Critics of Kant’s moral philosophy often object that his emphasis on individual autonomy makes him unable to account for our ‘second-personal’ or ‘bipolar’ duties. These are duties we owe to other people rather than duties we have with respect to them – as we might have duties with respect to the environment or works of art. With a recent and novel formulation of this objection as my foil, I argue that the apparent force of the ‘bipolarity’ objections rests on a failure to appreciate Kant’s inherently practical approach to ethics. On the positive side, reflection on criticisms of Kant’s treatment of ‘bipolar’ normativity helps to shed new light on his conception of practical agency and its place in his system of morals.
