Martina Favaretto

Building on Kant’s text, I develop and defend an account of a specific kind of anger, which Kant calls “aesthetically sublime rage.” Unlike other kinds of anger, aesthetically sublime rage does not play a motivational function for the subject throughout the time she is feeling it. Because of this, aesthetically sublime rage escapes the problems that anger has when it motivates one to act. Despite not playing such a direct motivational function, aesthetically sublime rage can have an indirect motivational role that is future-directed. As such, it can help the subject achieve and realize moral ends in the future, when the rage subsides and proper reflection is more likely to be achieved. Indeed, the experience of aesthetically sublime rage a) can help the subject realize that she cares about pursuing moral progress; b) can spark in her critical inquiry about what such progress should entail; c) can prepare her to value something against her self-centered interest.

The recent developments of medical AI systems (MAIS) open up questions as to whether and to what extent MAIS can be modeled to include empathetic understanding, as well as what impact MAIS’ lack of empathetic understanding would have on its ability to perform the necessary critical analyses for reaching a diagnosis and recommending medical treatment. In this article, we argue that current medical AI systems’ ability to empathize with patients is severely limited due to its lack of first-person experiences with human interests and that efforts to correct for this deficit—by having MAIS interpret patients’ medical and non-medical interests—will encounter significant obstacles. Finally, we demonstrate how MAIS’ lack of empathy is likely to hinder its performance in crucial aspects of the processes through which useful medical diagnoses are reached and through which appropriate treatment recommendations for patients are determined.

In the Anthropology, Kant writes that both passions and affects impede reflection. However, he also holds that passions can be paired with reflection, while affects cannot. Stating that passions can both impede reflection and be paired with it seems to imply a contradiction. I seek to solve the problem by arguing that Kant is drawing on two notions of ‘reflection.’ The one kind of reflection consists in the ability to properly assess whether one should act from one’s affect or one’s passion in light of some normative standards. The other kind of reflection consists in the ability to explicitly endorse at least some of the more general maxims that underlie one’s maxim. In view of this distinction, I argue that the former kind is impeded by both passions and affects, while the latter kind is impeded by affects alone.

Building on Kant’s text, I develop and defend an account of a specific kind of anger, which Kant calls “aesthetically sublime rage”. Unlike other kinds of anger, aesthetically sublime rage does not play a motivational function for the subject throughout the time she is feeling rage. Because of this, aesthetically sublime rage escapes the problems that anger has when it motivates one to act. Despite not playing such a direct motivational function, aesthetically sublime rage can have an indirect motivational role that is future-directed. As such, it can help the subject achieve and realize moral ends in the future, when the rage subsides and proper reflection is more likely to be achieved. Indeed, the experience of aesthetically sublime rage a) can help the subject realize that she cares about pursuing moral progress; b) can spark in her critical inquiry about what such progress should entail; c) can prepare her to value something against her self-centered interest.

I focus on the relation between affects and the Incorporation Thesis in Kant’s ethics. I challenge the following view: According to Kant, when affects lead to action, the relation between one’s affect and one’s action is one of being caused to act by one’s affect in such a way that it leaves no room for choice by the agent. I argue that Kant’s text supports an alternative reading of how affects lead to action. On the view I propose, when affects lead to action, the relation between one’s affect and one’s action is such that one unreflectively chooses to act on a maxim adopted either for some implicit reason or for some explicit bad reason.