Abstract
This paper is about moral motivation from the perspective of Kantian moral philosophy. It looks at recent literature on the development of human sociality from within game theory, and argues that a retrieval of Kant’s views on moral theology would be helpful in understanding an aspect of this sociality. In particular, Kant’s view that we need to postulate the existence of God as sovereign of the kingdom of ends helps us understand the role of religion in making self-indexed and non-self-indexed motivation consistent (i.e., motivation towards a good which is specified with essential reference to the self and motivation towards a good which is specified without such reference). Kant’s complex views on divine punishment are also helpful, and his views on divine assistance in the production of moral motivation can help us understand the invocation of such assistance in signaling difficult commitment.
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Notes
- 1.
Binmore (1994, vol. 1, p 152). The title of the chapter is a quotation from Samuel Johnson, “My Dear Sir, Clear Your Mind of Cant.”
- 2.
Binmore (1994, p 18).
- 3.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 419. I will cite Kant’s works in the Berlin Academy edition, by volume and page number, and I will abbreviate the present work as Groundwork.
- 4.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 421.
- 5.
The description of a maxim as giving the “actually intended reason” raises important questions about “proximate” and “ultimate” causes of behavior, and about self-deception. See Trivers (2000). In this paper I am distinguishing reasons (not necessarily articulated to herself) that an agent gives to herself for acting in a certain way, from external causes of behavior. There are large philosophical questions about whether an agent’s reasons for action are ultimately caused by forces (for example the evolutionary imperative to reproduce) outside the agent’s rational will. If they are, then Kant’s moral philosophy fails. But we do not yet know that they are, and in the meantime we need a theory of reasons for action.
- 6.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 422.
- 7.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 429.
- 8.
Critique of Practical Reason 5: 114.
- 9.
Nowak and Coakley (2009), introduction.
- 10.
Sober and Wilson (1998, pp 4–6).
- 11.
Bowles and Gintis (2009) final paragraph.
- 12.
Binmore (2005).
- 13.
There are complex questions in the philosophy of mind about whether brain imaging would help determine empirically what is going on “inside a person” in the relevant sense. This is not a debate I can get into in this paper.
- 14.
For example, Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 129, but there are similar statements in the Critique of Judgment, the Metaphysics of Morals, Religion, Conflict of the Faculties, and elsewhere in the corpus.
- 15.
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 6: 154. I will abbreviate this work as Religion.
- 16.
Groundwork, 4: 434.
- 17.
Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 25.
- 18.
Religion 6: 3.
- 19.
Religion 6: 6. This does not mean, in Kant’s view that only theists can be morally good, but he holds that the position of the morally good atheist is “rationally unstable.” See Hare (2005).
- 20.
Schneewind (1998) 447, 520–521.
- 21.
I have laid out the history more fully in Hare (2007) especially Chap. 2.
- 22.
Religious Affections, x. The words of Moses are at Exodus 32: 32, and of Paul at Romans 9: 3.
- 23.
The quotation is from Gintis (2005, p 8). Non-self-indexed motivation also needs to be distinguished from the benefactor’s and recipient’s so-called “reciprocal altruism” (where there is expectation of benefit from the recipient) and “indirect reciprocity” (in which one’s reputation for cooperation is rewarded indirectly through the favor of third-party observers).
- 24.
One study worked in 12 countries on four continents, and recruited subjects from 15 small-scale societies, consisting of three foraging groups, six slash-and-burn horticulturalists and agropasturalists, four nomadic herding groups, and two sedentary, small-scale agricultural societies, Henrich (2004).
- 25.
The claim about primates is defended by Silk (2005, pp 63–64).
- 26.
Silk (2005, p 63).
- 27.
Fehr and chter (2002, pp 137–140).
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
Religion 6: 6.
- 31.
It is possible that there is empirical evidence of some kind of human predisposition to entertain the idea of divine agency. See Bering (2006).
- 32.
I have explained this in more detail in God and Morality, op. cit. Chap. 3.
- 33.
Here I depart from Kant, who does make the necessity claim, e.g., Critique of Practical Reason 5: 138. See also footnote 38 of the present paper.
- 34.
Metaphysics of Morals 6: 396.
- 35.
Groundwork 4: 431.
- 36.
Johnson (2005, p 411). The point, made by Johnson, that punishment is more effective motivationally than reward (sticks than carrots) does not affect the distinction I have just made. Being motivated by a reward in heaven is no more autonomous than being motivated by punishment in hell.
- 37.
Sidgwick (1981, p 505).
- 38.
Kant, like other contemporaries in the Enlightenment, is too optimistic that he can identify what reason tells every human at every time and place. See Religion 6: 9. He did think that the categorical imperative has been known to all humans at all times and places.
- 39.
We might expect that if God is believed to be the ultimate guarantor of justice, human punishers, though they will punish failures to cooperate, will not punish so readily failures to punish those who fail to cooperate. The reason is that the second-order punishing (and perhaps third-order punishing of those who fail to punish those who fail to punish those who fail to cooperate) is closer to the systems maintenance which is the role given to the gods. In such a set of beliefs, the rules of cooperation might survive without large-scale human second-order and higher-order punishing.
- 40.
- 41.
Religion 6: 72.
- 42.
There has been an interest in the literature on the benefits of religion in providing costly signaling. See Sosis and Alcorta (2003).
- 43.
Religion 6: 44.
- 44.
Carson (2000) Chap. 8.
- 45.
Anscombe (reprinted 1981). Adams (1999) 253f argues that Durkheim parodied this concept in order to get a concept of society as the source of moral obligation.
- 46.
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Hare, J.E. (2009). Moral Motivation. In: Levin, S. (eds) Games, Groups, and the Global Good. Springer Series in Game Theory. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85436-4_11
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