Download or read book Kant and the Cultivation of Virtue written by Chris W. Surprenant and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Chris W. Surprenant puts forward an original position concerning Kant’s practical philosophy and the intersection between his moral and political philosophy. Although Kant provides a detailed account of the nature of morality, the nature of human virtue, and how right manifests itself in civil society, he does not explain fully how individuals are able to become virtuous. This book aims to resolve this problem by showing how an individual is able to cultivate virtue, the aim of Kant’s practical philosophy. Through an examination of Kant’s accounts of autonomy, the state, and religion, and their effects on the cultivation of virtue, Surprenant develops a Kantian framework for moral education, and ultimately raises the question of whether or not Kantian virtue is possible in practice.
Download or read book Kant s Theory of Virtue written by Anne Margaret Baxley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-11 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy written by Paul Guyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-30 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophy of Immanuel Kant is the watershed of modern thought, which irrevocably changed the landscape of the field and prepared the way for all the significant philosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This 2006 volume, which complements The Cambridge Companion to Kant, covers every aspect of Kant's philosophy, with a particular focus on his moral and political philosophy. It also provides detailed coverage of Kant's historical context and of the enormous impact and influence that his work has had on the subsequent history of philosophy. The bibliography also offers extensive and organized coverage of both classical and recent books on Kant. This volume thus provides the broadest and deepest introduction currently available on Kant and his place in modern philosophy, making accessible the philosophical enterprise of Kant to those coming to his work for the first time.
Download or read book Kantian Virtue at the Intersection of Politics and Nature written by Scott Roulier and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination on how virtue is acquired in Kant''s ethics.In Kant''s philosophy, virtue is defined as the moral strength or resolve to adopt obligatory ends and to act upon only those maxims that can apply equally to all. But how is virtue acquired? To answer this question, this projectturns to Kant''s moral anthropology, broadly conceived, in which he considers those "subjective conditions in human nature" that both facilitate and hinder the quest for virtue.Tailored to the specific constitution of human beings,then, are a number of moral-anthropological strategies for strengthening and promoting moral principles. Drawing on Kant''s own discussions and the work of several contemporary interpreters this study identifies key approaches tocharacter formation. The central concern of the project, however, is to investigate the roles Kant suggests the larger social-political and natural settings -- that is, the dynamic and inspiring contexts of natural beauty, law andpolitical discourse -- play in the process of virtue acquisition. The story of politics'' and nature''s influence on virtue acquisition leads into intriguing and, given traditional understandings of Kant, unexpected territory.This study also takes up the question of reciprocal relations: Once acquired, What support, if any, does virtue provide for politics and nature? With the goal of highlighting what may be valuable in a Kantian approach tothe environment, the book assesses the workability of alternative ethical paradigms, e.g. bio- and ecocentric philosophies, and concludes that, while both schools of thought challenge anthropocentric assumptions in helpful ways, they are ultimately flawed. By engaging in this kind of critique, this study creates a plausibility structure for re-considering the merits of a Kantian approach. Scott Roulier is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyon College.tue acquisition. The story of politics'' and nature''s influence on virtue acquisition leads into intriguing and, given traditional understandings of Kant, unexpected territory.This study also takes up the question of reciprocal relations: Once acquired, What support, if any, does virtue provide for politics and nature? With the goal of highlighting what may be valuable in a Kantian approach tothe environment, the book assesses the workability of alternative ethical paradigms, e.g. bio- and ecocentric philosophies, and concludes that, while both schools of thought challenge anthropocentric assumptions in helpful ways, they are ultimately flawed. By engaging in this kind of critique, this study creates a plausibility structure for re-considering the merits of a Kantian approach. Scott Roulier is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyon College.tue acquisition. The story of politics'' and nature''s influence on virtue acquisition leads into intriguing and, given traditional understandings of Kant, unexpected territory.This study also takes up the question of reciprocal relations: Once acquired, What support, if any, does virtue provide for politics and nature? With the goal of highlighting what may be valuable in a Kantian approach tothe environment, the book assesses the workability of alternative ethical paradigms, e.g. bio- and ecocentric philosophies, and concludes that, while both schools of thought challenge anthropocentric assumptions in helpful ways, they are ultimately flawed. By engaging in this kind of critique, this study creates a plausibility structure for re-considering the merits of a Kantian approach. Scott Roulier is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyon College.tue acquisition. The story of politics'' and nature''s influence on virtue acquisition leads into intriguing and, given traditional understandings of Kant, unexpected territory.This study also takes up the question of reciprocal relations: Once acquired, What support, if any, does virtue provide for politics and nature? With the goal of highlighting what may be valuable in a Kantian approach tothe environment, the book assesses the workability of alternative ethical paradigms, e.g. bio- and ecocentric philosophies, and concludes that, while both schools of thought challenge anthropocentric assumptions in helpful ways, they are ultimately flawed. By engaging in this kind of critique, this study creates a plausibility structure for re-considering the merits of a Kantian approach. Scott Roulier is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyon College.pected territory.This study also takes up the question of reciprocal relations: Once acquired, What support, if any, does virtue provide for politics and nature? With the goal of highlighting what may be valuable in a Kantian approach tothe environment, the book assesses the workability of alternative ethical paradigms, e.g. bio- and ecocentric philosophies, and concludes that, while both schools of thought challenge anthropocentric assumptions in helpful ways, they are ultimately flawed. By engaging in this kind of critique, this study creates a plausibility structure for re-considering the merits of a Kantian approach. Scott Roulier is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lyon College.
Download or read book Cultivating Virtue written by Nancy E. Snow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though virtue ethics is enjoying a resurgence, the topic of virtue cultivation has been largely neglected by philosophers. This book features essays by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists at the forefront of research into virtue.--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Kant on Reflection and Virtue written by Melissa Merritt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new approach to Kant's conception of virtue which grounds it in his innovative account of reflection and cognitive agency.
Download or read book Kant s Metaphysics of Morals written by Lara Denis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-28 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals (1797), containing the Doctrine of Right and Doctrine of Virtue, is his final major work of practical philosophy. Its focus is not rational beings in general but human beings in particular, and it presupposes and deepens Kant's earlier accounts of morality, freedom and moral psychology. In this volume of newly-commissioned essays, a distinguished team of contributors explores the Metaphysics of Morals in relation to Kant's earlier works, as well as examining themes which emerge from the text itself. Topics include the relation between right and virtue, property, punishment, and moral feeling. Their diversity of questions, perspectives and approaches will provide new insights into the work for scholars in Kant's moral and political theory.
Download or read book Making a Necessity of Virtue written by Nancy Sherman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed analysis of Aristotelian and Kantian ethics together, remaining faithful to the texts and responsive to contemporary debates.
Download or read book Kant s Doctrine of Virtue written by Mark Timmons and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is a reader's guide to Kant's final work in moral philosophy, The Doctrine of Virtue - Part II of the 1797 Metaphysics of Morals. The guide has 5 parts plus a conclusion. Part I "Background" includes two chapters: 1. "Life and Work" and 2. "Philosophical Background." Part II, "General Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals" covers the introduction to the entire work whose content is crucial for understanding the text. This part contains three chapters: 3. "On the Idea of and Necessity for a Metaphysics of Morals", 4. Mental Faculties, the Moral Law, and Human Motivation," and 5. "Preliminary Concepts and Division of the Metaphysics of Morals." Part III, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue," includes four chapters that cover Kant's dedicated introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: 6. "The Doctrine of Virtue as a Doctrine of Ends," 7. "General Ends that are also Duties," 8. Radical Evil and the Nature of Virtue," and 9. "The Science of Ethics." Part IV is devoted to Kant's system of duties of virtue that represents his normative ethical theory. It contains five chapters: 10. "Perfect Duties to Oneself as an Animal Being," 11. "Perfect Duties to Oneself as a Moral Being," 12. Imperfect Duties to Oneself," 13. "Duties of Love to Other Human Beings," 14. "The Vices of Hatred and Disrespect," and 15. "Friendship." Part V "The Doctrine of Methods of Ethics and Conclusion" includes chapter 16 "Moral Education and Practice." The book's conclusion reflects on the significance of the Doctrine of Virtue for understanding Kant's ethics"--
Download or read book Moral Cultivation written by Brad Wilburn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given that morality involves being a good person, an important issue for moral thinkers is moral cultivation, or our projects aimed at becoming better people. In explaining this issue, the authors collected in this book bring to bear various traditions of moral thought to address questions about what constitutes moral cultivation and what resources and methods we have at our disposal for engaging in these projects.
Download or read book The Virtues of Freedom written by Paul Guyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays collected in this volume by Paul Guyer, one of the world's foremost Kant scholars, explore Kant's attempt to develop a morality grounded on the intrinsic and unconditional value of the human freedom to set our own ends. When regulated by the principle that the freedom of all is equally valuable, the freedom to set our own ends — what Kant calls "humanity" - becomes what he calls autonomy. These essays explore Kant's strategies for establishing the premise that freedom is the inner worth of the world or the essential end of humankind, as he says, and for deriving the specific duties that fundamental principle of morality generates in the empirical circumstances of human existence. The Virtues of Freedom further investigates Kant's attempts to prove that we are always free to live up to this moral ideal, that is, that we have free will no matter what, as well as his more successful explorations of the ways in which our natural tendencies to be moral — dispositions to the feeling of respect and more specific feelings such as love and self-esteem — can and must be cultivated and educated. Guyer finally examines the various models of human community that Kant develops from his premise that our associations must be based on the value of freedom for all. The contrasts but also similarities of Kant's moral philosophy to that of David Hume but many of his other predecessors and contemporaries, such as Stoics and Epicureans, Pufendorf and Wolff, Hutcheson, Kames, and Smith, are also explored.
Download or read book Kant s Ethics of Virtue written by Monika Betzler and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his Metaphysics of Morals (particularly in the Doctrine of Virtue), but also in other late works, Kant extends and refines the content of his earlier works on ethics (Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason) to a considerable extent. These revisions and extensions not only show the limitations of an exclusive interpretation of Kant’s ethics as a deontological ethics of principles. His thoughts are also relevant for a large number of questions of theoretical morality currently under discussion. Thus, the distinction drawn in the Doctrine of Virtue between perfect and imperfect obligations informs the problem of the solvability of moral conflicts and the role of supererogatory actions. Kant goes further into the question of what it means to be a good person, what moral significance is contained in close human ties such as friendship, and what role is played by happiness and the so-called obligations towards oneself. The papers each discuss Kant’s central ideas in the context of his earlier writings, but also within the context of our contemporary ethical debates. Thus attention is drawn to the significance and possible extent of an ethics of virtue understood in the Kantian sense.
Download or read book Kant and the Ethics of Humility written by Jeanine Grenberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Kant s Conception of Moral Character written by G. Felicitas Munzel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently fashionable among critics of enlightenment thought is the charge that Kant's ethics fails to provide an adequate account of character and its formation in moral and political life. G. Felicitas Munzel challenges this reading of Kant's thought, claiming not only that Kant has a very rich notion of moral character, but also that it is a conception of systematic importance for his thought, linking the formal moral with the critical, aesthetic, anthropological, and biological aspects of his philosophy. The first book to focus on character formation in Kant's moral philosophy, it builds on important recent work on Kant's aesthetics and anthropology, and brings these to bear on moral issues. Munzel traces Kant's multifaceted definition of character through the broad range of his writings, and then explores the structure of character, its actual exercise in the world, and its cultivation. An outstanding work of original textual analysis and interpretation, Kant's Conception of Moral Character is a major contribution to Kant studies and moral philosophy in general.
Download or read book Ethics and Self Cultivation written by Matthew Dennis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of Ethics and Self-Cultivation is to establish and explore a new ‘cultivation of the self’ strand within contemporary moral philosophy. Although the revival of virtue ethics has helped reintroduce the eudaimonic tradition into mainstream philosophical debates, it has by and large been a revival of Aristotelian ethics combined with a modern preoccupation with standards for the moral rightness of actions. The essays comprising this volume offer a fresh approach to the eudaimonic tradition: instead of conditions for rightness of actions, it focuses on conceptions of human life that are best for the one living it. The first section of essays looks at the Hellenistic schools and the way they influenced modern thinkers like Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Hadot, and Foucault in their thinking about self-cultivation. The second section offers contemporary perspectives on ethical self-cultivation by drawing on work in moral psychology, epistemology of self-knowledge, philosophy of mind, and meta-ethics.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Virtue written by Nancy E. Snow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 905 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a renaissance in the study of virtue -- a topic that has prevailed in philosophical work since the time of Aristotle. Several major developments have conspired to mark this new age. Foremost among them, some argue, is the birth of virtue ethics, an approach to ethics that focuses on virtue in place of consequentialism (the view that normative properties depend only on consequences) or deontology (the study of what we have a moral duty to do). The emergence of new virtue theories also marks this new wave of work on virtue. Put simply, these are theories about what virtue is, and they include Kantian and utilitarian virtue theories. Concurrently, virtue ethics is being applied to other fields where it hasn't been used before, including bioethics and education. In addition to these developments, the study of virtue in epistemological theories has become increasingly widespread to the point that it has spawned a subfield known as 'virtue epistemology.' This volume therefore provides a representative overview of philosophical work on virtue. It is divided into seven parts: conceptualizations of virtue, historical and religious accounts, contemporary virtue ethics and theories of virtue, central concepts and issues, critical examinations, applied virtue ethics, and virtue epistemology. Forty-two chapters by distinguished scholars offer insights and directions for further research. In addition to philosophy, authors also deal with virtues in non-western philosophical traditions, religion, and psychological perspectives on virtue.
Download or read book Kant on Mind Action and Ethics written by Julian Wuerth and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Julian Wuerth offers a radically new interpretation of Kant's theories of mind, action, and ethics. As the author of a Copernican revolution in philosophy, Kant grounded his philosophy in his positive theory of the mind, which remains an enigma two centuries later. Wuerth's original interpretation of Kant's theory of mind consults a far wider range of Kant's recorded thought than previous interpretations, revealing a fascinating evolution in Kant's thought in the decades before and after his 1781 Critique. Starting in the 1760s, Kant recognized the unique status of our epistemic contact to ourselves. This is the sole instance of our immediate epistemic contact with a substance, of being a substance, and it is the sole instance of epistemic contact with something other than the particular states of inner sense. Contrary to empiricists, Kant thus rejects the reduction of the self to a bundle of mental states of inner sense. But Kant also rejects the rational psychologists' assumption that the souls substantiality and simplicity implies its permanence, incorruptibility, and immortality. As Kant developed his transcendental idealism, he eventually pinpointed the source of their errors, a source neither unique to a particular, historical school, nor random. It is instead a deep, natural, and timeless transcendental confusion. Kants new account of substance allows him to draw new distinctions in kind between sensibility and understanding and between phenomenal and noumenal substance, setting the stage for a transcendental argument that only at the phenomenal level do substantiality and simplicity imply permanence and incorruptibility. Wuerth next undertakes a groundbreaking study of Kant's theory of action and ethics. He first maps Kant's notoriously vast and complex system of the minds powers, drawing on all of Kant's recorded thought. This system structures Kant's philosophy as a whole and so provides crucial insights into this whole and its parts, including Kant's theory of action, a persisting stumbling block for interpreters of Kant's ethics. Wuerth demonstrates that Kant rejects intellectualist theories of action that reduce practical agents to pure reason. We are instead irreducibly both intellectual and sensible, exercising a power of choice, or Willkür, subject to two irreducible conative currencies, moral motives and sensible incentives, as Kant makes clear long before his 1785 Groundwork. Immoral choices at odds with the former can thus nonetheless be coherent choices in harmony with the latter. Wuerth applies these new findings about Kant's theory of mind and action to an analysis of the foundations of Kant's ethics. He rejects the dominant constructivist interpretation in favor of a moral realist one. At the heart of Kant's Enlightenment ethics is his insistence that the authority of the moral law ultimately rests in our recognition of its authority. Kant guides us to this recognition of the authority of the moral law, across his works in ethics and his various formulations of the moral law, using a single elimination of sensibility procedure. Here Kant systematically rejects the pretenses of sensibility to isolate reason and its insights into moral right and wrong. Precisely because immoral choice remains a coherent alternative, however, moral virtue demands our ongoing cultivation of our capacities for cognition, feeling, desire, and character.
