TY - JOUR
T1 - The Kantian Capacity for Moral Self-Control
T2 - Abstraction at Two Levels
AU - Vujosevic, Marijana
N1 - Funding Information:
I am grateful to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for having supported my work on this article. I would also like to thank Pauline Kleingeld, Jochen Bojanowski and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2020.
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - As a rule, the Kantian capacity for self-control is interpreted as a kind of tool for compelling ourselves to act on the basis of the maxims we have adopted. To the extent that we merely acknowledge its role in following already adopted maxims, however, we fail to capture the distinctive aspect of moral self-control identified by Kant. In this paper, I propose a fuller account of the Kantian capacity for moral self-control; I do so mainly by analyzing this capacity as our ability to “abstract from” various sensible impressions. This analysis shows that Kant’s conception of moral self-control involves two intimately related levels, which are subject to different criteria. Whereas the first level is connected to our ability to adopt moral maxims and requires that we abstract from all sensible impressions, the second is associated with our ability to follow these maxims and does not necessarily require this radical abstraction.
AB - As a rule, the Kantian capacity for self-control is interpreted as a kind of tool for compelling ourselves to act on the basis of the maxims we have adopted. To the extent that we merely acknowledge its role in following already adopted maxims, however, we fail to capture the distinctive aspect of moral self-control identified by Kant. In this paper, I propose a fuller account of the Kantian capacity for moral self-control; I do so mainly by analyzing this capacity as our ability to “abstract from” various sensible impressions. This analysis shows that Kant’s conception of moral self-control involves two intimately related levels, which are subject to different criteria. Whereas the first level is connected to our ability to adopt moral maxims and requires that we abstract from all sensible impressions, the second is associated with our ability to follow these maxims and does not necessarily require this radical abstraction.
U2 - 10.1515/agph-2020-1004
DO - 10.1515/agph-2020-1004
M3 - Article
VL - 102
SP - 102
EP - 130
JO - Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie
JF - Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie
SN - 0003-9101
IS - 1
ER -