Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: A Problem with Kant’s Moral Anthropology
- I The Problem
- 1 The Asymmetry in Kant’s Conception of Freedom
- 2 Anthropology as an Empirical Science
- 3 The Moral Importance of Kant’s “Pragmatic” Anthropology
- 4 Moral Anthropology in Contemporary Neokantian Ethics
- II The Solution
- 5 Transcendental Idealism, Radical Evil, and Moral Anthropology
- 6 Moral Influence on Others
- Epilogue: Incorporating Moral Anthropology and Defending Kantian Moral Philosophy
- Notes
- References
- Index of Kant’s Works
- Name Index
- Subject Index
6 - Moral Influence on Others
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: A Problem with Kant’s Moral Anthropology
- I The Problem
- 1 The Asymmetry in Kant’s Conception of Freedom
- 2 Anthropology as an Empirical Science
- 3 The Moral Importance of Kant’s “Pragmatic” Anthropology
- 4 Moral Anthropology in Contemporary Neokantian Ethics
- II The Solution
- 5 Transcendental Idealism, Radical Evil, and Moral Anthropology
- 6 Moral Influence on Others
- Epilogue: Incorporating Moral Anthropology and Defending Kantian Moral Philosophy
- Notes
- References
- Index of Kant’s Works
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
In the previous chapter, I offered a Kantian account of the nature of the good will and its appearance in the world that makes sense of the moral significance of empirical helps and hindrances. The account offered there explains why promoting helps and combating hindrances to moral progress expresses a moral revolution, the only form of good will that remains possible for one who is radically evil. But many helps and hindrances do not seem to fit this model. When one struggles against passions because one recognizes that they are moral hindrances or when one enters into polite society because one knows that doing so can improve one's own moral disposition, one expresses a will in revolution by struggling against the radical evil in one's nature. But what is going on when a parent disciplines a child, or a teacher instructs a pupil morally, or when one is polite to present virtue in the most attractive light to others? In these cases one does not seem to struggle against one's own evil, so one seems not to express a will in revolution. And the child, or pupil, or those to whom one is polite are not necessarily struggling against evil themselves, so they may not be expressing a will in revolution. In these cases, the account in the previous chapter — if it can be relevant at all — seems to grossly misplace the moral significance of helps and hindrances.
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- Information
- Freedom and Anthropology in Kant's Moral Philosophy , pp. 136 - 162Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003