•  5
    Against a widely-held interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy, according to which Kant holds that all finite rational beings have an innate right to freedom as well as a duty to enter into a civil condition governed by a social contract in order to preserve that freedom, Robert Hanna contends that Kant is in fact an anarchist. Hanna’s argument for his novel thesis that Kant ultimately views the State as an unjustifiably coercive institution that should be eliminated depends heavily on the …Read more
  •  67
    Pleasure, freedom and grace: Schiller's “completion” of Kant's ethics
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (1). 2008.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  31
    The Beautiful Soul and the Autocratic Agent: Schiller's and Kant's "Children of the House"
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (4): 493-514. 2003.
    In his extended essay "On Grace and Dignity," Friedrich Schiller sets out an important challenge to Kant when he argues that sensibility must play a constitutive role in the ethical life. This paper argues that there is much we can learn from Schiller's "corrective" to Kant's moral theory and Kant's reply to this critique, for what is at stake in their debate are rival conceptions of the proper state of moral health for us as finite rational beings and competing political notions concerning the …Read more
  • Kant's Theory of Virtue: The Importance of Autocracy
    Dissertation, University of California, San Diego. 2000.
    Focusing on the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason, historical and contemporary critics of Kant's rationalist ethical theory accuse him of holding an impoverished moral psychology and an inadequate account of character and virtue. Kant's sharp contrast between duty and inclination and his claim that only action from duty possesses moral worth appear to imply that pro-moral inclination is unnecessary for, if perhaps compatible with, a good will. On traditional accounts of virtue, how…Read more
  •  25
    Review: Johnson, Robert N., Self-Improvement: An Essay in Kantian Ethics (review)
    Kantian Review 20 (1): 133-137. 2015.
    Book Reviews Anne Margaret Baxley, Kantian Review, FirstView Article
  •  96
    Autocracy and autonomy
    Kant Studien 94 (1): 1-23. 2003.
  •  119
    The price of virtue
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (4). 2007.
    Aristotle famously held that there is a crucial difference between the person who merely acts rightly and the person who is wholehearted in what she does. He captures this contrast by insisting on a distinction between continence and full virtue. One way of accounting for the important difference here is to suppose that, for the genuinely virtuous person, the requirements of virtue "silence" competing reasons for action. I argue that the silencing interpretation is not compelling. As Aristotle r…Read more
  •  96
    Kant's Theory of Virtue: The Value of Autocracy
    Cambridge University Press. 2010.
    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 clai…Read more
  •  46
    Does Kantian Virtue Amount to More than Continence?
    Review of Metaphysics 56 (3). 2003.
    This account of the good will has struck many readers as counterintuitive. Whereas Kant seems to think that the person in whom a sense of duty must overcome indifference or contrary inclination can and does display a good will, our intuitions about human goodness suggest that there is something deficient or lacking in the grudging agent. Aristotle, for example, would think that the grudging moralist displays continence, rather than virtue, because he thinks it is the mark of the virtuous person …Read more
  •  92
    The Problem of Obligation, the Finite Rational Will, and Kantian Value Realism
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (6): 567-583. 2012.
    Abstract Robert Stern's Understanding Moral Obligation is a remarkable achievement, representing an original reading of Kant's contribution to modern moral philosophy and the legacy he bequeathed to his later-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century successors in the German tradition. On Stern's interpretation, it was not the threat to autonomy posed by value realism, but the threat to autonomy posed by the obligatory nature of morality that led Kant to develop his critical moral theory grounded…Read more
  •  129
    Kantian virtue
    Philosophy Compass 2 (3). 2007.
    Kant's most familiar and widely read works in practical reason are the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788). His principal aims in these works are to analyze the nature and ground of morality and to justify its supreme principle (the categorical imperative). Nevertheless, in these texts, Kant also paints a picture of what it means to have a good will or good character, and it is this account of the good will and the associated theory of moral…Read more
  •  587
    Virtue, self-mastery, and the autocracy of practical reason
    In Lara Denis & Oliver Sensen (eds.), Kant’s Lectures on Ethics: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. pp. 223-238. 2014.
    As analysis of Kant’s account of virtue in the Lectures on Ethics shows that Kant thinks of virtue as a form of moral self-mastery or self-command that represents a model of self-governance he compares to an autocracy. In light of the fact that the very concept of virtue presupposes struggle and conflict, Kant insists that virtue is distinct from holiness and that any ideal of moral perfection that overlooks the fact that morality is always difficult for us fails to provide an appropriate model …Read more
  •  109
    The Aesthetics of Morality: Schiller’s Critique of Kantian Rationalism
    Philosophy Compass 5 (12): 1084-1095. 2010.
    Philosophers often mention Friedrich Schiller as the author of a famous epigram taking aim at Kant’s account of moral motivation: Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. To this, the answer is given: Surely, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, And then with aversion do what your duty enjoins. These joking lines capture a natural objection to Kant’s rationalist picture of moral motivation, especia…Read more
  •  62
    Review: Wood, Kantian ethics
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 47 (4). 2009.
    Kantian Ethics aims to develop a defensible theory of ethics on the basis of Kantian principles. Its primary focus is Kantian ethics, not Kant scholarship or interpretation. The book fulfills a promise of Wood’s earlier book, Kant’s Ethical Thought , by developing a Kantian conception of virtue and theory of moral duties in greater detail, and it goes beyond Wood’s previous work on Kant’s ethics in offering extended treatments of substantive moral issues, such as social justice, sexual morality,…Read more
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