Kant's Will at the Crossroads: An Essay on the Failings of Practical Rationality

187 Pages·2022·1.617 MB·English

by  Jens Timmermann

OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
’
Kant s Will at the Crossroads
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
’
Kant s Will at the
Crossroads
An Essay on the Failings of Practical
Rationality
JENS TIMMERMANN
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
Inmemoryof
SarahJeanBroadie(1941–2021)
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,22/6/2022,SPi
Table of Contents
Preface ix
ANoteonTextsandTranslations xiii
AbbreviationsUsedforKant’sWorks,HandwrittenNotes,andLectures xv
1. Introduction 1
}1. Twomodelsofpracticalfailure 1
}2. Kant’sgallowscases 3
}3. Sourcesofpracticalinterest 5
}4. Ahybridtheory? 6
2. Happiness 10
}5. Thenatureofhumanhappiness 10
}6. Statevsconception:Happinessasanideal 15
}7. Theproblemofuncertainty 17
}8. The‘nominal’or‘titular’desiretobehappy 21
}9. Thestochasticnatureofprudence:Settingfelicificends 23
}10. Kant’srejectionofqualitativedistinctions:Thegoldanalogy 25
3. The Law and the Good 30
}11. Pistorius’challenge 30
}12. The‘paradoxofmethod’ 32
}13. Themeaningof‘good’and‘evil’ 33
}14. Theobjectofthewill 35
}15. Kant’sreductio:Settingthestage 36
}16. Kant’sreductio:Theargumentagainsthedonism 40
}17. Kant’sreductio:Theargumentagainstinstrumentalism 41
4. Instrumental Imperatives 46
}18. Instrumentalreasonastheservantofinclination 46
}19. Thepluralityofhypotheticalimperatives 51
}20. Is‘true’means–endsirrationalitypossible? 56
}21. Practicalanalyticity:Covertcontainmentandexplication 59
}22. Practicalanalyticity:Identityandnon-contradiction 64
}23. Thelimitationsofinstrumentalreason 66
}24. Scepticismaboutpracticalreason(s) 67
}25. Instrumentalreasonastheservantofmorality 71
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5. The Emergence of Practical Reason 75
}26. Theoriginalpracticalassignmentofreason 75
}27. Fromprudentialdeliberationtomoralchoice 80
}28. Two‘perfectlylegalconstitutionaltransitions’ 84
}29. Thenecessitiesofhappinessandduty 86
}30. Thewillonitswaytothecrossroads 88
6. Incentives, Maxims, and Freedom 91
}31. Intellectualistinterpretations 91
}32. The‘incorporationthesis’ 94
}33. Freedom,sensibility,andthecontributionofreason 99
}34. Non-prudentialintellectualismrejected 102
}35. Legislationandchoice:WilleandWillkür 106
7. Two Types of Practical Failure 109
}36. Prudentialfailure 109
}37. Moralfailure 116
}38. Doweeverchoosethelessergood? 121
}39. Theguiseofthegood 124
8. Conclusions and Implications 130
}40. Silencingasnon-enabling:Kant’s‘dualisticmonism’of
practicalreason 130
}41. Tradinghappinessforhope 134
}42. Moralprogressandhumanfrailty 137
}43. Thelanguageof‘reasons’ 143
}44. Anewconstitutivism? 146
Kant’s Practical Dualisms: A Fifteen-point Summary 153
Bibliography 161
Index 167
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Preface
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had
beenchurches,andpoormen’scottagesprinces’palaces.Itisagood
divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty
whatweregoodtobedone,thanbeoneofthetwentytofollowmine
own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot
temperleapso’eracolddecree....
PortiainTheMerchantofVeniceAct1Sc.2
Whathappenswhenhumanbeingsfailtodoasreasonbids?Thisbookisan
attempt to address this age-old question within Kant’s mature practical phil-
osophy,i.e.thepracticalphilosophythatemergedwiththewatersheddiscov-
ery of autonomy in the mid-1780s. As always, Kant is good for a surprise.
There is, I shall argue, not one answer but two: He advocates Socratic
intellectualismintherealmofprudencewhiledefendingananti-intellectualist
or volitional account of immoral action. This ‘hybrid’ theory of practical
failure is more than a philosophical curiosity. There are ramifications for
Kant’stheoryofpracticalreasonasawhole.Inparticular,thehybridaccount
emphasizesthedividebetweenpureandempiricalpracticalrationalitytothe
extent that the latter, while containing practically relevant propositions, no
longercountsasabranchofpracticalreasonatall.Hypotheticalandcategor-
ical imperatives exemplify two entirely distinct kinds of normativity. In fact,
the dichotomy between pure and empirical determining grounds of the will
goes hand in hand with many other dualisms and dichotomies that, whether
welikethemornot,continuetodefineKant’smatureethicalthought.
TheprojectprovidedawelcomeopportunitytoreturntoissuesIhavebeen
thinking about since my student days at Göttingen and Oxford. In an early
publication, I argue that Aristotle’s two types of akrasia, impetuosity and
weakness, can be explained in terms of how desire affects the ‘final premise’
of the practical syllogism of reason (Timmermann, 2000). Since then, the
differencebetweentheSocraticdenialofakrasiaandAristotelianself-control
has been a recurring theme in my lectures at St Andrews. The idea that
Kant might espouse a hybrid theory that explains imprudent and immoral
action differently first occurred to me over a decade ago, when Carolyn