The Derivation without the Gap: Rethinking Groundwork I

Kantian Review

Volumn 3, Issue , 1999, Pages 18-40

  Gaut, Berys ^a   Kerstein, Samuel ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84883458086     PISSN: 13694154     EISSN: 20442394     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1369415400000327     Document Type: Article

References (16)

1. Bruce Aune, Kant's Theory of Morals (Princeton” Princeton University Press, 1979), esp. pp. 34-43; Henry Allison, ‘On a presumed gap in the derivation of the categorical imperative’, in Idealism and Freedom (Cambridge” Cambridge University Press, 1996); and David Cummiskey, Kantian Consequentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 57.
2. Aune, Kant's Theory, p. 34. He also says that the similar transition made in Groundwork II is just as obscure (Kant's Theory of Morals., p. 43).
3. See Allison, ‘Presumed gap’, p. 146, for this formulation.
4. Kant's Theory of Morals., p. 145.
5. Christine Korsgaard, ‘Kant's analysis of obligation” the argument of Foundations I,’ The Monist, 72 (1989), reprinted in her Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge” Cambridge University Press, 1996), 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 Karl Ameriks, ‘Kant on the good will’, in Hoffe (ed.), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten” Ein kooperativer Kommentar (Frankfurt” Klostermann, 1989).
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 Michael Stocker, ‘The schizophrenia of modern ethical theories’, journal of Philosophy, 73 (1976), 453-66; Barbara Herman, ‘On the value of acting from the motive of duty’, in her The Practice of Moral judgment (Cambridge, MA” Harvard University Press, 1993); and Marcia W. Baron, ‘Is acting from duty morally repugnant?’, in her Kantian Ethics (Almost) without Apology (Ithaca, NY” Cornell University Press, 1995). For discussion of whether actions contrary to duty could be done from duty and thus have moral worth, see Samuel Kerstein, ‘The Kantian moral worth of actions contrary to duty’, Zeitschrift fiir philosophische Forschung, 53 (1999), 45-66.
11. See GMS 412. For discussion of this point, see Henry Allison, ‘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.
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 Andrews Reath that Kant's theory is not hedonistic” ‘Hedonism, heteronomy and Kant's principle of happiness’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 70 (1989), 42-72.
16. It is also worth noting that moral pluralists would deny that a single supreme principle of morality is required for the justification of particular duties” see Berys Gaut, ‘Rag bags, disputes and moral pluralism’, Utilitas, 11 (1999), 37-48.