Kant on Hard Moral Decisions

Julia Peters

The Digital Kant-Centre NRW is pleased to invite you to a lecture by Julia Peters (University of Heidelberg) with the topic "Kant on Hard Moral Decisions". 

The lecture will take place online (via Webex) on Wednesday, 25 March 2026, 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: https://kant-zentrum-nrw.de/en/digital-kant-lectures/

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Webex-Link: 

https://uni-siegen.webex.com/uni-siegen/j.php?MTID=m557816940bc7bc498a22a12c5c9db068

Abstract: 

Kant’s critical writings on moral philosophy contain a striking number of examples of a particular type of decision: a fundamentally good person finds themselves in an exceptional situation in which their moral orientation is dramatically put to the test. They are confronted with especially weighty and previously unforeseen incentives to deviate from their established moral principles.

In this talk, I argue that the structure of these examples is of central importance for Kant. It highlights a core aspect of his understanding of moral decision-making over time: even someone who has made the right fundamental moral commitment and thus possesses a good disposition has not thereby decided once and for all against revising this stance in the face of radically new circumstances. Human moral life is therefore marked by a fundamental openness: we are never immune to unforeseen exceptional situations that compel us to make hard moral decisions.