henceforth ‘CG’). As I am familiar with the work of the reviewer, Dieter Schönecker, most of the points mentioned did not surprise me. I was, however, taken aback by the, let us say, unhelpful manner in which they were raised. Schönecker's criticisms concern largely not ‘blunders’, ‘misinterpretations’ or ‘factual mistakes’ (155) but – besides the occasional misunderstanding on his part – matters of philosophical disagreement that might have been of interest to readers of the Kantian Review if set out in an informative, civilized and disinterested fashion. In what follows, I shall try to make these disagreements explicit.
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Notes
1 A revised and augmented English version of the commentary has since been published by Cambridge University Press (‘CE’).
2 Schönecker's own student commentary, jointly authored with AllenWood (Paderborn: Schoningh, 2002)Google Scholar.
3 How can the third proposition introduce something new if it is meant to follow from the previous two (158)? I explicitly address this question by drawing attention to Kant's cautious formulation (als Folgerung … würde ich so ausdrüchen, 4: 400.17–18, cf. CG 101, CE 39) before I offer my reconstruction of the argument. The third proposition is not just a consequence of the previous two.
4 It is true that in CG I did not discuss the nature of ‘this difference’ (4: 397.19), which I take to be the difference between morally valuable action from duty and any action that lacks moral worth. But I doubt whether this point is ‘very elusive’ (157); see my discussion in CE, pp. 29–30, fn. 34. CE also devotes more space to the alleged ‘gap’ in the derivation of the categorical imperative (p. 45, fn. 63, and 4: 420.24, ad loc.).
5 I do in CE (ad loc., Appendices A and B); and, more extensively, in my contribution to the Cambridge ‘Critical Guide’ to the Groundwork (forthcoming).
6 More remains to be said; I make a start in CE, Appendix F.
7 Less controversially, the task of separation at 4: 412 ff. is preparatory in character; a moral metaphysics qua pure moral philosophy cannot concern itself with hypothetical imperatives, human moral psychology etc. In the Groundwork, Kant discusses such matters for purely heuristic purposes, on his way to establishing the novel discipline.
8 Also, I have no desire to deny that Section III moves towards, and in the shape of the deduction at 4: 454.6–19 (sic!) contains the core of, a ‘Critique of Pure Practical Reason’ (157).
9 The text may be corrupt. Editors have been tempted to insert ‘assume’ (annehmen, Hartenstein) or ‘possess’ (besitzen, Otto) after ‘principle’; see CG 82.
10 Note that Kant's metaphorical language (‘getting out’, 4: 450.19, and ‘escape’, 4: 450.30) strongly suggests a genuine circle from freedom to the moral law and back, not just a petit to.
11 That is why I do not discuss spontaneity (Selbsttätigkeit) at length (159). All that is needed at this stage of the argument is that a rational faculty that is selbsttätig is free.
12 I am grateful to Howard Williams for inviting me to write this reply.