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Dropping the debt: a new conundrum in Kant's rational religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2017

STEWART CLEM
STEWART CLEM*
Affiliation:
Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, 130 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
*
e-mail: sclem@nd.edu
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Abstract

In this article, I argue that Immanuel Kant fails to provide a satisfactory account of ‘moral debt’ in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. More precisely, he fails to answer the question of why we should assume that a debt exists in the first place. In light of recent scholarship on this area of his thought, I sketch some possible readings of Kant on the nature of moral transformation that suggest how he might account for this debt. I then argue that these accounts fail to justify its existence within Kant's project.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 131 - 145
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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