•  54
    In this paper I argue that Kant’s psychology of moral motivation has less in common with Hutcheson’s view than interpreters have traditionally thought. I first offer an interpretation of the role that feeling, desire, and cognition play in Kant’s account of moral action. I then outline the essential features of Hutcheson’s understanding of desire before arguing that although Kant and Hutcheson share the trivial similarity that even moral action springs from a desire, Kant conceives of the desire…Read more
  •  154
    Kant’s Critique of Wolff’s Dogmatic Method: Comments on Gava
    Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 4 (3): 233-243. 2023.
    In Chapter 8 of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics, one of Gabriele Gava’s aims is to argue that Kant’s critique of Wolff’s dogmatic method has two levels: one directed against Wolff’s metaphilosophical views and one attacking his actual procedures of argument. After providing a brief summary of the main claims Gava makes in Chapter 8 of his book, in this paper I argue two things. First, I argue against Gava’s claim that the two forms of dogmatism he distinguishes betwe…Read more
  •  111
    Wolff on the Duty to Cognize Good and Evil
    In Sonja Schierbaum, Michael Walschots & John Walsh (eds.), Christian Wolff's German Ethics: New Essays, Oxford University Press. 2024.
    In this chapter I offer an account of the nature, scope, and significance of Wolff’s claim that human beings have a duty to cognize moral good and evil. I illustrate that Wolff conceives of this duty as requiring that human beings both acquire distinct cognition of good and evil as well as avoid ignorance and error. Although Wolff intends for the duty to be quite demanding, he restricts its scope by, among other things, claiming it primarily concerns those who have the skills, circumstances, and…Read more
  •  145
    Our aim in this paper is to present the distinct ways in which Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant understand the relationship between necessitation, constraint, and reluctant action in an effort to illustrate the subtle ways in which their conceptions of obligation differ from each another. Whereas Wolff conceives of natural or moral obligation as incompatible with constraint, Baumgarten holds that constraint and reluctant action are, in some instances, compatible with natural obligation. Kant departs …Read more
  • Christian Wolff's German Ethics: New Essays (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2024.
    This is a collection of sixteen essays by a diverse group of international scholars that offers a wide-ranging and contemporary perspective on the major aspects of Christian Wolff’s ethics. The volume focuses on Wolff’s German Ethics, arguably his most important and influential text on moral philosophy, but many of the chapters also consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff’s moral theory in his later Latin writings. The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic…Read more
  •  117
    Incentives of the Mind: Kant and Baumgarten on the Impelling Causes of Desire
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. forthcoming.
    In this paper I propose to shed new light on the role of feeling in Kant’s psychology of moral motivation by focusing on the concept of an incentive (Triebfeder), a term he borrowed from one of his most important rationalist predecessors, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. I argue that, similar to Baumgarten, Kant understands an incentive to refer to the ground of desire and that feelings function as a specific kind of ground within Kant’s psychology of moral action, namely as the ‘impelling cause’ …Read more
  •  11
    In this paper I critically engage with Pauline Kleingeld’s ‘volitional self-contradiction’ interpretation of Kant’s formula of universal law. I make three remarks: first, I seek to clarify what it means for a contradiction to be volitional as opposed to logical; second, I suggest that her interpretation might need to be closer to Korsgaard’s ‘practical contradiction’ interpretation than she thinks; and third, I suggest that more work needs to be done to explain how a volitional self-contradictio…Read more
  •  161
    Kant claims that love ‘is a matter of feeling,’ which has led many of his interpreters to argue that he conceives of love as solely a matter of feeling, that is, as a purely pathological state. In this paper I challenge this reading by taking another one of Kant’s claims seriously, namely that all love is either benevolence or complacence and that both are rational. I place Kant’s distinction between benevolence and complacence next to the historical inspiration for it, namely Francis Hutcheson’…Read more
  •  16
    Kant's Critique of Practical Reason: Background Source Materials (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2024.
    Kant did not initially intend to write the Critique of Practical Reason, let alone three Critiques. It was primarily the reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason and the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that encouraged Kant to develop his moral philosophy in the second Critique. This volume presents both new and first-time English translations of texts written by Kant’s predecessors and contemporaries that he read and responded to in the Critique of Practical Reason. It also includes seve…Read more
  •  238
    Lambert über die Moral und den moralischen Schein
    In Hans-Peter Nowitzki, Enrico Pasini, Paola Rumore & Gideon Stiening (eds.), Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) : Wege zur Mathematisierung der Aufklärung, De Gruyter. pp. 289-300. 2022.
    This chapter illustrates that Lambert’s works focus not only on mathematical and scientific topics but include reflections on issues in practical philosophy as well. I illustrate, first, that Lamber conceives of moral science [Moral] as the theory of moral judgement and, second, that an important part of this science illustrates how we are to distinguish moral truth from moral illusion.
  •  640
    Kant's Lectures on Ethics
    In Julian Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 760-766. 2021.
  •  124
    Sympathy
    In Julian Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 427-429. 2021.
  •  102
    Instinct
    In Julian Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 249-250. 2021.
  •  163
    Garve's Eudaimonism
    In Udo Roth & Gideon Stiening (eds.), Christian Garve (1742–1798): Philosoph und Philologe der Aufklärung, De Gruyter. pp. 171-182. 2021.
    In this chapter I evaluate whether Garve was a ‘eudaimonist’, as Kant famously alleged he was. In the first sections of the paper I clarify that eudaimonism can mean either that happiness is the final end of creation, or that human beings are always motived by the desire for happiness, and I discuss Garve’s engagement with Aristotle’s understanding of eudaimonia. I then provide an account of Garve’s understanding of happiness and discuss his theory of motivation before arguing that Garve believe…Read more
  •  184
    Crusius on Freedom of the Will
    In Frank Grunert & Andree Hahmann (eds.), Christian August Crusius (1715-1775): Philosophy Between Reason and Revelation, De Gruyter. pp. 189-208. 2021.
    This chapter offers an account of Crusius’ conception of freedom. In the first part of the chapter I sketch Crusius’ understanding of ‘Thelematology’ or ‘science of the will’ and his conception of the will itself. In the second part of the paper I provide an account of Crusius’ conception of freedom of the will and I focus on two topics: his understanding of freedom as self-determination and his conception of free choice. Contrary to how some of the secondary literature portrays his view, I argu…Read more
  •  156
    Review of: Simon Grote, The Emergence of Modern Aesthetic Theory: Religion and Morality in Enlightenment Germany and Scotland, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  •  122
    Review of two recent works on J.G.H. Feder: Johann Georg Heinrich Feder. Ausgewählte Schriften. Hrgb. Von Hans-Peter Nowitzki, Udo Roth, Gideon Stiening. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. Werkprofile Band 9. and Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (1740-1821): Empirismus und Popularphilosophie Zwischen Wolff und Kant. Hrgb. Von Hans-Peter Nowitzki, Udo Roth, Gideon Stiening. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. Werkprofile Band 10.
  •  116
    Editorial: New Perspectives on Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy
    Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20 (2). 2022.
    Guest Editor's Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy exploring 'New Perspectives on Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy'. The purpose of the special issue is to explore aspects of Hutcheson’s moral philosophy that have not received a great deal of attention in the past and to thereby illustrate that his contributions to the history of ethics are far richer than the current secondary literature suggests.
  •  313
    Kant and the Duty to Act from Duty
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 39 (1): 59-75. 2022.
    Several interpreters argue that Kant believes we have a duty to act “from duty.” If there is such a duty, however, then Kant's moral theory faces a serious problem, namely that of an allegedly vicious infinite regress of duties. No serious attempt has been made to determine how Kant might respond to this problem and insufficient work has been done to determine whether he even believes we have a duty to act from duty. In this paper I argue that not only does Kant not hold that there is a duty to …Read more
  •  395
    Hutcheson's Theory of Obligation
    Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20 (2): 121-142. 2022.
    In this article I argue that Hutcheson has a theory of obligation that is different in important ways from the views of his predecessors and that his theory may not be as problematic as critics have claimed. In section (I) I sketch a brief picture of the rich conceptual landscape surrounding the concept of obligation in the Early Modern period. I focus on the five figures Hutcheson explicitly references: Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, their French translator and commentator Jean Barbeyrac, as w…Read more
  •  501
    Achtung in Kant and Smith
    Kant Studien 113 (2): 238-268. 2022.
    This paper argues that Kant’s concept of ‘respect’ for the moral law has roots in Adam Smith’s concept of ‘regard’ for the general rules of conduct, which was translated as Achtung in the first German translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. After illustrating that Kant’s technical understanding of respect appeared relatively late in his intellectual development, I argue that Kant’s concept of respect and Smith’s concept of regard share a basic similarity: they are both a single complex ph…Read more
  •  271
    In the first ever commentary on the Groundwork, one of Kant’s earliest critics, Gottlob August Tittel, argues that the categorical imperative is not a new principle of morality, but merely a new formula. This objection has been unjustly neglected in the secondary literature, despite the fact that Kant explicitly responds to it in a footnote in the second Critique. In this paper I seek to offer a thorough explanation of both Tittel’s ‘new formula’ objection and Kant’s response to it, as well as i…Read more
  •  321
    Kant’s Conception of Selbstzufriedenheit
    In Violetta L. Waibel, Margit Ruffing & David Wagner (eds.), Natur und Freiheit. Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, De Gruyter. pp. 2249-2256. 2018.
    My aim in this paper is to clarify Kant’s conception of self-contentment, which is a particular kind of satisfaction associated with being a virtuous person. I do so by placing the term in the context of Kant’s answer to an objection made by Kant’s contemporary Christian Garve, namely the objection that if virtuous action is accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction, then virtuous action might only performed in order to experience this feeling of satisfaction . I begin by illustrating the main f…Read more
  •  1130
    Kant and Consequentialism in Context: The Second Critique’s Response to Pistorius
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 103 (2): 313-340. 2021.
    Commentators disagree about the extent to which Kant’s ethics is compatible with consequentialism. A question that has not yet been asked is whether Kant had a view of his own regarding the fundamental difference between his ethical theory and a broadly consequentialist one. In this paper I argue that Kant does have such a view. I illustrate this by discussing his response to a well-known objection to his moral theory, namely that Kant offers an implicitly consequentialist theory of moral apprai…Read more
  •  44
    Moral Sense Theory and the Development of Kant's Ethics
    Dissertation, University of Western Ontario. 2016.
    This dissertation investigates a number of ways in which an eighteenth century British philosophical movement known as “moral sense theory” influenced the development of German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) moral theory. I illustrate that Kant found both moral sense theory’s conception of moral judgement and its conception of moral motivation appealing during the earliest stage of his philosophical development, but eventually came to reject its conception of moral judgement, though eve…Read more