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extend access to The Review of Metaphysics
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF
The Review of Metaphysics 62 (December 2008): 35&-381. Copyright © 2008 by The Review of
Metaphysics
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356 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 357
6 Ibid. Unless otherwise noted, all emphases belong to the quoted au-
thor.
7 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated
and edited by Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University, 1997), 4:455-6,
hereafter GMS.
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358 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
Now, what serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determina-
tion is an end [der Zweck], and this, if it is given by reason alone, must
hold equally for all rational beings. What, on the other hand contains
merely the ground of the possibility of an action the effect of which is
an end is called a means [das Mittel].8
8 Ibid. 4:427.
9 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, translated and edited by
Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:381, hereafter
MdS.
10 Ibid. 6:384-5.
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 359
11 Ibid. 6:385.
12 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, translated and edited
by Mary Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5:34, hereaf-
ter KvV.
13 GMS 4:437.
14 MdS 6:395.
15 Ibid. 6:392. It is a mistake to think that the focus on ends drops out in
Kant's moral theory. He, in fact, defines ethics as "the system of the ends of
pure practical reason" (Ibid. 6:381). For important criticisms of the deonto-
logical reading of Kant's moral theory, see Barbara Herman, The Practice of
Moral Judgment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993) and
Allen Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1999). For an insightful discussion of the importance of ends to the Categori-
cal Imperative, see Jens Timmerman, "Value Without Regress: Kant's 'For-
mula of Humanity' Revisited," European Journal of Philosophy 14, no. 1
(2006): 69-93.
16 At one point in the Groundwork Kant distinguishes between incen-
tives and motives: "The subjective ground of desire is an incentive [die Trie-
bfeder]; the objective ground of volition is a motive [der Bewegungsgrund];
hence the distinction between subjective ends, which rest on incentives, and
objective ends, which depend on motives, which hold for every rational be-
ing" (GMS 4:427). Roughly, it seems that a motive is an incentive that has
been endorsed in some sense. Nothing in my interpretation turns on this dis-
tinction, so it can be safely ignored for the purposes of the present essay.
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360 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
17 KpV 5:72.
18 Henry Allison, Kant's Theory of Freedom (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1990). Allison convincingly argues that the view captured in
this Thesis is not unique to the Religion book or to Kant's later moral theory.
On the contrary, it expresses a line of thought about agency already present
in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
19 Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and
Other Writings, trans, and ed. by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 6:23-4, hereafter Religion.
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 361
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362 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
they stand with respect to our more general practical principles (our
maxims) is not terribly controversial. Our capacity to ask the norma-
tive question and weigh reasons for action is not under much suspi-
cion. But how far down does this capacity for reflection and distance
go? Do the incentives provided by inclinations and desires function
as a limit beyond which practical reason is unable to venture? This is
precisely the line of thought that Kant wants to resist. Our incentives
explain, in part, why we adopt the ends that we do. If you hold that all
incentives come from things such as inclinations and desires, then
you must also maintain that the capacity to set ends is limited to oper-
ating on these more or less passively experienced incentives. On this
widely accepted view, practical reason is essentially a matter of rea-
soning about means to ends that are themselves simply given.22 The
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 363
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364 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 365
29 GMS 4:444.
30 Ibid. 4:444.
31 KpV 5:33. I do not mean to suggest that Kant views motivational skep-
ticism, or the empiricism of practical reason, as the only threat to autonomy.
On the contrary, he argues that traditional rationalist concepts of morality
and practical reason also endanger the autonomy of the person. Empiricism
is only one version of the problem. For a concise and illuminating discussion
of this issue, see Allen Wood's "The Supreme Principle of Morality," in The
Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modem Philosophy, edited by Paul
Guyer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 342-80.
32 GMS 4:444.
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366 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 367
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368 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 369
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370 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
Here we can see that the distinction between what is internal and ex-
ternal to the proper self is not made metaphysically. That is, it is not
the result of classifying inclinations and desires, on the one hand, and
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 371
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372 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
This long dense remark raises many questions that cannot be an-
swered here. For our purposes, what is most interesting is the way in
which it makes what I am calling the normative strategy seem so cen-
tral to so many fundamental issues in Kant's moral theory, particu-
larly to the question of autonomy. The Verstandeswelt ("intelligible
world") is "only a standpoint" and I, as a deliberating and judging
agent, adopt that standpoint when I take myself for this "better per-
son" that I find articulated in the idea of a will that is motivated by the
demands of the moral law rather than by incentives that stem from de-
sires and inclinations. In doing this, I identify myself with the de-
mands of morality; I take them to be expressions of my own volition.
More precisely, I take them to be expressions of the ideal to which I
aspire and about which I care deeply.49 That is why the imperative of
morality (das moralische Sollen) is not foreign to my will, something
imposed upon me from outside.
According to this view, the distinction between what is internal
and what is external to the self is not metaphysical. It is normative in
that it reflects a set of commitments concerning the respective values
of the various sources of practical reasons. Reasons that stem from
the pure will (or pure practical reason) are considered more valuable
or important than those that stem from the incentives provided by de-
sire and inclination. They express our better selves. Kant's term for
this ideal self is "moral personality."50 To be a person in a moral sense
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 373
51 GMS 4:438.
52KpV5:75 and GMS 4:434-5.
53 GMS 4:428.
54 MdS 6:223.
55 ÄW 5: 162.
56 Ibid. 5:87.
57 MdS 6:223 and KpV 5:87.
58 MdS 6:392 and GMS 4:437. For further discussion of the concept
"humanity," see Thomas E. Hill, Jr., "Humanity as an End in Itself," in his Dig
nity and Practical Reason in Kant's Moral Theory (Ithaca: Cornell Univer
sity Press, 1992), 38-57. Also see chapter four of Allen Wood, KanVs Ethi
Thought.
59 Religion 6:27-8.
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374 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 375
62MdS6:212n.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid. 6:211.
65ÄpV5:78.
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376 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
mMdS 6:218.
67 KpV 5:76.
68 Kant, it must be admitted, would not be comfortable with the appear-
ance of the word "affective" in this context. He defines "affects" (Affekte) as
feelings that precede rather than follow deliberation (Überlegung). Far from
motivating moral action, affects impede it. See MdS 6:408-409 and Anthro-
pology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans, and ed. by Robert B. Lowden
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), §75.
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 377
69ÄbV5:161.
70 GMS 4:440.
71 Ibid. 4:440.
72 KpV 5:87.
73 Ibid. 5:87.
74 Ibid. 5:74.
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378 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
75i£rVA533/B61.
76 KpV 5:72.
77 GMS 4:428.
78 KpV 5: 1 18. This well known remark makes it tempting to read Kant as
a modern Stoic. Compare Seneca, when he writes of "affection" that "the en-
emy, I say, must be stopped at the very frontier; when he has invaded and
rushed on the city gates, there is no limit' which his captives can make him
accept." See "On Anger," p. 26 in Seneca: Moral and Political Essays, trans-
lated and edited John M. Cooper and J.F. Procopé (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1995). But as we shall presently see, this comparison is,
while apt in important respects, misleading in others.
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 379
79 For a careful and thorough treatment of this issue, see Marcia Baron,
Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1995), 194-226. She draws extensively on the Religion book and the Anthro-
pology, in addition to his mainstream works in moral theory, in order to
present a picture of Kantian moral psychology nuanced enough to do justice
to the role of feeling in our practical lives. For a discussion of how moral
feelings relate to aesthetic feelings, see Rudolf Makkreel, "Sublimity, Genius,
and the Explication of Aesthetic Ideas," in Kants Ästhetik/KanVs Aesthetics/
U esthétique de Kant, edited by Herman Parret (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1998), 615-29. In Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, Makkreel argues
convincingly that feeling, for example, the notion of Lebensgefühl, is much
more central to the entire critical project than is normally thought. An impor-
tant lesson of Makkreers work is that Kant's attitude both toward respect
and toward the inclinations should not be surprising at all. Once we put his
remarks about inclinations in their proper context, which includes the Cri-
tique of Judgment and the essays on history and orientation, we can appreci-
ate the fact that Kant rarely disparages feeling as such. On the contrary, it is
essential to his project as a whole. It is true that he refuses to base morality
on feeling, but that does not mean that he ever intends to eliminate it. The
centrality of respect makes that quite clear, as does his discussion of the
"original predisposition to good" in the Religion 6:26-8. For an interesting
discussion of Kant's attitude toward sentiment and the "Age of Sensibility,"
see Ernst Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought, trans. James Haden (New Ha-
ven: Yale University Press, 1981), 268-70.
80 Religion 6:58.
81 Ibid. 6:26-7.
82 This marks an important difference between the Kantian and the Stoic
views. Compare, again, to Seneca: "The affections are no less evil as subordi-
nates than they are as commanders." See "On Anger," 27. This is not, of
course, to deny affinities between Kant and the Stoics.
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380 ERIC ENTRICAN WILSON
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KANTIAN AUTONOMY AND THE MORAL SELF 381
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