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Respect for the Moral Law: the Emotional Side of Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2013

Janelle DeWitt
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Abstract

Respect, as Kant describes it, has a duality of nature that seems to embody a contradiction – i.e., it is both a moral motive and a feeling, where these are thought to be mutually exclusive. Most solutions involve eliminating one of the two natures, but unfortunately, this also destroys what is unique about respect. So instead, I question the non-cognitive theory of emotion giving rise to the contradiction. In its place, I develop the cognitive theory implicit in Kant's work, one in which emotions take the form of evaluative judgments that determine the will. I then show that, as a purely rational emotion, respect is perfectly suited to be a moral motive.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 31 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2013 

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References

1 References to respect as a moral motive and as a feeling are scattered throughout Kant's major moral works. Consider as examples: ‘Respect for the moral law is therefore the sole and also the undoubted moral incentive’ (C2 5:78), and ‘It could be objected that I only seek refuge, behind the word respect, in an obscure feeling, instead of distinctly resolving the question by means of a concept of reason. But though respect is a feeling, it is not one received by means of influence; it is, instead, a feeling self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different from all feelings of the first kind, which can be reduced to inclination or fear’ (G 4:401n).

I have used two sets of translations from Cambridge University Press. The first is from the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (A), ed. and trans. Robert B. Louden (2006); Critique of Practical Reason (C2), ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (1997); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (G), ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (1997); Metaphysics of Morals (MM), ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (1996); and Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (R), ed. and trans. Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (1998). The second is from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason (C1), ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (1998); Critique of the Power of Judgment (C3), ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and trans. Eric Matthews (2000); Lectures on Logic (LL), ed. and trans. J. Michael Young (1992); Lectures on Metaphysics (LM), ed. and trans. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon (1997); Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion (LPDR) in Religion and Rational Theology, ed. and trans. Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (1996); and Notes and Fragments (NF), ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and trans. Curtis Bowman and Frederick Rauscher (2005).

2 I believe Reath and Guyer represent clear examples of these two views, but they are not alone. Most accounts of respect fall into one or the other. For more on these specific accounts, see Reath, Andrews, ‘Kant's Theory of Moral Sensibility: Respect for the Moral Law and the Influence of Inclination’, Kant-Studien 80 (1989): 284–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Guyer, Paul, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 This type of judgment accounts primarily for emotion in animals. As non-rational creatures, they only have an analogue to reason and its judgments, and consequently only produce a ‘connection of representations according to the laws of sensibility, from which the same effects follow as from a connection according to concepts’ (LM 28:276, see also LM 28:690). Most human emotion, in contrast, will involve reason to some degree. (Even though our concept of emotion is slightly less expansive than that of feeling for Kant, I will use the two terms interchangeably. I chose to do this because ‘emotion’ conveys the same general sense in the relevant passages but without the questionable emphasis on sensation, a concern about ‘feeling’ (Gefühl) Kant shared as well (LPDR 28:1059).)

4 This claim reflects the Stoic thesis in which the rational and emotive faculties are identified. I believe that this thesis, along with the structure of purely rational emotions (eupatheiai) it makes possible, are the two central points of Stoic influence on Kant's own theory of emotion. Kant expresses his enthusiastic approval of the Stoic account when he states that they ‘sowed the seed for the most sublime sentiments (Gesinnungen) that ever existed’ (LL 9:30/542). However, though Kant adopts the Stoic constitutive thesis that emotions are evaluative judgments (and not the sensations sometimes associated with them), he will reject the normative thesis that all ordinary emotions are false judgments and so should be suppressed. On the various Stoic theses, see Graver, Margaret's Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Kant's own theory also echoes Augustine's advancement of the Stoic line, in which he argues that emotions are acts (judgments) of the will. See the De civitate Dei, XIV.6.

5 The German word here is unangenehm, which I believe is more properly translated (following Gregor) as disagreeable than (following Louden here) as unpleasant. To be disagreeable is to be a specific kind of unpleasant.

6 A 7:237. In his discussion of sweet sorrow at C3 5:331, Kant further describes this higher satisfaction as a satisfaction (i.e., pleasure) that ‘rests on reason’ because it ‘pleases merely in the judging’ (as opposed to one that gratifies, or pleases in a sensation).

7 LM 28:275–8, A 7:141fn24, LM 28:211and LPDR 28:1051.

8 R 6:73, LPDR 28:1056 and LPDR 28:1059–61.

9 This is not to say that emotions could not have a connection to the body, or depend in some way on a particular being's sensible constitution. To the contrary, certain feelings on Kant's view will require an affective component in order to meet the functional criterion. Instead, it is simply a denial that this affective component is part of the essence of feeling or emotion in general. Kant's view is that any motivationally efficacious evaluative state that has the good as its object will be a feeling, whether or not it is felt. By not requiring sensation, Kant is thus able to attribute emotion to purely rational/spiritual beings, and so also to our own rational nature.

10 C2 5:21. In this passage, Kant is discussing pleasure in connection to the material principle of self-love. Despite the context in which it is presented, this definition holds more broadly. See, for example, LM 29:894, where Kant says that ‘Pleasure is the representation of the agreement of an object with the productive power of the soul [the faculty of desire], and displeasure the opposite.’ Or NF #1021 15:457/408, where he states that a ‘representation must…have a relation to the subject of determining it to action. This relation is a pleasure…’ (See also C2 5:9n, MM 6:212, C3 5:209, LPDR 28:1060 and NF #715 15:317/495.)

11 Kant refers to the subject of these judgments in a number of ways, including the subject's faculty of desire, life, productive power of soul, and freedom. These are all references to the source of causality within the subject – what makes the subject an active or living being (LM 28:247, LM 29:891 and C2 5:9n).

12 LM 28:258.

13 The functional character described here as a subjective driving power is expressed elsewhere as the promotion or furtherance of life, and as a ground of an impulse to activity (where the impulse itself is a desire) (LM 28:247, G 4:422, LL 24:45/31 and NF #5448 18:185/415). All of these descriptions are attempts to capture pleasure's power to motivate.

14 LM 28:245. The beautiful/ugly are also subjective predicates, but since they are not directly connected to motivation and action (i.e., are not practical pleasures), I will not discuss them here.

15 LM 28:253.

16 C2 5:20, see also C1 Bix-x and LL 24:58/42.

17 LM 28:246, LM 29:877–8, NF #823 15:367/506 and MM 6:211–13.

18 LM 29:894, see also LM 29:899–900.

19 C2 5:119–120, LM 29:877–8, MM 6:211–14 and C2 5:142–6.

20 LM 28:246, see also LPDR 28:1065–6.

21 LM 29:890.

22 LM 29:1024 and C3 5:205–6.

23 LM 28:228–9, see also LM 29:877, LM 28:252, A 7:141fn24, A 7:159fn53 and C3 20:245.

24 LM 28:286 and LM 28:248.

25 LM 28:248.

26 These are probably the closest things in Kant to the ordinary notion we have of ‘sensations of pleasure and pain’, though I believe he understands them more broadly. That is, gratification need not have any particular sensation-like phenomenology, though it often will (and so will be what provides the affective character of emotion). Instead, it only seems to require some sort of (empirical) conscious registration or awareness that an action was successful in satisfying a need, in whatever way that registration might manifest itself. Because of this, two very different experiences, the physical stimulation from a walk in cool air or the psychological enjoyment of talking with an old friend, can both qualify as a form of gratification. And though we might not call the enjoyment felt in the latter case a sensation, on Kant's account this is how it would be described. These sensations are the product of the interior sense (distinct from the inner sense of time) when it is affected by a representation from the faculty of cognition. Because of this, I believe Kant uses the term Empfindung, as opposed to the more general term Gefühl, in order to refer specifically to sensations of gratification/enjoyment and pain. As the product of a sense, gratification is thus an element of our sensibility (LM 29:1009, C3 5:205–7 and C3 5:331). (Kant's references to the interior sense are vague and infrequent, and he admits at one point to have not yet fully worked out the concept (LM 29:890). Even so, it still appears to play a significant role in his conception of pleasure. See section 15 of the Anthropology (7:153) for a very brief discussion.)

27 Clearly, stormy weather is not agreeable to everyone. Kant notes this by pointing out that the expected gratification that serves as the basis for my judging such weather to be agreeable is dependent on the privately valid grounds of my own senses (LM 28:248, LM 29:892 and NF #1512 15:836/525–6). I.e., because I happen to have a certain sensible constitution (having been raised in tornado alley), stormy weather has a positive effect on me. So this judgment holds only for me – i.e., it is merely subjective (C3 5:212 and NF #1850 16:137/536). For these judgments to be objective, in the sense of holding universally and necessarily for all beings (and so to be suitable for moral motivation), a different ground of validity will be required.

28 LM 28:252, LM 29:891, C2 5:59, C2 5:62 and C3 5:207.

29 G 4:398 and C2 5:34.

30 Some have thought that Kant's description of the sympathetic man is problematic because it actually portrays him as selfish rather than altruistic. But to act from a psychological need does not necessarily entail selfishness. As I believe Kant sees it, the man is altruistic because of the sort of needs that he has – he has a need to help others, and he takes immediate satisfaction in doing so when he can. This is an ordinary description of natural altruism – someone who just enjoys helping others. A selfish person, in contrast, may have a need to help others, but does not immediately enjoy doing so. Instead, she helps others only as a means to some further end, such as a good reputation, and it is only this further end that she finds gratifying.

31 C2 5:23–26 and C3 5:208–9.

32 A clear statement of this position can be found at C2 5:23, ‘If a representation, even though it may have its seat and origin in the understanding, can determine choice only by presupposing a feeling of pleasure in the subject, its being a determining ground of choice is wholly dependent upon the nature of inner sense [interior sense], namely that this can be agreeably affected by the representation.’ Kant stresses this point again at C2 5:24–5, where he states ‘…pure reason must be practical of itself and alone, that is, it must be able to determine the will by the mere form of a practical rule without presupposing any feeling and hence without any representation of the agreeable or disagreeable as the matter of the faculty of desire, which is always an empirical condition of principles’ (see also C2 5:25, C2 5:62, C2 5:92 and G 4:413). The feeling being ‘presupposed’ in these passages is clearly gratification, as indicated by his references to the inner/interior sense and to the agreeable.

33 G 4:401n.

34 C2 5:76.

35 LM 28:248.

36 C2 5:29, C2 5:55 and C2 5:67.

37 ‘Now if I feel that something agrees with the highest degree of freedom, thus with the spiritual life, then that pleases me. This pleasure is intellectual pleasure. One has a satisfaction with it, without its gratifying one. Such intellectual pleasure is only in morality… All morality is the harmony of freedom with itself. E.g., whoever lies does not agree with his freedom, because he is bound by the lie. Whatever harmonizes with freedom agrees with the whole of life. Whatever agrees with the whole of life, pleases’ (LM 28:249–50, see also C2 5:73 and C2 5:132).

38 C2 5:33.

39 LM 28:257–8, C2 5:38–9 and NF #7202 19:279/467.

40 C2 5:73.

41 C2 5:9 and C2 5:58.

42 NF #7320 19:316/478, C2 5:62 and C2 5:117. This is in contrast to how the point is often understood, where ‘preceding/succeeding the moral law’ is thought to imply preceding/succeeding the determination of the will, which would then make respect a sensation of pleasure consequent to this determination (and so not a motive). This is the position Guyer appears to take.

43 ‘…the [morally] good must also please those beings who have no such sensibility like ours, but that does not hold with the agreeable and the beautiful’ (LM 28:252, see also C3 5:209–10 and LM 29:892). This is why Kant states that God and holy wills are motivated by the feeling of love for the moral law, because even in an impassible spiritual being such as God, the faculty of desire is determined by a feeling.

44 In other words, such a concept either qualifies as a giving of universal law itself, or it helps to promote this law-giving activity in other ways. An instance of the latter is the concept of humanity as an end in itself. This concept is not a representation of an action, or an object to be effected, but is instead a representation of something we should not act against. If we do, then our law-giving activity will fail to be universal. So in adopting humanity as an object of the will, we can be said to further its universal law-giving activity by preventing possible violations/hindrances to it (G 4:437 and C2 5:73). In addition, I believe the concept of humanity can also directly promote the activity of the will when considered as the basis for the duties to humanity. If so, then the love of one's neighbor (i.e., love of humanity) – one of the four feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals thought to ‘lie at the basis of morality’ – is also a higher pleasure and so a potential moral motive (MM 6:399–402 and G 4:428–9).

45 LM 28:253.

46 G 4:402 and C2 5:109–10.

47 LM 29:896.

48 LM 28:248–9.

49 C2 5:59, C2 5:62, C3 5:207, LM 29:891–2 and NF #1020 15:456/407–8. In other words, whatever establishes the condition of the fit is what I believe ultimately determines the will. This is gratification with the lower pleasures, because an object that is not represented as promising gratification cannot motivate. With the higher feelings, it is the form of universal law-giving (the moral law) contained in the moral concept of truthfulness. If truthfulness did not have this form, then it too would not motivate (because it would not further the spiritual life of the subject). In both cases, the condition is contained in the concept or representation of whatever determines the will, and so is what ultimately does the motivational heavy-lifting. This relationship between the object of the pleasure and its condition for motivating can be understood as the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the will (to follow a distinction made by St. Anselm of Canterbury in chapter 12 of De veritate). The object is what the will hopes to achieve, and the why is the reason for willing it (gratification or morality).

50 LM 28:248, see also C3 5:209–10, C3 5:212–13, LM 28:252–3, LM 28:257–8, NF #711 15:315–6/495, NF #824 15:368/507 and NF #6598 19:103/420.

51 Kant briefly mentions this criterion for objective validity in the practical domain at C2 5:21, where he states that ‘it is requisite to reason's lawgiving that it should need to presuppose only itself, because a rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without the contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another (my italics).’

52 Kant calls the lower feelings merely subjective because they are subjective in two different senses. In the primary sense, both higher and lower feelings are subjective because they are practical. That is, they represent the relation of an object to a subject, and it is in virtue of this represented relation to the subject that they motivate. But the lower feelings are also subjective because they are based on the particular sensible constitution of the subject, i.e., his contingent needs and circumstances. These feelings must have this subjective basis because their primary function is to promote the subject's well-being (by conferring value on an object in terms of its relation to the needs of the subject). The higher feelings, in contrast, are objective in this sense because they judge a concept to agree with the activity of rational nature itself, and so to be universally pleasing to all rational beings. So unlike agreeableness, moral goodness is a property of the concept itself. As an objective property, when the concept is cognized by feeling (i.e., cognized in relation to the subject's will), a determining ground is necessarily produced. Thus, we are always disposed to moral action regardless of our circumstances (and will so act as long as no hindrance from a lower feeling is encountered). This is part of what makes these feelings moral. It is in being able to characterize the higher feelings in this way, as both subjective and objective, that Kant is able to explain how the objective moral law can become subjective, i.e., how there can be a purely rational moral motive (LM 28:257–8, C2 5:73 and C3 20:245).

53 C2 5:25.

54 C2 5:28, NF #6621 19:114–5/425–6 and NF #7202 19:279/467.

55 LM 28:249.

56 C2 5:83–4, C2 5:32, G 4:414 and G 4:439.

57 R 6:36 and A 7:277.

58 C2 5:25, see also R 6:36, R 6:58, G 4:415 and LM 29:1016.

59 C2 5:23-25.

60 C2 5:65, C2 5:43, C2 5:78, C2 5:159 and G 4:395.

61 ‘In general, nature seems to us to have in the end subordinated sensible needs for the sake of all our actions. Only it was necessary that our understanding at the same time projected universal rules, in accordance with which we had to order, restrict, and make coherent the efforts at our happiness, so that our blind impulses will not push us now here, now there, just by chance. Since the latter commonly conflict with one another, a judgment was necessary, which with regard to all of these impulses projects rules impartially, and thus in abstraction from all inclination, through the pure will alone, which rules, valid for all actions and for all human beings, would produce the greatest harmony of a human being with himself and with others’ (NF #6621 19:114–5/425–6).

62 C2 5:32–34.

63 C2 5:80. If, in contrast, my father had acted unreflectively on the suggestion of his lower feeling (without first getting respect's approval for his maxim), then his action would have been merely in accordance with and not for the sake of the moral law. In other words, he would have acted honestly only because he saw it as having prudential value, without also recognizing that it had unconditional moral value.

64 ‘The praxis of morality thus consists in that formation of the inclinations and of taste which makes us capable of uniting the actions that lead to our gratification with moral principles. This is the virtuous person, consequently the one who knows how to conform his inclinations to moral principles’ (NF #6619 19:113/425).

65 C2 5:75.

66 C2 5:79.

67 C2 5:151–161 and MM 6:399–400.

68 MM 6:400, C2 5:156–7, R 6:46, R 6:83, G 4:405 and G 4:410–11.

69 MM 6:407–8 and G 4:424.

70 C2 5:74.

71 A 7:252, A 7:265–7 and LL 24:161–7/127-32.

72 R 6:41. ‘The law rather imposes itself on him irresistibly, because of his moral predisposition; and if no other incentive were at work against it, he would also incorporate it into his supreme maxim as sufficient determination of his power of choice, i.e., he would be morally good. He is, however, also dependent on the incentives of his sensuous nature because of his equally innocent natural predisposition, and he incorporates them too into his maxim (according to the subjective principle of self-love). …Hence the difference, whether the human being is good or evil, must not lie in the difference between the incentives that he incorporates into his maxims (not in the material of the maxim) but in their subordination (in the form of the maxim): which of the two he makes the condition of the other. It follows that the human being (even the best) is evil only because he reverses the moral order of his incentives in incorporating them into his maxims. He indeed incorporates the moral law into those maxims, together with the law of self-love; since, however, he realizes that the two cannot stand on an equal footing, but one must be subordinated to the other as its supreme condition, he makes the incentive of self-love and their inclinations the condition of compliance with the moral law’ (R 6:36, see also R 6:21). Kant describes the principle of such a will as ‘Love yourself above all, but God and your neighbor for your own sake’ (C2 5:83n).

73 C3 20:196, MM 6:408–9 and A 7:253–4.

74 A 7:251, see also Augustine, De civitate Dei XIV.9.

75 MM 6: 394, MM 6:408–9 and C2 5:84.

76 G 4:403.