The Formulae of the Moral Law and Predispositions

Patricia Kitcher (Columbia University)

The lecture will take place online (via Webex) on Wednesday, 24 September 2025, from 18:00 – 19:30 CET. 

Please see below for the Webex-link and an abstract of the lecture. 

The talk is part of the lecture series Digital Kant-Lectures, organized by Digital Kant-Centre NRW, which takes place on the last Wednesday of each month via Webex. For the program of the series, please see here.

To stay informed about the activities of Digital Kant-Centre, please subscribe here to our newsletter.

Webex-Link: 

https://uni-siegen.webex.com/uni-siegen/j.php?MTID=md8cfd5c24fbea237b1cd80a369e6a616

Abstract: 

My overall project is to argue that in ethics, as in epistemology, Kant was a nativist who saw experience as awakening innate capacities that provide the basic structures that enable humans to understand the natural and social worlds. In this paper, I argue that the three formulae of the highest law of morality are not the products of convention, but of human predispositions, ‘Anlagen.’ I do so by pursuing two questions about the formulae of the moral law: How is each formula derived from the concept of a categorical imperative? What is the argument for the truth of each formula?