Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T16:06:09.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kant’s Aesthetics and the Problem of Happiness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

Jennifer K. Dobe
Jennifer K. Dobe*
Affiliation:
Grinnell College
*
Email: dobejenn@grinnell.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kant’s anthropological lectures introduce scepticism about our psychological capacity to experience happiness conceived as gratification or contentment. Aesthetic experience is in a position to inform an alternative conception of happiness that not only is more adequate to the idea of happiness than either gratification or contentment but also may more easily conform to the moral law’s constraints than gratification. As an ‘ideal feeling’, pleasure in beauty serves as a model for how best to enjoy even sensual pleasures and otherwise ‘private’ sensations. In the end, the third Critique suggests that this alternative conception is more ‘appropriate’ to humankind (§60, 5: 355).

Keywords

Kantaestheticshappinesspleasure
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 27 - 51
Check for updates
Copyright
© Kantian Review, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry (2001) Kant’s Theory of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511612671CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobe, Jennifer (2018) ‘Kant’s A Priori Principle of Judgments of Taste’. In Moran, Kate (ed.), Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 66–86.10.1017/9781316421888.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Düsing, Klaus (1971) ‘Das Problem des höchsten Gutes in Kants praktischer Philosophie’. Kant-Studien, 62, 5–42.10.1515/kant.1971.62.1-4.5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Förster, Eckart (1992) ‘“Was darf ich hoffen?” Zum Problem der Vereinbarkeit von theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft bei Immanuel Kant’. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 46, 168–85.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (1997) Kant and the Claims of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2006) Kant. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203966624CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hills, Alison (2006) ‘Kant on Happiness and Reason’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 23(3), 243–61.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1991) Kant: Political Writings. Ed. Reiss, Hans, trans. Nisbet, H. B.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511809620CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1999) Practical Philosophy. Ed. and trans. Gregor, Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2000) Critique of the Power of Judgment. Trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511804656CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2001) Religion and Rational Theology. Ed. and trans. Wood, Allen W. and di Giovanni, George. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2007) Anthropology, History, and Education. Ed. Zöller, Günter and Louden, Robert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2012) Lectures on Anthropology. Ed. Wood, Allen and Louden, Robert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139028639CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine (1998) ‘Motivation, Metaphysics, and the Value of the Self: A Reply to Ginsborg, Guyer, and Schneewind’. Ethics, 109, 49–66.10.1086/233873CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munzel, G. Felicitas (1995) ‘“The Beautiful Is the Symbol of the Morally-Good”: Kant’s Philosophical Basis of Proof for the Idea of the Morally-Good’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 33, 301–30.10.1353/hph.1995.0024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasternack, Lawrence (2017) ‘Restoring Kant’s Conception of the Highest Good’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 55(3), 435–68.10.1353/hph.2017.0049CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiller, Friedrich (1989) On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In a Series of Letters. Ed. and trans. Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. and Willoughby, L. A.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Shell, Susan Meld (2003) ‘Kant’s “True Economy of Human Nature”: Rousseau, Count Verri and the Problem of Happiness’. In Jacobs, Brian (ed.), Essays on Kant’s Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 194–229.10.1017/CBO9780511498190.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wike, Victoria (1994) Kant on Happiness in Ethics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen (1999) Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139173254CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuckert, Rachel (2002) ‘A New Look at Kant’s Theory of Pleasure’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60, 239–52.10.1111/1540-6245.00071CrossRefGoogle Scholar