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An Experiential Approach to Kant's Moral Philosophy: a Reply to Dogmatism, Formalism and Rigorism Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2010 An Experiential Approach to Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply to Dogmatism, Formalism and Rigorism Chris McTavish Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation McTavish, Chris, "An Experiential Approach to Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply to Dogmatism, Formalism and Rigorism" (2010). Dissertations. 215. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/215 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2010 Chris McTavish LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY: A REPLY TO DOGMATISM, FORMALISM AND RIGORISM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY CHRISTOPHER HENRY MCTAVISH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2010 Copyright by Christopher Henry McTavish, 2010 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support, patience, wisdom and love of many others. I would like to begin by acknowledging those professors in Loyola’s Department of Philosophy who helped me through this giant adventure. I would like to thank Dr. Adriaan Peperzak for his generous time during the formative years of this project, and for showing me that genuine philosophical thought often requires one to step outside of the comfortable boundaries of strictly academic prescriptions. Dr. Thomas Carson helped me to see how there are good ideas to be uncovered on both sides of the analytic / continental border. Dr. Andrew Cutrofello was, as he is to many of Loyola’s graduate students, a pillar of endless support and friendship. There is not enough space in this section to list all of those instances in which he helped me though challenging times. And to my supervisor, Dr. Victoria Wike, whose advice, direction and, most of all, belief in me, enabled this study to finally see the light of day. My thanks to her will be never ending. I would also like to thank Loyola University of Chicago for providing me with funds for my research and writing. A five year Graduate Tuition Scholarship allowed me to make discernable progress on my research, while an Arthur J. Schmidt Dissertation Fellowship allowed me to focus my attention upon the writing process. I would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for three years of generous funding. Without that funding, I would not have been able to even consider iii embarking upon this great journey across the border. I sincerely hope that the Government of Canada will continue its invaluable support of graduate scholarship in the social sciences and humanities. My wonderful friends have each provided me with endless support, patience, sympathy and (necessary) distractions during which I was able to regroup and come back to my project refreshed and ready to confront it with confidence over and over again. The list of names is much too lengthy, but I would like to especially thank: Joe Linn, James Twine, Justin Harrison, Chris Anderson, Alonso Villaran, Nicholas Mowad, Brendan Alexander, Gabriel Buzzi, Nicoletta Ruane, Thane Montaner, Brain Lisle, Jeff Courtright, Drew Pierce, Lutz Keferstein, Blaine Swen, Stacy Bautista, Michael Burke, Maria Kulp, Doug Boyd, Mike Ward, Chris Everson, Dan Hinderer, Steven Blum, Alain Beauclair, Yasir Syed, Andreas Morse, Ian Drummond, Adam Smith, Robert Burch, Robbie McTavish, Laura MacPherson and Elizabeth Panasiuk. With friends like these no man can fall. A very special and sincere thank-you goes to my loving family. In particular, to my parents, Angela and Gordon, whose trust and love has never swayed, to my sister, Erin, whose good humor and well-timed visits helped to remind me of the important things in life, and to both sets of grandparents, Allan and Dougie and Maria and Henry, who have each supported me with endless love to which I will never be able to fully repay. I can only ever hope to approximate the kind of person that my family continues to believe that I can be. iv And finally, I would like to thank the love of my life and my best friend, Pam McTavish. Through all of the dark times she was the light. Without her support, patience and love this project would have never been completed. Thank you, Pam, for your unfailing trust and belief in me. v For my grandpa, Henry Huff TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THREE COMMON CRITICISMS 3 I. Kant’s Early Influences in Moral Philosophy 4 (a) Wolff, Hutcheson and Rousseau 4 (b) Reason and Kant’s Departure from the Brits 10 II. Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 11 (a) Groundwork Section I – Good Will and Duty 12 (b) Groundwork Section II – The Categorical Imperative 17 (c) Groundwork Section III – A Deduction of Morality? 23 III. Kant’s Doctrine of a “Fact of Pure Reason” 27 (a) Kant’s “Fact of Pure Reason” 28 (b) Questions Concerning Kant’s “Fact” 31 IV. Three Common Criticisms of Kant’s Moral Philosophy 33 (a) Dogmatism 35 (b) Formalism 36 (c) Rigorism 39 (d) The Three Common Criticisms and Existential Veracity 40 V. An Experiential Approach to Kant’s Moral Philosophy 40 VI. Conclusion 43 CHAPTER TWO: AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY: HAPPINESS AND MORAL FEELING 45 I. Happiness 49 II. Moral Feeling 54 III. Summary Results of this Experiential Account 73 (a) Summary 73 (b) A Response to the Three Criticisms? 76 IV. Conclusion 80 CHAPTER THREE: KANT’S DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE 81 I. Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue 85 (a) Doctrine of Virtue 85 (b) Ends That are Duties 88 (c) Kant’s Derivation of Ethical Duties 92 (d) Summary of Some Key Conclusions from Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue 94 vii II. An Experiential Approach to Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue 97 (a) A Picture of Kantian Moral Life 97 (b) Self-Other Asymmetry 102 (c) Kantian Moral Life 108 III. Conclusion 113 CHAPTER FOUR: A REPLY TO DOGMATISM, FORMALISM AND RIGORISM 115 I. An Experiential Reply to Dogmatism, Formalism and Rigorism 118 (a) Dogmatism 118 (b) Formalism 121 (c) Rigorism 128 (d) Summary of the Experiential Reply to Dogmatism, Formalism and Rigorism 136 CHAPTER FIVE: TWO APPLICATIONS OF THE EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY 140 I. Teaching Kant’s Moral Philosophy 140 II. Critical Comparison with Emmanuel Levinas 143 (a) Kant and Levinas on Moral Feeling and Happiness 150 CONCLUSION 167 BIBLIOGRAPHY 169 VITA 184 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Works by Kant : All page references to Kant’s works are to the Royal Prussian Academy Edition of Kants Gesammelte Schriften . The abbreviations for the English translations are as follows: B Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime , translated by J. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960) C Correspondence , translated and edited by A. Zweig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) G “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,” translated by M.J. Gregor in Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 43-108 KPV Critique of Practical Reason , translated by M.J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) KRV Critique of Pure Reason , translated by P. Guyer and A. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) KU Critique of the Power of Judgment , translated by P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) LE Lectures on Ethics , translated by Louis Infield (New York: Harper, 1963) MS “Metaphysics of Morals,” translated by M.J. Gregor in Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 365-603 P “Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morals,” translated by L.W. Beck in Kant: Selections (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1988) pp. 5-9 R Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone , translated by T. Greene and H. Hudson (New York: Harper Row, 1960) TP “On the Common Saying: That May Be True In Theory, But It Is Of No Use In Practice,” translated by M.J. Gregor in Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 279-309 ix Works by Other Authors KE Wood, Allen. Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) OBE Lévinas, Emmanuel. Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence , translated by A. Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981) TH Lévinas, Emmanuel. “Transcendence and Height” in Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings , translated by T. Chanter, S. Critchley, N. Walker and A. Peperzak, edited by A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, and R. Bernasconi (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996) pp. 11-32 TeI / Lévinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: an Essay on Exteriority , translated by TaI A. Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979). French : Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’exteriorité (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971 x INTRODUCTION Many of Kant’s commentators and critics interpret his moral philosophy solely in terms of the cognitive dimension of his categorical imperative. Such a predominant manner of reading Kant gives rise to the criticism that his moral philosophy is too far removed from the actual way in which human beings orient themselves as moral persons in the world. In response to this general tendency in Kant interpretation, my dissertation proposes to offer an experiential approach to Kant’s ethics. By the expression experiential I mean an approach to Kant’s thinking that attends to the living sense in which we experience the phenomena and realities that his moral philosophy presents.
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