Kant: The Audacity of Judgement

In the legal judgement reason demands that it extend itself beyond the mere subjective limits of the self in order that it might fashion a judgement that speaks for the other. This is the universal necessity of the judgement. No claim of truth or the moral law can guarantee that others will agree with this judgement: thus disputation is the risk which reason takes in order to judge at all. The author examines this audacity of judgement by reference to Kant's autonomy of reason, which risks itself in the thought that thinks. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Kant and The Marriage Right*

Abstract: The provision of a marriage right is a distinctive aspect of Kant's political philosophy and seems, initially, difficult to reconcile with the general concern with ensuring external freedom of action apparent in the universal principle of Right and the sole innate right said to follow from this principle. I claim that this provision can be regarded as consistent with this general focus and that Kant's treatment of issue suggests an interesting secular argument for the institution of marriage.     

The Murderer at the Door: What Kant Should Have Said

Embarrassed by the apparent rigorism Kant expresses so bluntly in 'On a Supposed Right to Lie,' numerous contemporary Kantians have attempted to show that Kant's ethics can justify lying in specific circumstances, in particular, when lying to a murderer is necessary in order to prevent her from killing another innocent person. My aim is to improve upon these efforts and show that lying to prevent the death of another innocent person could be required in Kantian terms. I argue (1) that our perfect Kantian duty of self-preservation can require our lying to save our own lives when threatened with unjust aggression, and (2) that Kant's understanding of moral duty was that duties are symmetrical , such that if one has a duty to perform a given action on one's own behalf or to protect one's own rational nature, then one also has a duty to perform similar acts on other's behalf or to protect their rational nature. Thus, that the individual protected against aggression by means of deception is not oneself should be of no consequence from a Kantian perspective. Lying to the murderer is thus an extension of the Kantian requirement of self-defense.     

Normative Force and Normative Freedom: Hume and Kant, But Not Hume versus Kant

Our notion of normativity appears to combine, in a way difficult to understand but seemingly familiar from experience, elements of force and freedom. On the one hand, a normative claim is thought to have a kind of compelling authority; on the other hand, if our respecting it is to be an appropriate species of respect, it must not be coerced, automatic, or trivially guaranteed by definition. Both Hume and Kant, I argue, looked to aesthetic experience as a convincing example exhibiting this marriage of force and freedom, as well as showing how our judgment can come to be properly attuned to the features that constitute value. This image of attunement carries over into their respective accounts of moral judgment. The seemingly radical difference between their moral theories may be traceable not to a different conception of normativity, but to a difference in their empirical psychological theories – a difference we can readily spot in their accounts of aesthetics.     

康德与弗雷格的分析性观念

历史上,康德第一次较为清晰地指出所有语句要么是分析语句要么是综合语句,同时给出了划分分析性语句与综合语句的依据,并明确认为分析性语句是不扩展知识的。康德给出的区分分析与综合语句的依据会带来明显的问题。弗雷格继承并发展了康德对于分析性观念的基本想法,在《算术基础》一书中给出了自己的对分析性命题的刻画,尝试论证算术真理是发展了的逻辑真理、是分析性命题相。相较于康德对分析性命题的刻画,弗雷格的刻画有明显的优点,克服了康德的定义带来的几个明显问题。同时,弗雷格也明确反对康德的分析命题并不扩展知识的这一想法,尝试着指出在一种意义上分析命题是扩展知识的。     

The Market for Bodily Parts: Kant and duties to oneself

ABSTRACT The demand for bodily parts such as organs is increasing, and individuals in certain circumstances are responding by offering parts of their bodies for sale. Is there anything wrong in this? Kant had arguments to suggest that there is, namely that we have duties towards our own bodies, among which is the duty not to sell parts of them. Kant's reasons for holding this view are examined, and found to depend on a notion of what is intrinsically degrading. Rom Harré's recent revision of Kant's argument, in terms of an obligation to preserve the body's organic integrity, is considered. Harré's view does not rule out all acts of selling, but he too ultimately depends on a test of what is intrinsically degrading. Both his view and Kant's are rejected in favour of a view which argues that it does make sense to speak of duties towards our own bodies, grounded in the duty to promote the flourishing of human beings, including ourselves. This provides a reason for opposing the sale of bodily parts, and the current trend towards the market ethic in health care provision.     

The Priority Principle from Kant to Frege

In a famous passage (A68/B93), Kant writes that “the understanding can make no other use of […] concepts than that of judging by means of them.” Kant's thought is often called the thesis of the priority of judgments over concepts. We find a similar sounding priority thesis in Frege: “it is one of the most important differences between my mode of interpretation and the Boolean mode […] that I do not proceed from concepts, but from judgments.” Many interpreters have thought that Frege's priority principle is close to (or at least derivable from) Kant's. I argue that it is not. Nevertheless, there was a gradual historical development that began with Kant's priority thesis and culminated in Frege's new logic.     

The Art of Becoming Human: Morality in Kant and Confucius

Kant and Confucius maintain that the art of becoming human is synonymous with the unending process of becoming moral. According to Kant, I must imagine a world in which the universality of my maxims were possible, while realizing that if such a world existed, then morality would disappear. Morality is an impossible possibility because it always meets resistance in our encounter with nature. According to Confucius, human beings become moral by integrating themselves into the already meaningful natural order that is tian 天. Like Kant, he upholds the dignity of human beings. For Kant this dignity rests on the autonomy of each human being’s reason, while for Confucius it is dependent upon our interconnection with each other, demanding ongoing self-extension. Despite these differences, the two thinkers would concur that our efforts at humanization are unceasing and that we may never fully live up to our human potential.     

Post-Established Harmony: Kant and Analogy Reconsidered

This essay is a response to John Milbank’s comparison of Kant and Aquinas’ theories of analogy in ‘A Critique of the Theology of Right’. A critique of Milbank’s essay forms the point of departure for my reconstruction of Kant’s actual theory of analogy. I show that the usual focus on the Prolegomena for this end is insufficient; in fact, the full extent of Kant’s theory of analogy only becomes clear in the Critique of Judgment. I also consider the significance of the Analogies of Experience in the Critique of Pure Reason. In conclusion, I draw on the work of Michel Guérin to designate Kantian analogy, ‘post-established harmony’.     

德性与幸福：康德对亚里士多德

本文译自《难以描述的日常性:哲学的可能性之研究》(The elusiveness of the ordinary:Studies in the possibility of philosophy,Yale University Press,2002)第三章:"康德和海德格尔:对亚里士多德的先验替换".作者认为,亚里士多德及其后继者非常关心幸福或至福,把它当作人类努力的最高实现,康德在这点上与亚里士多德具有内在的一致性,尽管他以配享幸福来代替幸福.但是,虽然他承认幸福是人类努力的一个基本目标,他对幸福论的攻击则为19世纪突显的诸如以满足(黑格尔)与工作(尼采)来替代古典的幸福观作了准备.我们可以满足于我们已尽了最大努力以配享幸福,即便我们不能肯定因而也不是真正幸福的.满足无疑低于幸福,而工作则意味着在无尽劳作这有限意义上的满足.在20世纪,幸福被代之以焦虑(克尔凯郭尔已经讨论过并把它从属于宗教的拯救或永福)与本真性(海德格尔).作者认为,幸福观的这种没落史与实践哲学的持续败坏,和它在现代数学与经验科学图景下的转型有关,而加速其没落的,则是本体论与认识论的兴盛,更不用说行为理论与更时髦的人工智能哲学了.在这一章中,作者让亚里士多德分别与康德和海德格尔这两位现代大哲对质,意在让我们看到完全免于先验论或本体论意图的对日常生活的理解如何不同于先验论或本体论意图的理解.亚里士多德与康德的对质点在于从日常或前理论生活中形成出德性的方式不同,而另一对质的要点则在于把日常生活变形为本体论,伦理与政治于是从对"日常性"的考虑中被清除掉了.译者认为,作者所努力的方向,即把现代大师放在更广大的背景特别是古典的视野中进行考察,对于我们如何以适当方式继承自康德以来的现代哲学传统,意义重大.本文所翻译的是这一章的前半部分,题目是译者所拟.