9 - Freedom, primacy, and perfect duties to oneself

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Kant attributes primacy to duties to oneself in general and perfect duties to oneself (PDS) in particular. He calls PDS the “highest duties of all,” above even our duties to perfect ourselves or to comply with others' rights (V 27:604). Kant suggests not only that PDS are somehow theoretically or conceptually basic, but also that the implications of their violation are devastating – rendering us incapable of fulfilling other duties and unjustified in demanding respect from others (C 27:343–44; MS 6:437). Why and in what ways do PDS have primacy in Kant's ethics?

By examining Kant's accounts of perfect duties to oneself in the Doctrine of Virtue and two sets of lecture notes, I show that PDS relate to freedom in uniquely direct, vital, and fundamental ways, in virtue of which they have several sorts of primacy. Section 2 of this chapter (“Freedom and humanity”) highlights freedom's centrality within Kant's moral theory, Kant's identification of humanity as an end in itself with the human being regarded as free, and the grounding of all duties in autonomy and self-constraint. Section 3 (“Perfect duties to oneself”) sketches three accounts of PDS and elucidates their special relations to freedom. Drawing on that section, section 4 (“Primacy”) suggests a variety of ways to construe PDS as primary.