Rethinking our Maxims: Perceptual Salience and Practical Judgment in Kantian Ethics

Some contemporary Kantians have argued that one could not be virtuous without having internalized certain patterns of awareness that permit one to identify and respond reliably to moral reasons for action. I agree, but I argue that this insight requires unrecognized, farreaching, and thoroughly welcome changes in the traditional Kantian understanding of maxims and virtues. In particular, it implies that one's characteristic emotions and desires will partly determine one's maxims, and hence the praiseworthiness of one's actions. I try to show this by pointing out an instability in the Kantian understanding of maxims. On the one hand, maxims are thought of as consciously affirmed, subjective principles of action. On the other hand, Kantians claim that nothing counts as an action, nor as morally assessable, unless it has a maxim. One cannot take both thoughts seriously without implausibly constricting the range of behavior that counts as action, hence as morally assessable. This difficulty can be overcome, I suggest, by jettisoning the idea that maxims must be consciously affirmed, and by stressing the way in which maxims are grounded in the pruning and shaping of one's emotions and desires during socialization. This opens the door to a rich Kantian theory of virtue. It also raises questions about the scope and ground of our moral responsibility, which I address at the end of the paper.     

Preschoolers can recognize violations of the Gricean maxims

Grice (Syntax and semantics: Speech acts, 1975, pp. 41-58, Vol. 3) proposed that conversation is guided by a spirit of cooperation that involves adherence to several conversational maxims. Three types of maxims were explored in the current study: 1) Quality, to be truthful; 2) Relation, to say only what is relevant to a conversation; and 3) Quantity, to provide as much information as required. Three- to five-year-olds were tested to determine the age at which an awareness of these Gricean maxims emerges. Children requested the help of one of two puppets in finding a hidden sticker. One puppet always adhered to the maxim being tested, while the other always violated it. Consistently choosing the puppet that adhered to the maxim was considered indicative of an understanding of that maxim. The results indicate that children were initially only successful in the Relation condition. While in general, children performed better at first in the Quantity condition compared with the Quality condition, 3-year-olds never performed above chance in the Quantity condition. The findings of the present study indicate that preschool children are sensitive to the violation of the Relation, Quality, and Quantity maxims at least under some conditions.     

Practical judgment as reflective judgment: On moral salience and Kantian particularist universalism

Moral particularists and generalists alike have struggled over how to incorporate the role of moral salience in ethical reasoning. In this paper, I point to neglected resources in Kant to account for the role of moral salience in maxim formation: Kant's theory of reflective judgment. Kant tasks reflective judgment with picking out salient empirical particulars for formation into maxims, associating it with purposiveness, or intentional activity (action on ends). The unexpected resources in Kantian reflective judgment suggest the possibility of a particularist universalism, where recalcitrant particulars directly inform, and in some cases revise, moral principles. Such an account improves on particularist accounts of moral salience and moral perception: rather than deriving moral sensitivity solely from an agent's upbringing or cultural resources, the reflective dimension is situated alongside the universalist dimension of moral principles typically identified with Kantian ethics, allowing for a critical approach both to moral universals and to the reception of moral particulars.     

The “Paradox of Self‐Constitution” and Korsgaard's Two Conceptions of Maxims for Action

This article argues that Christine Korsgaard gives two accounts of maxims, the identity‐priority account and the form‐priority account. There is a tension between the accounts because (1) Korsgaard's form‐priority maxims account cannot function apart from the identity of a well‐formed agent that precedes and tests maxims to determine if they should count as reasons or laws, and (2) Korsgaard's identity‐priority maxims account needs the form of the maxim to precede, bind, and constitute the well‐formed agent. This tension mirrors the two sides of what Korsgaard has called the “paradox of self‐constitution.” The article concludes that Korsgaard's paradox of self‐constitution leads to an arbitrariness that undermines the formation of moral laws.     

Ethics in Long-Term Care: Are the Principles Different?

It has become common in medical ethics to discuss difficult cases in terms of the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. These moral concepts or principles serve as maxims that are suggestive of appropriate clinical behavior. Because this language evolved primarily in the acute care setting, I consider whether it is in need of supplementation in order to be useful in the long-term care setting. Through analysis of two typical cases involving residents of long-term care facilities, I argue for the additional principles of candor and responsibility for narrative integrity.     

Kant's account of moral weakness

On the one hand, Kant seems to suggest that moral weakness is merely expressed at the level of following maxims. On the other hand, he addresses moral weakness as the first grade of our propensity to evil, which implies that moral weakness is also expressed at the level of adopting maxims. There is still a lack of clarity in the literature concerning how the relationship between these two aspects is to be understood, and a proper account of the nature of the maxims of the morally weak has yet to be offered. Drawing on my earlier interpretation of moral strength, I shall propose a reading of Kant's account of moral weakness that consistently unifies both aspects. On my interpretation, the morally weak agent lacks the moral strength that he ought to acquire through the continuous exercise of his power of self‐control; he therefore fails both to set himself particular moral ends in adopting his maxims and to follow his maxims by realizing such ends. His intention to do what the moral law demands is overly general: It does not set a particular moral end, which is what virtue requires.     

Kant on Construction,Apriority, and the Moral Relevance of Universalization

This paper introduces a referential reading of Kant’s practical project, according to which maxims are made morally permissible by their correspondence to objects, though not the ontic objects of Kant’s theoretical project but deontic objects (what ought to be). It illustrates this model by showing how the content of the Formula of Universal Law might be determined by what our capacity of practical reason can stand in a referential relation to, rather than by facts about what kind of beings we are (viz., uncaused causes). This solves the neglected puzzle of why there are passages in Kant’s works suggesting robust analogies between mathematics and ethics, since to universalize a maxim is to test a priori whether a practical object with that particular content can be constructed. An apparent problem with this hypothesis is that the medium of practical sensibility (feeling) does not play a role analogous to the medium of theoretical sensibility (intuition). In response I distinguish two separate Kantian accounts of mathematical apriority. The thesis that maxim universalization is a species of construction, and thus a priori, turns out to be consistent with the account of apriority that informs Kant’s understanding of actual mathematical practice.     

CONCEIVABILITY AND MODAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: This article is a discussion of Hume's maxim Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. First I explain this maxim and distinguish it from the principle Whatever cannot be imagined (conceived), is impossible. Next I argue that Thomas Reid's criticism of the maxim fails and that the arguments by Tamar Szábo Gendler and John Hawthorne for the claim that “it is uncontroversial that there are cases where we are misled” by the maxim are unconvincing. Finally I state the limited but real value of the maxim: it does help us, in certain cases, reliably to make up our minds. Along the way I show that Reid, his criticism of the maxim notwithstanding, actually employs it, and I furthermore argue that the principle What is inconceivable, is impossible is spurious.     

Impermissibility and Kantian Moral Worth

Samuel Kerstein argues that an asymmetry between moral worth and maxims prevents Kant from accepting a category of acts that are impermissible, but have moral worth. Kerstein contends that an act performed from the motive of duty should be considered as a candidate for moral worth, even if the action’s maxim turns out to be impermissible, since moral worth depends on the correct moral motivation of an act, rather than on the moral rightness of an act. I argue that Kant cannot consistently maintain that there are morally forbidden, though good, acts since one of the conditions of acting from the moral law should be that one has a true belief about what the moral law requires. My project, then, rejects the possibility of morally impermissible, worthy acts for Kant, and qualifies the conditions for moral worth Kerstein gives with an epistemological constraint on moral worth.     

The alluringness of desire

In her book, Unprincipled Virtue, Nomy Arpaly is suspicious of reflective endorsement or deliberative rationality views of agency, those which tie the possibility of responsibility and moral blame to the conscious exercise of deliberation and reflection, and which require as a condition of blame- or praise- worthiness an agent's explicit commitment to ethical principles. I am in sympathy with her attack on standard autonomy theories, but argue that she confuses the phenomenon of unknowing and unreflective responsiveness to the right-making features of an action with incomplete and merely provisional commitment to principles and maxims of action, and argue that she is often arguing against straw men. I also argue that she has misinterpreted the fascinating literary examples she adduces to make her case.     

Take If from Me: The Epistemological Status of Testimony

Testimony consists in imparting information without supplying evidence or argument to back one's claims. To what extent does testimony convey epistemic warrant? C. J. A. Coady argues, on Davidsonian grounds, that (1) most testimony is true, hence (2) most testimony supplies warrant sufficient for knowledge. I appeal to Grice's maxims to undermine Coady's argument and to show that the matter is more complicated and context‐sensitive than is standardly rocognized. Informative exchanges take place within networks of shared, tacit assumptions that affect the scope and strength of our claims, and the level of warrant required for their responsible assertion. The maxims explain why different levels of warrant are transferred in different contexts.     

From states of affairs to a necessary being

I develop new paths to the existence of a concrete necessary being. These paths assume a metaphysical framework in which there are abstract states of affairs that can obtain or fail to obtain. One path begins with the following causal principle: necessarily, any contingent concrete object possibly has a cause. I mark out steps from that principle to a more complex causal principle and from there to the existence of a concrete necessary being. I offer a couple alternative causal principles and paths, too. The paths marked out rely on relatively modest causal principles and avoid many obstacles that traditional cosmological arguments face.     

Methodological conservatism and social epistemology

This paper defends two principles of methodological conservatism on the grounds that they help to promote an effective social structure for a knowledge‐seeking community. Conservatism has some prima facie justification because it provides for an effective division of cognitive labor, it promotes the effective use of scientific resources, and it provides for a certain amount of stability. However, the principles I defend in this paper should not be treated as absolute or unconditional criteria of theory‐choice, since they can be overridden by other rules or maxims. Since the decision to override a principle of conservatism depends on various contextual factors, the appropriateness of conservatism can vary from context to context.     

KANTIAN REASONS FOR REASONS

Rüdiger Bittner has recently argued against a Kantian ‘maxims account’ of reasons for action. In this paper I argue – against Bittner – that Kantian maxims are not to be understood as reasons for action, but rather as reasons for reasons. On the interpretation presented here, Kantian maxims are the reasons for an agent's being motivated by whatever more immediate reasons actually motivate her. This understanding of Kantian maxims suggests a recognizably realist Kantian position in ethics.     

INDIVIDUALITY IN THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THEORIES OF EMBODIED COGNITION

Contemporary theological anthropology is now almost united in its opposition toward concepts of the abstract individual. Instead there is a strong preference for concrete concepts, which locate individual human being in historically and socioculturally contingent contexts. In this paper I identify, and discuss in detail, three key themes that structure recent theological opposition to abstract concepts of the individual: (1) the idea that individual human beings are constituted in part by their relations with their environments, with other human beings, and with God; (2) the idea that individual human beings are unique entities; (3) the idea that individual human beings cannot be conceptualized in atemporal terms. Subsequently, I seek to demonstrate that theories of embodied cognition offer broad, if not unconditional, support for the concept of the concrete individual. As such, I suggest, theories of embodied cognition provide a valuable resource for dialogue between contemporary science and theological anthropology.     

解释水平理论完善过程中的四个问题

经过多年发展,解释水平理论的理论基础、理论机制、理论应用都得到了系统的总结。但是,在解释水平理论的完善过程中,还存在一些问题。第一,解释水平的变化是否完全基于心理距离的变化;第二,解释水平与心理距离的因果关系问题;第三,解释水平的变量属性界定问题;第四,解释水平间接操纵与直接操纵的效果比较。这些问题都涉及到了解释水平理论中的概念和作用机制,需研究者们进一步探讨。     

The Situational Context <Emphasis Type="Italic">on the Nature of Political Philosophy</Emphasis>

Rationalism in political philosophy is the view that politics should be governed by moral principles and that those principles can and should be justified independently of the situations and circumstances that make up political reality. This traditional view of political philosophy implies that the meaning of right political action is determined by moral principles the rational authority of which derives from abstract philosophical reasoning, not from the situations and circumstances that are the substance of political reality. In this essay I argue that rationalist moralities must presuppose the understanding of particular situations and circumstances for their meaningful and correct interpretation. This means, I argue, that the rightness of political judgement and action is immanent in particular situations, not in abstract moralities. And this, I argue, suggests a shift from the traditional view of political society as the embodiment of abstract principles, towards a view of political society as the embodiment of the activity of situational judgement. A society worth hoping for, then, is one in which we can live in the light of our understanding of the situations and circumstances that are the substance of everyday life, rather than in the shadow of abstract moralities. Such a society would be sensitive to the particularities and complexities of political reality, but at the same time it does not succumb to moral relativism and skepticism.     

Science and Human Behavior: a tutorial in behavior analysis

B. F. Skinner's Science and Human Behavior (1953) became the main source of my understanding of behavior during my first semester as a college professor in 1955 at Kansas University. It has continued to exert a major influence throughout my career as the basis for a completely deterministic science of behavior, as a handbook to be consulted as a first step in dealing with any issue in behavior analysis, and as a tutorial in behavioral interpretive analysis--in the use of a small number of behavioral concepts and principles to understand behavior of all degrees of complexity. I describe four general interpretive orientations or maxims that are of broad significance for behavior analysis, and also two underappreciated major theoretical contributions.     

The education of the categorical imperative

In this article, I examine anew the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and its contributions to educational theory. I make four claims. First, that Kant should be read as having the Categorical Imperative develop out of subjective maxims. Second, that moral self-perfection is the aim of moral education. Third, that moral self-perfection develops by children habituating the results of their moral maxims in scenarios and cases. Fourth, that character and culture, Kant’s highest aims for humanity, are the ultimate beneficiaries of this process.