The Place of Emotions in Kantian Morality

Abstract

The image of the cold, heartless, duty-bound agent is yielding, in certain Kantian circles, to a portrait of an agent who values and cultivates the human gesture.¹ Similarly Kant’s notorious impatience with Romanticism and his eagerness to expose the unreliability and natural lottery in the distribution of emotional temperaments finds itself poised against a view of the emotions as supporting moral interest. To a large extent I am sympathetic with this more congenial portrait and see my task in this chapter as one of surveying the evidence. The more humanistic picture emerges from Metaphysics of Morals, as well as from less formal ethical writings, such as the Lectures on Moral Philosophy and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Standpoint. I believe the view can also find its way into the Groundwork, although I don’t formally argue the point. Though sympathetic, I am cautious and well aware that concessions to the emotions are primarily a matter of moral anthropology, for Kant a way of applying the Categorical Imperative and its a priori motive congenially to the human case. This forces the question of just how tolerant Kant would be of human agents who act from the motive of duty but without appropriate affect or emotional comportment. The fact that for Kant nothing may be morally amiss may raise certain objections to his views and question the adequacy of his account in the human sphere. I raise these worries at the conclusion of this chapter.