Auxter challenges the prevailing view that Kant's ethic is ateleological and shows how Kant defines the goals humnan beings ought to pursue. Auxter begins by discussing the subtlety of the critical solutions to the classical problem of reconciling natural and moral teleologies.He systematically explores the teleological dimension of Kant's practical philosophy - explaining how goals are derived, how they fit together into a comprehensive moral order, and how the elaboration of this ideal affects the selection of a right action. Auxter argues for a new understanding of the relationship between virtue and right action, and concludes with a Kantian theory of moral commitment.
This volume critically examines and elucidates the complex relationship between politics and teleology in Kant's philosophical system. Examining this relationship is of key philosophical importance since Kant develops his political philosophy in the context of a teleological conception of the purposiveness of both nature and human history. Kant's approach poses the dual task of reconciling his normative political theory with both his priori moral philosophy and his teleological philosophy of nature and human history. The fourteen essays in this volume, by leading scholars in the field, explore the relationship between teleology and politics from multiple perspectives. Together, the essays explore Kant's normative political theory and legal philosophy, his cosmopolitanism and views on international relations, his theory of history, his theory of natural teleology, and the broader relationship between morality, history, nature and politics in Kant's works. This important new volume will be of interest to a wide audience, including Kant scholars, scholars and students working on topics in moral and political philosophy, the philosophy of history, political theory and political science, legal scholars and international relations theorists, as well as those interested broadly in the history of ideas.
Immanuel Kant's 'The Critique of Judgment' explores the realms of aesthetic judgment and teleological judgment in a rigorous and thought-provoking manner. In this seminal work, Kant delves into the concepts of beauty, taste, and the nature of artistic creation. He presents a detailed analysis of how judgment functions in relation to aesthetics, weaving together philosophical insights with practical examples to illustrate his points. Through his meticulous argumentation, Kant lays the groundwork for the understanding of the role of judgment in appreciating art and nature. The book's dense yet insightful prose engages readers in a contemplative journey through the intersections of art, nature, and human perception. Immanuel Kant, a renowned German philosopher of the Enlightenment era, was influenced by thinkers such as Leibniz and Rousseau. His deep interest in metaphysics and epistemology led him to ponder the fundamental principles that govern human experience. 'The Critique of Judgment' reflects Kant's comprehensive philosophical system, bridging the gap between his earlier works on metaphysics and ethics. I highly recommend 'The Critique of Judgment' to readers who are interested in delving into the complexities of aesthetic and teleological judgment. Kant's nuanced arguments and incisive analysis pave the way for a deeper appreciation of art, nature, and the human mind. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to explore the intersections of philosophy, aesthetics, and the nature of beauty.
Kenneth R. Westphal presents an original interpretation of Hume's and Kant's moral philosophies, the differences between which are prominent in current philosophical accounts. Westphal argues that focussing on these differences, however, occludes a decisive, shared achievement: a distinctive constructivist method to identify basic moral principles and to justify their strict objectivity, without invoking moral realism nor moral anti-realism or irrealism. Their constructivism is based on Hume's key insight that 'though the laws of justice are artificial, they are not arbitrary'. Arbitrariness in basic moral principles is avoided by starting with fundamental problems of social coördination which concern outward behaviour and physiological needs; basic principles of justice are artificial because solving those problems does not require appeal to moral realism (nor to moral anti-realism). Instead, moral cognitivism is preserved by identifying sufficient justifying reasons, which can be addressed to all parties, for the minimum sufficient legitimate principles and institutions required to provide and protect basic forms of social coördination (including verbal behaviour). Hume first develops this kind of constructivism for basic property rights and for government. Kant greatly refines Hume's construction of justice within his 'metaphysical principles of justice', whilst preserving the core model of Hume's innovative constructivism. Hume's and Kant's constructivism avoids the conventionalist and relativist tendencies latent if not explicit in contemporary forms of moral constructivism.
Immanuel Kant famously said that he was awoken from his "dogmatic slumbers," and led to question the possibility of metaphysics, by David Hume's doubts about causation. Because of this, many philosophers have viewed Hume's influence on Kant as limited to metaphysics. More recently, some philosophers have questioned whether even Kant's metaphysics was really motivated by Hume. In Knowledge, Reason, and Taste, renowned Kant scholar Paul Guyer challenges both of these views. He argues that Kant's entire philosophy--including his moral philosophy, aesthetics, and teleology, as well as his metaphysics--can fruitfully be read as an engagement with Hume. In this book, the first to describe and assess Hume's influence throughout Kant's philosophy, Guyer shows where Kant agrees or disagrees with Hume, and where Kant does or doesn't appear to resolve Hume's doubts. In doing so, Guyer examines the progress both Kant and Hume made on enduring questions about causes, objects, selves, taste, moral principles and motivations, and purpose and design in nature. Finally, Guyer looks at questions Kant and Hume left open to their successors.
Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.
No philosopher has been more committed to the idea of the moral progress of humanity than Immanuel Kant. But is this idea of the moral advancement of the species compatible with the individualist basis of Kantian ethics? Do individuals have obligations to contribute toward the welfare of future generations? Here, Sharon Anderson-Gold affirms the compatibility of Immanuel Kant's philosophy of history and ethics by reversing the individualistic reading of the nature of virtue and vice. Arguing that Kant's definition of radical evil as a characteristic of the social condition of humanity makes virtue a collective task, she concludes that Kant's views on the moral progress of the species are essential to a proper appreciation of the collective character of moral goals and the social context of both virtue and vice. The author also expands the role of reflective judgment in the development of a cosmopolitan discourse specifying duties supporting international institutions, human rights and global economic justice. She argues that reflective judgments contain both phenomenological and normative components, making a moral evaluation of social institutions possible, thereby providing an orientation or guide for individual action.
Cutting through contemporary confusions with his characteristic rigor and aplomb, Steven A. Long offers the most penetrating study available of St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of the intention, choice, object, end, and species of the moral act. Many studies of human action and morality after Descartes and Kant have suffered from a tendency to split body and soul, so that the intention of the human spirit comes to justify whatever the body is made to do. The portrait of human action and morality that arises from such accounts is one of the soul as the pilot and the body as raw material in need of humanization. In this masterful study, Steven Long reconnects the teleology of the soul with the teleology of the body, so that human goal-oriented action rediscovers its lost moral unity, given it by the Creator who has created the human person as a body-soul unity.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race provides up-to-date explanation and analyses by leading scholars in African American philosophy and philosophy of race. Fifty-one original essays cover major topics from intellectual history to contemporary social controversies in this emerging philosophical subfield that supports demographic inclusion and emphasizes cultural relevance.
Written for the general reader and the student of moral philosophy, this book provides a clear and unified treatment of Kant's theory of morals. Bruce Aune takes into account all of Kant's principal writings on morality and presents them in a contemporary idiom. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
