Abstract
The moral writings of Immanuel Kant have drawn attention to a class of interesting and puzzling iffy oughts. These are the so-called “hypothetical imperatives”. While some philosophers1 have apparently used the term ‘hypothetical imperative’ as little more than a stylistic variant for ‘statement of conditional obligation’, I think there is good reason to distinguish hypothetical imperatives from other iffy oughts, and to give them a separate analysis. Some of these reasons will emerge shortly. In this chapter, I try to identify the sort of statement Kant may have had in mind; I note a variety of puzzling features of these things; I explain why some proposed accounts seem to me to be inadequate; I give my own account of them; and I try to explain why they have the puzzling features noted.
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Notes to Chapter 5
Von Wright is an example. See his ‘A New System of Deontic Logic,’ in Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings, ed. by Risto Hilpinen (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1971), p. 109.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, transl. by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p. 108.
Ibid., p. 108.
Ibid., pp. 82–83.
Ibid., p. 85.
Ibid., p. 86.
Ibid., p. 87.
Ibid., p. 109.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Practical Reason in The Philosophy of Kant, ed. by Carl Friedrich (New York: The Modern Library, 1949), p. 213.
H. A. Prichard, Moral Obligation (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 91.
R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 91.
Ibid, p. 34.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphystc of Morals, transl. by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), pp. 82–84.
Ibid, p. 108.
Ibid, p. 85.
Ibid, p. 85.
Kant suggests this view in the Groundwork, pp. 84–86.
It is also suggested by Thomas Hill in ‘The Hypothetical Imperative,’ The Philosophical Review LXXXII (1973), 425–450.
This causal view also has its origins in Kant. See, for example, Groundwork, p. 65.
The example is taken from Kant. See the Groundwork, p. 65.
For an interesting discussion of this approach to the concept of prudence, see Phillip Bricker, ‘Prudence,’ The Journal of Philosophy XXXVII (1980), 381–401.
Critique of Pure Practical Reason in The Philosophy of Kant, ed. by Carl Friedrich (New York: the Modern Library, 1949), p. 229.
See her ‘Conditional Oughts and Hypothetical Imperatives,’ The Journal of Philosophy LXXII (1975), 259–276.
A similar view seems to be defended in Thomas Hill, ‘The Hypothetical Imperative,’ The Philosophical Review LXXXII (1973), 429–450.
Valuable commentary on Hill’s view may be found in John Marshall, ‘Hypothetical Imperatives,’ The American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1982), 105–114.
See especially John Marshall, ‘Hypothetical Imperatives,’ The American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1982), pp. 109–110.
Greenspan, op. cit., p. 273. See also the discussion of “the second assumption”, p. 272.
R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals, p. 34.
Related points are discussed in Phillipa Foot, ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,’ The Philosophical Review LXXXI (1972), 305–316
John Harsanyi, ‘Ethics in Terms of Hypothetical Imperatives,’ Mind N. S. LXVII (1958), 305–316.
Groundwork, p. 85.
Thomas Hill, ‘The Hypothetical Imperative,’ The Philosophical Review LXXXII (1973), 429–450.
Hill, ibid, p. 434.
Hill, ibid, p. 436.
Hill, ibid, p. 436.
Hill, ibid, p. 443.
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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Feldman, F. (1986). Hypothetical Imperatives. In: Doing the Best We Can. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4570-8_5
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