Towards a Kantian Moral Psychology or the Practical Effects of Self-Predicating Judgements of Sublimity

Abstract

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of sublimity help a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them.     

Dworkin on external skepticism and moral permissions

This article discusses Ronald Dworkin’s first objection against what he calls external moral skepticism, the view that denies truth-value to moral judgments. According to that objection, an external skeptic denies that substantive moral judgments can be true. But, at the same time, the objection goes, what follows from the skeptical view is that all actions are morally permissible, which is in itself a substantive moral judgment. We call this ‘the self-defeating argument.’ We argue that the objection’s success depends on how we interpret the idea of moral permission, an issue Dworkin does not clearly resolve. Against his objection, we advance two different arguments. First, once we learn what role the idea of moral permission plays in morality, we can see that any plausible view of some agent’s moral permission must acknowledge its complex character, and that the existence of a moral permission must have some impact on the balance of moral reasons for other agents. On this understanding, it is false that it follows solely from external skepticism that everything is permissible. Second, we argue that even if permissions have a simple character, not a complex one, they are plausible only when framed within a moral constellation of rights and obligations. So understood, it is, again, false that it follows from external skepticism that everything is permissible.     

Between morality and rationality: framing end-of-life care policy through narratives

This paper analyzes the nature of the debate generated prior to the implementation of the Act Respecting End-of-Life Care in 2015 in Québec (Canada). Including medical assistance in dying (MAID) along existing palliative care services, the act is an important policy change on a very sensitive issue. As such, MAID could be categorized as a morality policy issue, the latter being defined as a particular category of policy because of its specific features (issues of first principle, technical simplicity, high salience, public interest, and public participation). In line with Mucciaroni’s proposition, we rather analyze this issue by understanding morality policy as one of two framing strategies (moral and/or rational-instrumental frame). Our research reconstructs four public opinion framings as advanced and transmitted through the media between 2005 and 2015. It shows that although opponents to the bill unsurprisingly framed the debate in deontological terms, mostly referring to sanctity of life as one of the most important values in society, they also framed it on rational-instrumental grounds in a similar proportion, alleging the danger of a slippery slope and potential abuse. As well, if some of the proponents favored a moral framing centered on the argument that dignity and individual autonomy take precedence over all other values, others put forward a rational-instrumental one, where the slippery slope/abuse argument is used as a cautionary statement against the artificial prolongation of life. Our analysis reinforces Mucciaroni’s and Ferraiolo’s assertions that sensitive issues classified as morality policy cannot be apprehended solely through the unidimensional frame of morality.     

The Morality of Sex: Contra Kant

Abstract

While much that is admirable in romanticism stems from Kant's philosophy, a better account of how sexuality can be an ethical possibility exceeds the cramped parameters that he imposes. His conception of marriage and its dependence upon a contractual exchange of rights may well be irremediable because of its formal emptinesses. His idea of human love as good will and an interest in the welfare of the beloved is defensible as far as it goes. But it does not go far enough to explain the morality of love, either in sexuality or in marriage.     

Four worlds of morality politics: the impact of institutional venues and party cleavages

The most prominent theory accounting for variation of morality politics across Western Europe is the so-called Two Worlds framework. According to this approach, the presence or absence of a secular?religious cleavage in national party systems strongly affects the degree of conflict intensity and the framing of morality policy issues. This article shows that the explanatory power of the Two Worlds model could be enhanced significantly by introducing a second analytical dimension that captures the institutional venue (party politics vs. parliamentary politics), in which moral conflicts take place. This is useful because there are instances in which a religious cleavage is lacking, but moral conflicts are nonetheless highly intense and party-based (the traditionalist world), and there are cases in which the religious cleavage formally exists, but moral conflicts are nonetheless resolved in the parliamentary arena (the unsecular world).     

The Moral Efficacy of Aesthetic Experience: Figures of Meaning in the Moral Field

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyse the process that makes paths of action meaningful. It argues that this process is one of "figuration". The term "figuration" intends to outline how the experience of moral meaning is one that already positively marks out a field and to identify and analyse the mechanisms used for such marking and selection. It is my contention that these mechanisms predate the persuasion to a moral path; they are the process through which this path is constructed as meaningful. This thesis is elucidated through an analysis of the tactics of meaning in Kant's moral theory. Kant turns to aesthetics as a means of corroboration for his moral theory, but he also attempts to limit the scope of the interactions between his aesthetic and moral theory. For instance, when he writes on the topic of form in aesthetic taste or outlines the technical specifications of aesthetic judgment, it is arguably the arcane peculiarities of his system that are met. For this reason, Kant insists on the merely analogical relations between beauty and morality. However, it is also possible to see how certain aspects of Kant's aesthetic theory execute wider, and potentially more important, functions for his practical philosophy, such as providing meaningful orientation for the ascetic moral attitude of his duty-ethics. In this respect, certain figures of Kant's aesthetic theory may well be viewed as complementing the dependence in his moral philosophy, in the important sections on moral pedagogy and methodology, on appeals to heroic models and stories as ways of shaping and inculcating the moral disposition. This paper considers these aspects of interaction between Kant's aesthetic and moral philosophies as both (1) a problem for the consistency of his philosophy given his avowed exclusion of aesthetic and religious elements of meaning in his duty-ethics; and (2) as a case study for the new, schematic analysis of "moral figuration" outlined in the paper.     

论和谐体验及其德育措施

体验人人皆有,但并非所有的体验都能促进学生的道德成长,而和谐体验能让个体获得完整和谐的领悟和感受,体验到事物诸种关系的整合,领悟到生命作为社会整体中的要素存在的意义,对于德育而言,意义重大。它可以化解过往体验中的挫伤,获得道德提升;让学生拥有积极的情境体验,促进道德成长;打破自我狭隘的体验视角,发展道德自觉。     

THE EYE OF DOUBT: NEUTRALITY,RESPONSIBILITY, AND MORALITY*

Abstract: The conditions of employment of a professional public service together with the wide-ranging consequences of the actions of public servants combine to require considerable moral responsibility. Whatever political neutrality means for public servants, it does not mean moral neutrality. If public servants were never to exercise moral judgement in moments of truth there would be little justification for endowing the profession with the status and security it now enjoys. After some discussion of the origins of the professional public service, several recent cases of morally responsible public servants are reviewed and the arguments frequently given to avoid or trivialise morality are evaluated. My claim is that courage is the key to morality. The ordinary moral obligations that lie upon us all apply with added force to public servants. The truth that the eye of doubt beholds is that political neutrality brings moral responsibility. … the more civil servants, the more thieves… The Great Elector … not from the Castle … not from the village… Kafka … polite, upright, and mild… Hegel     

Making moral incentives pay

Politicians often appeal to moral principles as a least-cost method of enforcing their policy demands. To do so effectively, they must understand how such principles fit into ordinary people's decision functions. Here I distinguish three ways for formally representing moral principles. One reduces morality to enlightened self-interest, denying that morality has any special place in the decision calculus. Another, while acknowledging that people do internalize moral principles per se, enters them into utility functions as just another consumption good. Truly strong moral principles, however, are best represented by a third model of seriously held moral principles which must be kept formally apart from mundane considerations. Such principles are as precarious as they are powerful. Policy-makers who want to tap them must respect the formalisms that make them strong, most typically by shielding moral principles from contamination by egoistic impulses.This is a revised version of a paper read at the 1978 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association in New York. I am grateful to Stanley Benn for prodding that prompted this essay and to Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, Joseph Carens, Russell Hardin, Martin Hollis and David Miller for advice on its improvement.     

Morality,Benevolence, and Responsibility: Regime Legitimacy in China from Past to the Present

Taking an interpretive approach, this study argues that Chinese political tradition plays an important role in the maintenance of regime legitimacy in China today. Contrary to the popular view that the Chinese Communist regime relies primarily on economic performance to sustain its legitimacy, the current regime legitimacy is maintained because of the historically rooted moral bond between the state and society and the societal expectation that the state would be responsible for the wellbeing of the population. The regime legitimacy in China has three overlapping layers: The basic layer is the morality of political elite. The crucial part of the morality is the benevolent governance which specifies that the government has to be compassionate to the people. The central component of a benevolent government is the state responsibility to the welfare of the people. All together, these layers create a moral bond between the state and society. The government will enjoy legitimacy as far as the society expects it to fulfill its end of the deal. This study further argues that the morality-based regime legitimacy in China has to be calibrated within its multi-level power structure. Governments at different levels enjoy different degree of legitimacy and face different degree of challenges. In general, the central government enjoys the most legitimacy and faces the least challenges comparing to the local governments. This multi-level power structure would cushion many regime legitimacy crises.     

儒家道德权利与政治权利要义

作为社会身份和政治资格的人权在儒家“孔仁孟义”的思想体系中被表达为“内圣外王”之道,其在“修齐治平”的实现程序之中又以“公私之辨”和“义利之辨”标志出政治伦理原则和“以德限权”的社会治理特色。儒家以“公权利”揭示人的自然权利,以其公平性和自然性引申为人的道德权利;再以道德权利为基础推演出人的政治权利,而“私权力”则仅为政治权利的异化形式,其极端化的结果就是“以权谋私”,后者因其“侵害公权利”的实质,儒家的人提倡以“道德权利”加以限制,故称为“德治”。儒家的道德权利与政治权利不仅影响了中国社会的思想和制度传统,而且其思想特色通过“为人民服务”、“改革开放”、“三个代表”和“三为”等原则亦被创造性地运用于当代中国共产党人的治国理政事业之中。     

New challenges in immigration theory: an overview

Normative political theory over recent decades has focused mainly on what ought to be done as far as migration policies are concerned. It faces a basic challenge, which stems from two competing, yet equally fundamental, ideals underpinning liberal democratic societies: a commitment to moral universalism and the exclusionary requirement of democracy. The objective of this special issue, ‘New Challenges in Immigration Theory’, is to provide a conceptual overview of (some) immigration theories and to highlight the challenges new streams of immigration pose for normative (political) theory and liberal democratic practice. The issue will consider how to reconcile state-based exclusion with a commitment to equal moral concern for all persons, by focusing on the non-standard immigration questions that have so far been ‘neglected’ by normative political theory. In line with this objective, the issue will discuss some of the inadequacies of the dominant political theories of immigration and show how such theories can be expanded to take account of new migration challenges such as brain drain, climate migration, detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, rights of labour migrants, transnational networks of movement, and so on.     

浅析网络小说中关于社会公德意识缺失的问题

网络小说作为当代网络文学中重要组成部分之一,其发展受到社会各界的关注,由于刚刚起步,发展中难免存在着各种严峻的问题,而当前发展中的一个重要问题既是网络小说中社会公德意识缺失问题,本着治病救人的原则,笔者着重分析了这种道德现象的成因以及解决问题的一些有益的思考,希望对解决此种问题有所帮助。     

Discourse Ethics and the Problem of Nature

Abstract

In what sense could discourse ethics be linked with normative problems raised by the ecological crisis? Even if Apel and Habermas have not really addressed this question extensively, and even if their position in moral philosophy seems to develop and reinforce a neo-Kantian anthropocentric point of view, one can find in their works some evidence for the possibility of connecting a dialogical view with an ecological one. In order to defend the philosophical interest in highlighting this possibility, this essay analyses Habermas' position concerning the moral and ontological status of animality in particular, and attempts to situate this position within the history of Critical Theory.     

Rousseau on Fundamental Law

How can we understand Rousseau's use of entrenched fundamental law? Given that absolute sovereignty is of paramount importance to Rousseau, and given that he rejects the possibility of binding the future, fundamental law might be viewed as a paradoxical restraint on the sovereign. However, through a consideration of their substantive form, and of the procedural mechanisms of enactment and abrogation, these laws are shown to serve an 'enabling' purpose. For Rousseau, fundamental law does not constrain the sovereign will, but is constitutive of the sovereign or transforms its operation with respect to morality and justice. Fundamental law should be understood to enhance the capacity of the sovereign; this reading also explains the most familiar limitation that does not take the form of a fundamental law, the double-generality requirement.     

Morality without Intention

Abstract

An examination of how, in literature, silence and veiling are related to moral significance. The paper emphasizes Walter Benjamin’s essay on Goethe’s Elective Affiniites and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” and poses the question of how the literary can possess moral meaning or effect when, as in these two works, silence and veiling appear as a means of refusing or denying intention. Benjamin’s and Hawthorne’s different critiques of the symbol are presented as the central issue around which the possibility of moral meaning is decided as an intentionless act. Benjamin’s preservation of the moral is interpreted as the cause of the paradoxical and contradictory sources of the expressionless and its critical violence as well as the veiling and secrecy he identifies as forming the true work of art. Against this account, Hawthorne’s story is read as the refusal of any preceding secret as the basis of a moral claim and thus as the defining category of the work of art.     

弘扬现代大学精神增强高校道德建设

高等学校作为人类文明历史发展的产物,是传承文化和培养人才的重要场所。高等学校所培养的人才不仅需要掌握较扎实的专业知识,更重要的是还应具备高尚的思想道德情操。文章从当前高校道德建设方面入手,结合大学精神的特征、内容与功用等,探析了其对高校道德建设的重大作用,以期通过培养与构建现代大学精神来引领高校道德建设。     

Expanding the scope and content of morality policy research: lessons from Moral Foundations Theory

Scholars have not precisely defined morality policy, and Smith (Policy Stud J 30(3):379–395, 2002) urged an empirical taxonomy be used to identify those policies. We argue that Moral Foundations Theory offers a methodology for empirically identifying issues with moral content. We inventory 15 issues in parliamentary studies of “conscience” voting, 14 morality policies in western democracies compiled by Studlar (in: Mooney (ed) The public clash of private values: the politics of morality policy, Chatham House Publishers, New York, 2001), and then survey MFT empirical studies to identify 22 issues with moral content. Based on this universe of 37 issues, three journals are content analyzed to determine the coverage given them and to outline productive lines for future research.     

Über die Notwendigkeit und Bestimmung liberaler Bürgertugenden

Numerous sociological studies describe the status of contemporary liberal democracy as frightening. Taking up these investigations, this article asks for the pre-conditions of liberal democracy, particularly for their moral foundations. In contrast to the classic political theory of liberalism, these moral foundations are not assumed to be locked in the institutional order of the state, but in a certain morality of the citizens. The first target of the investigation is to proof that a moral quality of the citizens is a necessary prerequisite for the persistence of a liberal democracy. The second aim of the work is to show how these moral orientations (liberal virtues) should be shaped within each citizen. This is clarified by discussing three liberal thinkers (Charles Larmore, John Rawls, and Ralf Dahrendorf). The so distilled central liberal virtue is formulated as follows: The political convictions of the citizens must be justifiable for everybody, i.e. also to citizens with a different world view. Political convictions and values, which are expressed during the political process and which influence the voting-behaviour, should therefore not rely exclusively on one’s own set of moral values. The work closes with a discussion of the implications of this normative claim.