Abstract
Kant is often charged with allowing feelings no role to play in moral action. I argue that he views a great variety of rational feelings as necessary conditions of moral agency. These feelings are not natural or socially-effected desires or inclinations. We feel them precisely because we are rational moral agents. The paper first presents a reading of the Critique of Practical Reason, according to which the moral law is the objective reason for which moral agents act, but the feeling of respect for the moral law is the effective force driving moral action. It then argues that in the Metaphysics of Morals four additional types of rational moral feelings are necessary conditions of moral action: “moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbor, and respect for oneself (self-esteem)” (Metaphysics of Morals, 399). Kant recognizes that the affective inner life of moral agents deliberating how to act and reflecting on their deeds is rich and complex (conscience). Furthermore, to act morally we must turn our affective moral perception towards the ends of moral action, namely, the welfare of others (love of others) and our own moral being (self-respect). Finally, feelings shape our particular moral acts; acting morally is doing the right thing in the right way (moral feeling). These variegated affective attunements to the rational claims of morality are the affective moods of morality.
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Notes
- 1.
For the circumstances surrounding the composition and publication of the Xenien by Goethe and Schiller see, Safranski 2004: 440–443.
- 2.
Schiller 1869: 467.
- 3.
This point is emphasized by Beiser. See, Beiser (2005: 81–84, 172–175) and passim.
- 4.
I will use the following abbreviations: CPrR: Critique of Practical Reason in Kant (1996a). Gr: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals in Kant (1996a). MM: The Metaphysics of Morals in Kant (1996a). R: Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason in Kant (1996b). TSP: “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy” in Kant (2002).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
“How can a being in the phenomenal world, through his knowledge of the law of the intelligible, control his conduct so that this law does in fact become effective.” (Beck 1960: 212).
- 8.
To cite only a few examples: the law is “the form of an intellectual causality” (CPrR: 73); “respect for the moral law is a feeling that is produced by an intellectual ground [durch einen intellectuellen Grund gewirkt wird]” (CPrR: 73); “the cause determining it [respect] lies in pure practical reason; and so this feeling, on account of its origin, cannot be called pathologically effected but must be called practically effected [muß praktisch gewirkt heißen]” (CPrR: 75); “This feeling […] is therefore produced solely by reason [durch Vernunft bewirkt]” (CPrR: 76); restricting our inclinations “now has an effect on feeling” (CPrR: 78). See also, Kant’s claim in the Groundwork that respect is “a feeling self-wrought [selbstgewirktes] by means of a rational concept” (Gr: 401, note; see also, 460).
- 9.
For detailed discussions of these emotional effects see, Reath 2006: 14–17, 23–25.
- 10.
In the essay “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy” Kant puts the point succinctly: “That pleasure (or displeasure) which must necessarily precede the law, if the act is to take place, is pathological; but that which the law must necessarily precede, for this to happen, is moral” (TSP 8: 395 note). I am grateful to Dennis Schulting for bringing to my attention this pithy formulation.
- 11.
In a closely related example of the duties of beneficence of a rich man, Kant suggests other ways of fulfilling the duty without humiliating the person in need: “he must show that he is himself put under obligation by the other’s acceptance or honored by it” (MM: 453). In another related discussion, Kant says that we must not regard “a kindness received as a burden one would gladly be rid of (since the one so favored stands a step lower than his benefactor, and this wounds his pride)” (MM: 456; see also, MM: 458). The theme of gratitude is of course also pivotal to the discussion of the vice of ingratitude (MM: 459).
- 12.
In a later letter to Kant, Schiller conveys his relief that, unlike others, Kant did not misunderstand his Thalia essay as expressing opposition to his views, as the reference to the essay in the Religion reveals (see, R: 23, note). See, Streitfeld, Erwin and Viktor Žmegnač, eds. 1983. Schillers Briefe. Königstein: Athenäum, 252–253 (June 13, 1794).
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Geiger, I. (2011). Kant on the Affective Moods of Morality. In: Kenaan, H., Ferber, I. (eds) Philosophy's Moods: The Affective Grounds of Thinking. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 63. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1503-5_11
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