Mark Timmons

Moral judgments are typically experienced as being categorically authoritative – i.e. as having a prescriptive force that is motivationally gripping independently of both conventional norms and one's pre-existing desires, and justificationally trumps both conventional norms and one's pre-existing desires. We argue that this key feature is best accommodated by the meta-ethical position we call ‘cognitivist expressivism’, which construes moral judgments as sui generis psychological states whose distinctive phenomenological character includes categorical authoritativeness. Traditional versions of expressivism cannot easily accommodate the justificationally trumping aspect of categorical authoritativeness, because they construe moral judgments as fundamentally desire-like. Moral realism cannot easily accommodate the aspect of inherent motivational grip, because realism construes moral judgments as a species of factual belief.

For Kant, moral evil of all sorts - evil that is rooted in a person's character - is manifested in action which, on the one hand, is explicable in terms of an agent's own reasons for action and so imputable, though on the other hand it is, in some sense, irrational. Because such evil is rooted in a person's character, it "corrupts the ground of all maxims" and thus deserves to be called radical evil. Moreover, according to Kant, not only are human beings susceptible to such evil, being evil is an inescapable condition of being human. These claims raise a number of questions, among them the following: How can we ecxplain the possibility of irrational, yet explicable, freely done actions given Kant's views about human agency? What is the nature of radical evil? In what sense is it a corrupting ground of all maxims? What reason does Kant have for claiming that radical evil is an inescapable part of the human condition? In this paper, I focus on these questions. Sections I and II are concerned with some basic themes and distinctions pertaining to Kant's theory of action and practical rationality that will provide a basis for understanding his view of moral evil. In section III, I turn to Kant's analysis of moral evil in its varios manifestations in order to provide, in section IV, a general charcterization of moral evil. In section V, I consider Kant's claim that radical evils corrupts the ground of all maxims, and what this claim implies about the possibility of actions having moral worth. In section VI, I want to consider what we can call Kant's Universality Thesis, viz., his claim that necessarily all human beings are radically evil. In his recent book, Kant's Theory of Freedom, Henry Allison has argued that the UT represents a synthetic a priori claim, and he proceeds to provide a 'deduction' for it, something that Kant failed to do. I argue that Allison's deduction does not work, though I am afraid I don't have a deduction of my own to propose on Kant's behalf, nor do I see how to reconcile Kant's own defense of the UT with its alleged a priori status. Kant's UT remains problematic. Für Kant manifestiert sich das moralisch Böse in allen seinen Varianten - das Böse nämlich, das im Charakter einer Person wurzelt - in Handlungen, die auf der einen Seite vom eigenen Standpunkt des Handelnden her expliziert werden können und die deshalb zurechenbar sind, die aber auf der anderen Seite in einer gewissen Hinsicht als irrational bezeichnet werden müssen. Weil das Böse im Charakter der Person wurzelt, "verdirbt es den Grund aller Maximen" und verdient deshalb "das radikal Böse" genannt zu werden. Darüber hinaus sind menschliche Wesen nach Kant nicht nur für das Böse anfällig, es ist vielmehr unentrinnbar menschliches Schicksal, böse zu sein. Diese Thesen werfen eine Reihe von Fragen auf, unter ihnen die folgenden: Wie läßt sich, Kants Auffassungen über die Natur menschlichen Handelns vorausgesetzt, die Möglichkeit irrationalen, aber gleichwohl vom Standpunkt des Handelnden her explizierbaren und also freien Handelns erklären? Was ist das Wesen des radikal Bösen? In welchem Sinne verdirbt es den Grund aller Maximen? Warum behauptet Kant, das radikal Böse sei unentrinnbares Schicksal des Menschen? Der Beitrag ist diesen Fragen gewidmet. Er befaßt sich zuerst mit einigen Grundfragen und Grundunterscheidungen von Kants Handlungstheorie und seiner Theorie der praktischen Vernunft. Das erlaubt uns, Kants Auffassungen über das moralisch Böse zu verstehen. Abschnitt III wendet sich Kants Analyse des moralisch Bösen in seinen verschiedenen Ausprägungen zu, um auf dieser Grundlage eine allgemeine Charakterisierung des moralisch Bösen geben zu können. Abschnitt V befaßt sich mit Kants Behauptung, das radikal Böse verderbe den Grund aller Maximen, und mit ihren Implikationen für die Frage nach dem moralischen Wert von Handlungen überhaupt. In Abschnitt VI geht es um das, was man "Kants Universalitätsthese" nennen kann, d.i. seine Behauptung, menschliche Wesen seien notwendigerweise radikal böse. In seinem jüngst erschienenen Werk über Kant's Theory of Freedom vertritt Henry Allison die Meinung, UT enthalte einen synthetischen Satz a priori, und er legt eine "Ableitung" von UT vor, was Kant nicht getan hat. Ich versuche zu zeigen, daß Allisons Ableitung nicht schlüssig ist, obwohl ich - leider - keine eigene Deduktion anbieten kann, die Kants These stützt, noch einen Weg sehe, Kants eigene Verteidigung von UT mit ihrem angeblich apriorischen Status in Übereinstimmung zu bringen. Kants UT bleibt problematisch.

In the past 25 years or so, the issue of ethical universalizability has figured prominently in theoretical as well as practical ethics. The term, 'universaliz ability' used in connection with ethical considerations, was apparently first introduced in the mid-1950s by R. M. Hare to refer to what he characterized as a logical thesis about certain sorts of evaluative sentences (Hare, 1955). The term has since been used to cover a broad variety of ethical considerations including those associated with the ideas of impartiality, consistency, justice, equality, and reversibility as well as those raised in the familar questions: 'What if everyone did that?' and 'How would you like it if someone did that to you? But this recent effloresence of the use of the term 'universalizability' is something that has deep historical roots, and has been central in various forms to the thinking about morality of some of the greatest and most influential philosophers in the western tradition. While the term is relatively new, the ideas it is now used to express have a long history. Most of these ideas and questions have been or can be formulated into a principle to be discussed, criticized, or defended. As we discuss these ideas below this prin ciple will be stated on a separate numbered line. The concepts of justice and equality were closely linked in Greek thought. These connections between these two concepts are apparent even in two authors who were hostile to the connection, Plato and Aristotle.

CONDUCT AND CHARACTER is a concise anthology of readings in ethical theory that covers the major schools of thought as well as a handful of fundamental topics in ethical theory. Reading selections in the chapters provide coverage of both classical and contemporary philosophical writings, representing a spectrum of viewpoints on each theory or topic. The readings include brief introductions to assist students in identifying key ideas and have been selected and edited in order to optimize student comprehension. This collection is perfect for ethics courses that focus on theory, as well as a supplementary text for applied ethics courses. Because of short, self-contained chapters it also works very well for an ethics component in introductory philosophy courses

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and that categorical imperatives are synthetic. This claim plays a crucial role in Kant’s attempt to establish moral ‘oughts’ as categorically binding on all rational agents, for by classifying moral statements according to this distinction, Kant hopes to uncover the sort of justification required to establish such statements. However, Kant’s application of the analytic/ synthetic distinction to imperatives is problematic. For one thing, this distinction was developed by Kant in connection with indicative, subject-predicate statements, which would seem to cast doubt on the idea that imperatives can be either analytic or synthetic. Moreover, Kant’s claim that hypothetical imperatives are analytic and categorical imperatives are synthetic seems to conflict with other claims in his moral works. For example, in the Groundwork, Kant claims that hypothetical imperatives are unproblematic since they can be established on the basis of experience. But this is incompatible with the idea that hypothetical imperatives are analytic, since presumably all analytic statements are a priori — established independently of experience.

Moral phenomenology is concerned with the elements of one's moral experiences that are generally available to introspection. Some philosophers argue that one's moral experiences, such as experiencing oneself as being morally obligated to perform some action on some occasion, contain elements that (1) are available to introspection and (2) carry ontological objectivist purportargument from phenomenological introspection.neutrality thesisthe phenomenological data regarding one's moral experiences that is available to introspection is neutral with respect to the issue of whether such experiences carry ontological objectivist purport

According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan Haidt. One important implication of Haidt’s model is that in giving reasons for their moral judgments people tend to confabulate – the reasons they give in attempting to explain their moral judgments are not really operative in producing those judgments. Moral reason-giving on Haidt’s view is generally a matter of post hoc confabulation. Against Haidt, we argue for a version of rationalism that we call ‘morphological rationalism.’ We label our version ‘morphological’ because according to it, the information contained in moral principles is embodied in the standing structure of a typical individual’s cognitive system, and this morphologically embodied information plays a causal role in the generation of particular moral judgments. The manner in which the principles play this role is via ‘proceduralization’ – such principles operate automatically. In contrast to Haidt’s intuitionism, then, our view does not imply that people’s moral reason-giving practices are matters of confabulation. In defense of our view, we appeal to what we call the ‘nonjarring’ character of the phenomenology of making moral judgments and of giving reasons for those judgments.

Metaethics, understood as a distinct branch of ethics, is often traced to G. E. Moore's 1903 classic, Principia Ethica. Whereas normative ethics is concerned to answer first order moral questions about what is good and bad, right and wrong, metaethics is concerned to answer second order non-moral questions about the semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and discourse. Moore has continued to exert a powerful influence, and the sixteen essays here represent the most up-to-date work in metaethics after, and in some cases directly inspired by, the work of Moore.

For over thirty years, Robert Audi has produced important work in ethics, epistemology, and the theory of action. This volume features thirteen new critical essays on Audi by a distinguished group of authors: Fred Adams, William Alston, Laurence BonJour, Roger Crisp, Elizabeth Fricker, Bernard Gert, Thomas Hurka, Hugh McCann, Al Mele, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Raimo Tuomela, Candace Vogler, and Timothy Williamson. Audi's introductory essay provides a thematic overview interconnecting his views in ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of action. The volume concludes with his comprehensive response essay that yields an illuminating dialog with all his critics and often extends his previous work.