Sorin Baiasu

Although an examination of Kant's justification of various (especially practical) norms is under way in the literature and most of the Kantians have something to say about this topic, yet not much has been written on Kant's view of justification [_Rechtfertigung_]. Moreover, what has been written on Kant's _Rechtfertigung_ suggests that it is a non-epistemic notion and, hence, a notion that cannot be placed within an account of Kant's moral or practical epistemology. Furthermore, Kant makes use of the notion of _Rechtfertigung_ in many ways and many contexts, so much so that it sometimes looks like we are dealing with more than one concept under the same name. This chapter argues that Kant's view of practical justification is unitary and coherent, that it is significant for practical epistemology and that it overlaps with the contemporary notion of justification in a way which makes it relevant for the numerous current debates.

This introduction maps some of the main areas of philosophical inquiry where practical justification is playing a role in Kant’s writings and in the works of contemporary Kantians. Since practical justification is of claims or assertions, the introduction is organised around the various types of claim that are defended by Kant or contemporary Kantians: general claims concerning practical normativity or more specific claims in ethics, political and legal philosophy or philosophy of religion. In this way, this introduction will present the structure of the collection and will clarify the main directions of the current research on this topic.

The aim of this paper is very ambitious as it proposes to argue for a change of perspective in our reading of some aspects of Kant's political philosophy and potentially of his practical (moral and political) thought more generally. In particular, the paper will argue that, beyond the well-known and influential Socialist, Republican, Liberal, Consequentialist and Libertarian readings of Kant, it would be promising to consider an original Desert-sensitive reading. I will focus on a relatively recent and influential version of the Republican reading, and I will evaluate both its interpretative and philosophical cogency; indirectly, I will argue for a better, Desert-sensitive Reading of Kant's account of equal opportunities.

In his masterful essay, “Armchair Knowledge: Some Kantian Reflections”, A.W. Moore claims that Kant lapses into contradiction as a result of invoking transcendental idealism as a solution to the puzzle of what Moore calls “armchair knowledge”. Moore talks about “the incoherence of transcendental idealism” and, through a discussion which includes the question of whether different subjects possess different categories, offers an account of armchair knowledge without transcendental idealism. He suggests we should abandon the Kantian a priori intuitions and, with them, also Kant’s synthetic a priori judgements. In this paper, I examine some of the problems identified by Moore in Kant’s account. I do not aim to show that there is no internal inconsistency in Kant’s thought or that Moore (perhaps continuing in this way Kant’s project of uncovering the deceptions of transcendental judgements) might not be right to point to potential problems in Kant’s texts; my claim is rather that there are resources in the Kantian corpus to explain away the main contradictions and conflicts Moore identifies in Kant.

This book is a collection of twelve new essays on the topic of Kant's account of citizenship, the first book-length text on this topic. It features an international cast of leading scholars who specialize in Kant's ethics, philosophy of religion and political philosophy. The contributors connect Kant's philosophy with contemporary issues concerning citizenship, including the moral grounds of citizenship rights, the relation between citizenship, human rights and dignity, civic virtues, citizenship in the ethical commonwealth, in particular the moral function of religious rituals, the link between ethical duties and faith, and the relation between religious freedom and political power, democratic participation, the legitimacy of international courts, just war theory, cosmopolitanism, and the contemporary relevance of a Kantian account of citizenship. The topic is of interest given some of the currently urgent citizenship-related challenges that we are facing today. Kant's account of justice stipulates that, in a fair and peaceful world, the legal framework that establishes rights and obligations should be effective at national, international and cosmopolitan levels. Kant's legal and political philosophy also features the unique combination of a realistic appraisal of the human condition and powerful normative recommendations concerning action and principles of ethics and law. Together with Kant's emphasis on the requirement of consistency, the approaches discussed in the volume are better able to orient thinking and guide action for currently urgent ethical, legal, political and social problems. Kantian Citizenship will appeal to scholars and graduate students working on Kant's legal and political philosophy, as well as scholars from other fields who are interested in legal philosophy and the politics of citizenship.

One of the few points of consensus in the Kantian literature is that Kant’s Moral Law is binding universally and unconditionally. Hence, the Moral Law is binding for all human agents (universally) irrespective of the agents’ particular interests (unconditionally). Whether or not we intend to act on the Moral Law, this is the law we ought to follow. Beyond this point of consensus, however, even the most important details are matters of controversy. What exactly does the Moral Law require of us? What, if anything, grounds its bindingness? In particular, does Kant argue that the Moral Law is binding because it is ‘self-legislated’? What is the relation between the Moral Law (supreme principle of morality) and substantive moral laws such as the law that we ought to promote the happiness of others? What does Kant mean by his claim that the will has autonomy? In the four articles discussed in this special issue, Kleingeld proposes novel answers to these questions. This introduction presents the articles and brings to the fore the larger theme tying them all together.

In his early writings, Kant regarded the autonomy of the will as the supreme principle of morality, as well as the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties conforming to them. Nevertheless, this impressively sounding principle gradually disappeared from the later Kant’s texts, and there is not much in the literature to explain why. Pauline Kleingeld’s purpose, in the two articles I consider here, is to address this lacuna and to show that there are good philosophical reasons for this principle’s gradual disappearance from the Kantian framework. One of my aims, in this paper, is to formulate and argue for several reservations about Kleingeld’s argument; however, even if these reservations turn out to be apposite, my claim is not that Kant did not actually abandon the Principle of Autonomy; instead, I argue that, even if Kleingeld were right and Kant had abandoned the Principle of Autonomy, he would still not have needed to.

An easily recognizable feature of Sartre’s phenomenological existentialism is his conception of freedom. According to a popular interpretation, we are absolutely free, not only from factual constraints, but also free to create and pursue our own values. In this respect, Sartre appears to continue in a radical direction the Kantian project of making room for freedom in a world colonized by scientific determinism and dogmatic moralism. This chapter challenges the popular reading. It argues that Sartre extends the implications of Kant’s conception of freedom, especially concerning the constraining character of imperatives and principles; yet he acknowledges the need for some limitation on a legitimate account of freedom. This limitation is given by the higher-order values expressed by our free actions.

How do we make sense of the countless pieces of information flowing to us from the environment? This question, sometimes called the Problem of Representation, is one of the most significant problems in cognitive science. Some pioneering and important work in the attempt to address the problem of representation was produced with the help of Kant’s philosophy. In particular, the suggestion was that, by analogy with Kant’s distinction between sensibility and the understanding, we can distinguish between high- and low-level perception, and then focus on the step from high-level perception to abstract cognitive processes of sense-making. This was possible through a simplification of the input provided by low-level perception (to be reduced, for instance, to a string of letters), which the computer programme was supposed to ‘understand’. Most recently, a closer look at Kant’s model of the mind led to a breakthrough in the attempt to build programmes for such verbal reasoning tasks: these kinds of software or ‘Kantian machines’ seemed able to achieve human-level performance for verbal reasoning tasks. Yet, the claim has sometimes been stronger, namely, that some such programmes not only compete with human cognitive agents, but themselves represent cognitive agents. The focus of my paper is on this claim; I argue that it is unwarranted, but that its critical investigation may lead to further avenues for how to pursue the project of creating artificial intelligence.

It is generally acknowledged that Kant’s solution to the problem of free will is beset by various problems. On some accounts, these problems make Kant’s solution incoherent, ambiguous and confusing. In this paper, I examine several issues that allegedly threaten Kant’s solution and I identify the most significant one, purportedly leading to the incoherence accusation. I then show that Kant’s philosophy has the conceptual resources to explain away the inconsistency and solve the so-called Paradox of Kantian Libertarianism.

Durante décadas, los teóricos interesados en la discusión de Kant sobre el bienestar han estudiado la postura de Kant sobre la cuestión de la redistribución de bienes en la sociedad. Lo han hecho tanto para aclarar su postura como para una fuente de inspiración para problemas conceptuales actuales, frente a filósofos políticos contemporáneos que intentan reconciliar el ideal de la libertad igualitaria con la necesaria interferencia asimétrica para la redistribución y la provisión social. En este artículo, comienzo por la breve discusión kantiana sobre el estado del bienestar en la Doctrina del derecho e identifico cuatro premisas que Kant afirmó con claridad como características de su postura. Posteriormente, propongo las cinco vías interpretativas principales en la interpretación de la obra de Kant, las evalúo y las ordeno. La interpretación más acertada de la justificación kantiana del bienestar, que llamo la postura “genuinamente kantiana” no llega a explicar, sin embargo, la naturaleza del deber del bienestar que propone. Propongo una solución, retrotrayéndome en los textos kantianos, que unida a otras consideraciones y cuestiones, se puede entender como el punto de partida de una nueva vía de interpretar este tema.

In spite of its dominance, there are well-known problems with Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium (MRE), as a method of justification in meta-ethics. One issue in particular has preoccupied commentators, namely, the capacity of this method to provide a convincing account of the objectivity of our moral beliefs. Call this the Lack-of-Objectivity Charge. One aim of this article is to examine the charge within the context of Rawls’s later philosophy, and I claim that the lack-of-objectivity charge remains unanswered. A second aim of this article is to examine the extent to which, despite Rawls’s express intention to avoid reliance on Kant’s moral philosophy, supplementing Rawls’s political constructivism with some Kantian elements, in particular Kant’s idea of a universal principle of right, not only addresses some of the issues raised by the lack-of-objectivity charge, but also does so without compromising the ability of the Rawlsian account to accommodate the pluralism of conceptions of the good, which he takes to be a fact of modern democracies. I argue for a revised justificatory methodology, which combines Rawls’s MRE and Kant’s Critical Method.

This work examines concept of sincerity in politics and international relations in order to discuss what we should expect of politicians, within what parameters should they work, and how their decisions and actions could be made consistent with morality. The collection features an international cast of authors who specialize in the topic of sincerity in politics and international relations. Each chapter will be focused on a contemporary issue in politics and international relations, including corruption, public hypocrisy, cynicism, trust, security, policy formulation and decision-making, political apology, public reason, denial and self-deception,and will argue against the background of a Kantian view of sincerity as unconditional. Focusing on sincerity bearing on political actions, practices, and institutions at national and international level, the collection will include an introduction by the editors that will serve to place the contributions in the context of ongoing contemporary debates on sincerity in politics and international theory. Offering a significant comprehensive outlook on the practical limits of sincerity in political affairs, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars alike.

The secular interpretation of Kant is widespread and Kant is viewed as the most prestigious founding father of liberal secularism. At the same time, however, commentators note that Kant’s position on secularism is in fact much more complex, and some go as far as to talk about an ambiguous secularism in his work. This paper defends a refined version of the secular interpretation. According to this refined version, Kant can offer a limited, political secularism on the basis of a simple argument which focuses on the distinct epistemic statuses of political and religious claims; however, the paper argues, a more general secularism is unwarranted on the basis of the same argument. If my argument is correct, then it will account at least in part for the plurality of interpretations. Moreover, any further attempt to show that Kant’s relation to secularism is ambiguous or dismissive should take into consideration the argument from epistemic grounds presented here.

Immanuel Kant's work continues to be a main focus of attention in almost all areas of philosophy. The significance of Kant's work for the so-called continental philosophy cannot be exaggerated, although work in this area is relatively scant. The book includes eight chapters, a substantial introduction and a postscript, all newly written by an international cast of well-known authors. Each chapter focuses on particular aspects of a fundamental problem in Kant's and post-Kantian philosophy, the problem of the relation between the world and transcendence. Chapters fall thematically into three parts: sensibility, nature and religion. Each part starts with a more interpretative chapter focusing on Kant's relevant work, and continues with comparative chapters which stage dialogues between Kant and post-Kantian philosophers, including Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-François Lyotard, Luce Irigaray and Jacques Derrida. A special feature of this volume is the engagement of each chapter with the work of the late British philosopher Gary Banham. The Postscript offers a subtle and erudite analysis of his intellectual trajectory, philosophy and mode of working. The volume is dedicated to his memory.