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Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Michael Cholbi
Affiliation:
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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References

Further Reading

Some of the argumentative strategy I use in this chapter has been greatly influenced by Mark Timmons. See in particular his Decisions procedures, moral criteria, and the problem of relevant descriptions in Kant’s ethics,” cited above, and chapter 8 of his book Moral Theory: An Introduction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). The essays in Herman, Barbara’s Practice of Moral Judgment (Harvard University Press, 1993), especially “Leaving deontology behind” and “Moral deliberation and the derivation of duties,” do much to dispel the impression of Kant as a deontologist in ethics. The ‘murderer at the door’ examples, and the ethics of lying more generally, have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. See in particular Korsgaard, Christine, “The right to lie: Kant on dealing with evil,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 15 (1986): 325349; Sedgwick, Sally, “On lying and the role of content in Kant’s ethics,” Kant-Studien 82 (1991): 4262; Mahon, James, “Kant on lies, candor, and reticence.” Kantian Review 7 (2003): 102133; and my own The murderer at the door: What Kant should have said,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (2009): 1746.

Further Reading

Denis, Lara, “Sex and the virtuous Kantian agent,” in Halwani, R. (ed.), Sex and Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 3748, provides an excellent overview and defense of Kant’s sexual ethics. Wood, Allen, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 224239, offers a compelling take on Kant’s sexual morality, drawing on Kant’s essay “Conjectural Beginning of Human History.” For other perspectives on Kant and marriage, see Schaff, Kory, “Kant, political liberalism, and the ethics of same-sex relations,” Journal of Social Philosophy 32 (2001): 446462, and Brake, Elizabeth, “Justice and virtue in Kant’s account of marriage,” Kantian Review 9 (2005): 5894. On suicide, my Kant and the irrationality of suicide,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 17:2 (2000): 159176, outlines Kant’s main argument for opposing suicide. I try to show how Kantians could defend self-interested suicide under a small number of conditions in “A Kantian defense of prudential suicide,” cited above. David Velleman defends a more orthodox Kantian view of the ethics of suicide in “A right of self-termination?,” cited above. For a useful discussion of how Kant’s views of animals are situated within his larger anthropological and biological theories, see Kain, Patrick, “Duties regarding animals,” in Denis, L. (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 210233. Some other valuable discussions of Kantian views of the moral status of animals include Denis, Lara, “Kant’s conception of duties regarding animals: Reconstruction and reconsideration,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 17 (2000): 405423; Timmerman, Jens, “When the tail wags the dog: Animal welfare and indirect duty in Kantian ethics,” Kantian Review 10 (2005): 124149; and my own A direct Kantian duty to animals,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 52 (2014): 338358.

Further Reading

For additional depictions of Kantian ethics (or Kant himself) as cold, aloof, or unconcerned with the particulars of human relations, see Langton, Rae, “Duty and desolation,” Philosophy 67 (1992): 481505, and Bencivenga, Ermanno, “Kant’s sadism,” Philosophy and Literature 20 (1996): 3946. Stratton-Lake, , Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth (Routledge, 2001) defends a similar view about moral worth and the motive of duty as I have here. Baron, Marcia’s Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology (Cornell, 1995) is a thorough and influential treatment of the place of duty in Kant’s ethics. Henson, Richard, “What Kant might have said: Moral worth and the overdetermination of dutiful action,” Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 3954, offers valuable metaphors for how Kantians might think about the conflict between moral and non-moral motives. Sedgwick, Sally, “Can Kant’s ethics survive the feminist critique?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1990): 6079, raises several of the worries addressed in this chapter from a feminist perspective. Baron, Marcia, “Virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, and the ‘one thought too many’ objection,” in Betzler, M. (ed.), Kant’s Ethics of Virtues (de Gruyter, 2008), is a thorough discussion of the worry that Kant’s ethics is too “impartialist” to allow for special concern or special obligations. On the concern that Kantian ethics does not respect individuals as such, see Dillon, Robin, “Respect and care: Toward moral integration,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992): 105132. Critiques of the place of reason in ethics include Stocker, Michael, “The schizophrenia of modern ethical theories,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976): 453466; Williams, Bernard, “Persons, character, and morality,” in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge, 1976) and Wolf’s “Moral saints,” 419–439. On the highest good, see Engstrom, Stephen, “The concept of the highest good in Kant’s moral theory,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1992): 747780, and Guyer, Paul, “From a practical point of view: Kant’s conception of a postulate of pure practical reason,” in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 333371.

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  • Part II
  • Michael Cholbi, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
  • Book: Understanding Kant's Ethics
  • Online publication: 27 January 2017
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  • Part II
  • Michael Cholbi, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
  • Book: Understanding Kant's Ethics
  • Online publication: 27 January 2017
Available formats
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  • Part II
  • Michael Cholbi, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
  • Book: Understanding Kant's Ethics
  • Online publication: 27 January 2017
Available formats
×