Stefano Pinzan

Il presente capitolo esamina l’interazione tra il pensiero femminista e il dibattito contemporaneo in psicologia morale, con particolare attenzione alla cosiddetta svolta affettivo-relazionale che ha preso forma alla fine del xx secolo. Tale svolta rappresenta una reazione critica ai modelli razionalisti e individualisti, centrati sull’idea di autonomia intesa come indipendenza, elaborati da autori come Jean Piaget e, soprattutto, Lawrence Kohlberg. La prima parte del capitolo ricostruisce l’impostazione razional-individualista dell’esperienza morale proposta da Piaget e Kohlberg, evidenziando le implicazioni escludenti dei loro modelli nei confronti di soggetti marginalizzati, in particolare le donne. Successivamente, l’attenzione si sposta sul contributo del pensiero femminista alla rilettura della moralità in chiave relazionale ed emotiva.

Nel presente contributo sostengo che un approccio kantiano, riletto in chiave integrata, sia particolarmente adatto a rispondere alle esigenze della psicologia morale contemporanea. La ricostruzione iniziale del dibattito evidenzia i limiti dei modelli gerarchici, incapaci di rendere conto della complessa interazione tra ragione ed emozioni. L’etica kantiana, reinterpretata come teoria integrata della deliberazione e dello sviluppo morale, nella quale sia le emozioni sia la ragione svolgono un ruolo essenziale, fornisce invece gli strumenti concettuali per comprendere tale interazione. Applicato al caso della psicopatia, questo modello consente di rendere conto congiuntamente dei deficit razionali ed emotivi che caratterizzano il soggetto psicopatico. Il risultato è che un approccio kantiano integrato non solo è compatibile con i dati empirici disponibili, ma offre un quadro teorico capace di spiegarli in modo più completo. Questo suggerisce che il contributo kantiano alla psicologia morale non è di natura meramente storica, ma costituisce una risorsa concettuale attuale per comprendere il funzionamento della moralità umana.

This paper examines the role of emotions in recognizing others’ vulnerability and motivating care practices, proposing a Kantian model centered on the emotion of respect. The argument develops through a critical engagement with Michael Slote’s empathy-based approach, which assigns empathy a central role in perceiving vulnerability and generating moral motivation. I argue that approaches grounded exclusively in empathy risk producing asymmetric and unbalanced moral relationships. As an alternative, I propose shifting the focus from empathy to respect. The paper first analyzes vulnerability in relation to autonomy, understood as the capacity to freely pursue one’s conception of happiness, and defines vulnerability as a limitation in the full exercise of autonomous agency. Respect, on a Kantian view, enables recognition of the equal value of autonomy in oneself and others, even in relationships involving vulnerability. Moreover, respect makes violations of this value salient and motivates re-empowerment practices aimed at restoring autonomy. The final section applies this respect-based framework to Italians’ moral and social responsibilities toward immigrants.

The paper aims to partially bridge the gap that separates Kant and Schiller regarding the relationship between reason and sensibility. Contrary to Schiller’s own claims, Kant’s ethics seeks a harmonious integration of the rational and emotional dimensions of the moral agent. I support this thesis by focusing on Kant’s concepts of the highest good and moral character. Finally, I highlight the difference between Kant and Schiller concerning the possibility of acting directly out of an emotion cultivated by practical reason. Nevertheless, I argue that even this difference can be reconciled, although doing so requires moving beyond a strictly faithful reading of Kant’s texts.

In this thesis, I intend to examine the relationship between reason and emotions in Immanuel Kant’s theory, beginning with the challenges raised by the contemporary empirically informed debate on moral cognition. I argue that Kant can show the ineliminable presence of emotions in the moral experience and the necessary interaction between the emotional and rational components of the agent. In particular, I argue for the presence of an integrated model of moral cognition in Kant’s ethics. In the last part of the thesis, I depart from a faithful reading of Kant to propose a development of this model that is enriched by interacting with Adam Smith’s theory. In Chapter 1, I present Kant’s moral theory, stressing its rationalist foundations and, consequently, the crucial role of practical reason in discerning between moral good and evil. In Chapter 2, I summarize the contemporary debate on moral cognition by beginning with the influence that Kant’s ethics has had on the debate. I then focus on criticisms of Kantian-inspired rationalist models; these criticisms overturn the hierarchy between reason and emotions in favor of the latter. Finally, I show how, in recent years, the debate has turned toward an integrated view of moral cognition that rejects any kind of hierarchy, and insists instead on the ways in which reason and emotions interact and are integrated. This debate compels a rationalist theory, such as Kant’s, to address the role of emotions and their interaction with reason. Chapters 3 and 4 analyze Kant’s conception of emotional life. In Chapter 3, I examine the nature of the feeling and the desire, their interaction, and their relation to reason and in Chapter 4, I focus on those affective phenomena that directly influence the agent’s relationship with the moral principle such that one can fully understand its value and authority. With Chapter 5, I conclude this reconstruction of Kant’s conception of emotional life by proposing an integrated model grounded in his texts. Such a model shows the relevance that Kant’s ethics can still claim in contemporary debates about the relationship between reason and emotions. In the sixth and final chapter, I work on a possible development of Kant’s integrated model of moral cognition by drawing on a possible contradiction found in his texts and, especially, comparing the model with Adam Smith’s sentimentalist moral theory. The result is a hybrid model, still Kantian, that departs from a faithful reading of the text and shows some Smithian contaminations.

Il rapporto tra natura e libertà è una questione che ritorna in tutta la produzione filosofica di Immanuel Kant. In questo libro, si indaga tale rapporto nella sua dimensione morale. L’obiettivo è mostrare la possibilità pratica di una interazione non dualistica tra natura e libertà, oltre a sostenere che lo sviluppo di un’armonia tra esse corrisponda al fine della morale kantiana da realizzare nella persona e nella storia. Tesi supportata attraverso due percorsi. Il primo, di carattere antropologico-psicologico, si propone di cogliere il ruolo essenziale della natura sensibile all’interno dell’esperienza morale dell’agente e, quindi, la necessità morale dello sviluppo di uno specifico rapporto tra vita emotiva e ragione nel carattere. Il secondo, teleologico-storico, mostra come lo sviluppo di tale rapporto armonico nell’agente si inserisca in una più ampia interazione tra la finalità della natura e la finalità dell’agire umano nella storia.

This paper aims to show the significance of respect in revealing the normative structure of Kant’s ethics to the agent as a finite rational being. I argue that understanding the moral law as a fact of reason is insufficient for fully recognizing its absolute value and the normative consequences it entails. Indeed, the finiteness of the human agent requires the experience of the feeling of respect, which not only has a motivational role but also an epistemic one. I thus start by clarifying the nature of feeling for Kant in a way that highlights its complex structure. Then, I show how respect – as a particular kind of feeling – gives the agent a deeper understanding of her relationship with the moral law, thereby allowing the unveiling of Kant’s normative theory.

Nel presente paper, propongo un argomento kantiano per giustificare la necessità della coltivazione dell’empatia e il ruolo moralmente rilevante che essa può svolgere per l’agente una volta coltivata. Infatti, riferendosi al testo kantiano, è possibile mostrare che l’empatia è un sentimento insito nella natura umana e che orienta l’agente nel processo di deliberazione morale. Nonostante ciò, essa non può determinare direttamente la volontà dell’agente, ma deve essere vagliata criticamente dalla ragion pratica. Quest’ultima però non si limita a vagliare il sentimento; essa può, e deve, coltivare l’empatia. L’empatia coltivata dalla ragion pratica svolge due ruoli moralmente rilevanti per la moralità dell’azione e la costituzione di un carattere morale: un ruolo motivazionale e uno epistemico. Infine, mostro come la concezione del processo di critica e coltivazione del sentimento proposta da Kant possa arricchire il dibattito non solo sulla necessità della regolazione delle emozioni, ma anche sulle tecniche di regolazione impiegabili.

The ethics of care has always had an opposing theoretical model in Kant’s ethics. While Kant’s ethics seems to draw an image of the moral agent as independent, autonomous, and rational, the ethics of care insists on a characterisation of the person as vulnerable, interdependent, and relational, for whom the affective dimension plays a crucial role. On the contrary, my thesis is that the two theoretical proposals are not incompatible. I will provide three arguments for this thesis. First, I will analyse the possibility of interpreting the Kantian agent as a vulnerable, emotional and, at the same time, autonomous subject. Second, I will show how, for Kant, relations have normatively relevant weight within the agent’s deliberation. Finally, I intend to argue that Kant does not lose the particular in favour of techniques of abstraction and generalisation, but keeps it within the agent’s maxim and preserves it in the process of moral deliberation.

Scholars disagree about whether and how Kant manages to avoid dualistic outcomes in the relation between freedom and sensibility within the moral agent. If he does not – if he portrays a moral agent who must judge and act without taking emotions, sentiments, and passions into account – then authors such as Blackburn can rightly argue that Kantian ethics loses sight of the concrete individual, whose sensibility has a fundamental role, taking part in the definition of her specific identity. I argue that this portrait comes from a disputable and incomplete reading of Kant’s works. There is no dualistic outcome in the relation between freedom and sensibility in Kant. My aim is to show that there is a bridge between the rational and the sensible elements within the Kantian agent and that it can be reconstructed by analysing Kant’s works on ethics, aesthetics, and anthropology. Specifically, those elements must be thought of as in accordance, not in opposition, because sensibility is necessary for Kant’s ethics to be effective, both for the agent’s awareness of the moral law and for the agent’s motivation.