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Kant Yearbook 4/2012 Kant and Contemporary Moral Philosophy Kant Yearbook 4/2012 Kant and Contemporary Moral Philosophy Edited by Dietmar H.Heidemann (University of Luxembourg) Editorial Assistant: Katja Stoppenbrink (University of Luxembourg) Editorial Board: Henry E. Allison (University of California at Davis), Karl Ameriks (Notre Dame), Gordon Brittan (Montana State University), Klaus Düsing (Universität zu Köln), Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Boston Univer- sity), Kristina Engelhard (Universität zu Köln), Brigitte Falkenburg (Universität Dortmund), Hannah Ginsborg (University of California at Berkeley), Michelle Grier (University of San Diego), Thomas Grundmann (Universität zu Köln), Paul Guyer (University of Penn- sylvania), Robert Hanna (University of Colorado at Boulder), Lothar Kreimendahl (Universität Mannheim), Georg Mohr (Universität Bre- men), Angelica Nuzzo (Brooklyn College/CUNY), Robert Stern (Sheffield University), Dieter Sturma (Universität Bonn), Robert Theis (University of Luxembourg), Ken Westphal (University of East Anglia), Marcus Willaschek (Universität Frankfurt) De Gruyter TheKantYearbookisaninternationaljournalthatpublishesarticlesonthephilosophyofImma- nuelKant.Eachissueisdedicatedtoaspecifictopic.Eachannualtopicwillbeannouncedby way of a call for papers. The Editorial Board of the Kant Yearbook is composed of renowned international experts, and selects papers for publication through a double blind peer review process. Onlineaccessforsubscribers:http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/kantyb ISSN 1868-4599 (Print) ISSN 1868-4602 (Online) BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ”2012WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/Boston Coverimage:MartinZech,Bremen Printingandbinding:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KGGöttingen (cid:2)Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com Contents Jochen Bojanowski Is Kant a Moral Realist? .............................. 1 Eleni Filippaki Kant on Love, Respect and Friendship .................. 23 Scott Forschler From Supervenience to “Universal Law”: How Kantian Ethics Become Heteronomous .............................. 49 Ernesto V. Garcia A New Look at Kantian Respect for Persons .............. 69 Chun-Yip Lowe Kant’s Social Contract: A New Transcendental Principle in Political Philosophy .................................. 91 Adrian M. S. Piper Kant’s Two Solutions to the Free Rider Problem .......... 113 Toby Svoboda Duties Regarding Nature: A Kantian Approach to Environmental Ethics ................................ 143 List of Contributors ................................. 165 Is Kant a Moral Realist? Jochen Bojanowski Abstract In “The Sources of Normativity” Christine Korsgaard attempts to defend Kant’smoralontologyasakindofmoralrealism.Shedoessobywayofdraw- ing a distinction between substantial and procedural moral realism. After dis- missingsubstantialrealismasdogmaticanddefendingproceduralmoralrealism, she goes on to claim that Kant’s view is best described as procedural moral realism. It has been argued against Korsgaard that procedural moral realism is a misnomer and that it turns out to be an anti-realist position. I don’t think that this criticism is correct and I will defend Korsgaard against the subjectivist objectionsthathavebeenleveledagainsther.However,mymainconcernisto show why even Korsgaard’s procedural moral realism is still not completely in linewithKant’sownepistemologicalandontologicalcommitments.Incontrast to Korsgaard, I argue that Kant’s conception of reason as a capacity that is “by itselfpractical”commitshimtoapositionwhichisbestdescribedbywhatIwill call“moralidealism.”Practicalreasonisnotmerelyafacultyforcognizingsome testing procedure that would reliably distinguish between good and bad maxims. In Kant, practical cognition consists in cognition of what I ought to do such that I do it, i.e. bring the object of my cognition into existence through a kind of self-affection. Introduction Incontemporarymoralontologyithasbecomecustomarytodistinguish betweentwocamps:moralrealismandanti-realism.Moralrealismisthe viewthattherearemoralfactsandthatourmoraljudgmentsaboutthese facts can be true or false. Usually a moral realist is also a cognitivist; she holds that our moral judgments express cognitions. Anti-realism, on the other hand, denies that our moral judgments relate to moral facts. In its non-cognitivistform,anti-realism istheclaimthatourmoraljudgments are neither true nor false, and that moral judgments only express an emotional attitude. This anti-realist position is also often called subjec- tivism. Anti-realism does not necessarily deny that moral judgments are directedattruth.Itmayalsoholdthatourmoraljudgmentsaimattruth 2 Jochen Bojanowski but always fail to grasp it, and are thus always false (error theory). On thisview,thereisnothingthatcouldcorrespondtothemoralpredicates weascribetoobjectsoractions.Moralstandardsaremerefictionswhich we project onto the world. Kant’sinterpretershavetakengreatpainstosituatehistheorywithin this debate. Some of them think that moral obligation in Kant is stand- point-dependent1or a mere “postulate.”2 This anti-realist interpretation faces at least two obvious obstacles: Firstly, Kant denies that, as many anti-realists maintain, the fundamental principle of morality could be an emotion. Secondly, since ourmoral judgments are based onpractical reason, and reason is conceived as a capacity for knowledge, Kant must think that knowledge of the good is possible. Thus, Kant can neither be called a subjectivist nor an error-theorist. If Kant isn’t an anti-realist regarding moral values it seems compelling to ascribe to him some sort of moral realism.3 However, if we construe moral realism as I have out- lined it above, we are confronted with at least three problems: 1. Object of Cognition: Moral realism holds that the objects of our cognitions are moral facts. However, practical cognition in Kant pre- cisely does not consist in an intuition of (already existing) moral facts. Instead, practical reason first brings the object of its cognition into existence (Critique of Practical Reason (= CPrR), AA 5:46). The conventional moral realist seems to think of practical cognition as a caseof theoreticalcognition,anddistinguishesthemmerelywithre- specttotheircontent:moraljudgmentsareconcernedwiththenor- mative and not with non-normative properties of objects. 2. Way of Knowing: Moral realism holds that our cognition is directed at moral facts and that we can “see” the moral quality of those facts immediately.Wehavean“immediate”or“intuitive”accesstothese facts. Practical knowledge for Kant, by contrast, is not some sort of intuition. Instead we are immediately conscious of the moral law when we make the attempt to come up with rules for our actions and thereby cognize the moral quality of those rules. It is therefore not entirely clear how this kind of cognition can have any relation to an object at all. 3. Mind-Independency: Generally moral realists claim that the reality of moral facts is mind-independent. It is, for example, an intrinsic 1 O’Neill (1989). 2 Rauscher (2002). 3 Ameriks (2000); Wood (1998; 1999). Is Kant aMoral Realist? 3 property of the murder that it is evil. Now the question can arise what the relation between the normative properties of those facts and the natural properties is and whether the former supervene on the latter. In Kant, however, it is the universalizablility of our maxims which determines the moral quality of our actions. Morality concerns the form of our maxims. For Kant, therefore, moral facts are not mind-independent. They are not only known through the mind but also constituted by it. In spite of these problems Christine Korsgaard in The Sources of Norma- tivity(SN)stillclaimsthatweneedtounderstandKant’smoraltheoryas aspecialkindofmoralrealism.Shedismissestheconventionalkindofre- alism which she dubs “substantial realism” and introduces instead, fol- lowing Rawls, a “procedural moral realism” which she also ascribes toKant.Thefactthatshecallsherown(andKant’s)position“construc- tivism” already makes it clear that she wants to reconsider the concep- tionofrealismasitisnormallyconceived.However,Korsgaardowesus an explanation of the sense in which one can still be a realist if, as she puts it in one place, “value is […] projected on to the world” and later on “goodness [is] not in the objects themselves” but has the source in our own humanity (SN 116, 122). Even an error-theorist like John Leslie Mackie claims that the objectivity of values is based solely on the projections of our desires onto the world.4 And if Kant believes thatrationalvolitionis“projectedontotheworld,”asKorsgaardmain- tains, the question remains how the claim to objectivity is compatible with categorical obligation, if categorical obligation presupposes that we are obligated independently of any presupposed desires. The question, therefore, is not only whether Kant is a realist and if so what kind of realism he thinks to be true, but also whether the realism one ascribestoKantiscompatiblewithhisclaimthatmoralobligationiscat- egorical. This paper comes in two parts. In the first part I want to briefly sketch what Korsgaard calls a procedural realist position. I agree with Korsgaard that substantial realism is incompatible with Kant’s meta-ethical commitments. However, Iwillnot discusswhether Korsgaard’scri- tiqueofsubstantial realismis adequate.5InsteadIwishtotakeissuewith the objection that Korsgaard’s procedural moral realism is a misnomer 4 Mackie (1990, 42). 5 See FitzPatrick (2005). 4 Jochen Bojanowski and that it turns out to be an anti-realist position. I don’t think that this criticism is correct and I will defend Korsgaard against the subjectivist objections that have been leveled against her. My focus, however, will be on showing why even Korsgaard’s procedural moral realism still is not completely in line with Kant’s own epistemological and on- tological commitments. I argue that the alternative between realism and anti-realismasitisnormallyconstruedisnotexhaustive;itdoesn’tleave room for what I take to be a truly Kantian position. Even more so than inhistheoreticalphilosophy,Kantisanidealist,sincepracticalcognition doesnotrefertogivenobjects,butbringstheobjectof itscognitioninto existence (CPrR, AA 5:46; Critique of Pure Reason (= CPR) B ix f.). By ‘idealism’ I don’t just mean “[t]he belief that all of the moral character- isticsof theworldaredependentuponthehumanmind.”6Theidealism IwanttoascribetoKantholdsnotthatthegooddependsonthehuman mind,butthatitsexistencedependsonself-affectioninhumancognizers. This doesn’t mean, of course, that moral facts are mere illusions, or as Kantwouldputit,“phantomsof themind”(Groundworkof theMetaphy- sic of Morals (= G), AA 4:445). That would only follow if one presupposed that practical cognition is conceived as a case of theoretical cognition. This misunderstanding (from the Kantian perspective) is the ori- gin of the false alternative between realism and anti-realism as it is generally construed. Or so, at least, I shall argue. 1. Korsgaard’s Procedural Realism 1.1. Normativity through Autonomy Korsgaard believes that substantial moral realist approaches make the mistake of avoiding skeptical questions. Only if one addresses the “normative question,” as she calls it, can skeptical doubts be resolved. Her theory can be understood as the attempt to answer the normative question in the light of Kant’s meta-ethical insights. The normative question is directed at the justification of our judge- ments.Korsgaardclaimsthatthenormativequestionisanessentiallyfirst personal question that arises in practical deliberation. We may ask our- selves: “‘Why must I do what is right’? – ‘Because it is commanded by God’ – ‘But why must I do what is commanded by God’? – and so on, 6 Rauscher (2002, 482).