Kant in Progress

Kant in Progress is a workshop with talks by participants of the St Andrews Kant Reading Party 2018: Kant and Rawls. It will take place the University of St Andrews (at the Department of Philosophy, Room 104) on 20 July. Everyone is welcome to attend the workshop.

Below, you find the programme and abstracts of this year’s Kant in Progress workshop.

Programme:

09:00 – 10:00 Johannes Nickl (University of Passau)

10:10 – 11:10 Kate Moran (Brandeis University)

11:20 – 12:20 Martin Sticker (Trinity College Dublin)

12:20 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 15:00 CEPPA TALK: Leif Wenar (King’s College London)

15:10 – 16:10 Nico Müller (University of Basel)

16:20 – 17:20 Anita Leirfall (University of Bergen/Norwegian University of Life Sciences)

Titles & Abstracts:

Johannes Nickl: “Kant’s Conception of Conscience and Moral Motivation”

In the Doctrine of Virtue Kant characterises conscience as an inner court of justice which confronts human beings with their moral judgements. As it engenders therefor certain feelings the question arises whether conscience has motivating force. If so, it might come into conflict with the feeling of respect for the moral law. In my talk, I wish to elucidate conscience’s relevance for motivational questions and to what extent conscience and the feeling of respect are compatible with one another.

Kate Moran: “Kant on Passive Citizenship and Self-Sufficiency”

Abstract: tbc.

Martin Sticker: “Kant on Beneficence”

I discuss Kant’s conception of beneficence as an obligatory end to others and in relation to two related problem: Overdemandingness and underdemandingness. The former is already a well established problem for ethical theories, the latter is not, though underdemandingness objections are occasionally leveled against Kant’s notion of imperfect duties to others. I propose how we can think of beneficence as avoiding both problems.

Leif Wenar (CEPPA Talk): “The Value of Unity: A Theory of Intrinsic Value”

This is a new theory of intrinsic value—of what is good in itself. Developing Kant’s analysis of formal relations among ends produces a theory that systematizes many of our ordinary judgments of value, while maintaining an attractive pluralism. On this approach value is essentially relational, along three dimensions: unity with the world, with others, and within the self.

Nico Müller: “Does Kant Grant Animals ‘Moral Standing’?”

Does Kant’s indirect-duty account of animal ethics grant animals “moral standing”? People disagree. I try to clear things up by arguing that Kant’s view denies animals three moral properties that capture part of what people mean by “moral standing”: always being taken into account, generating moral reasons, and being the object of rules for outward behaviour.

Anita Leirfall: tbc.

Acknowledgment:

We are grateful to the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs (CEPPA) for their generous support of Kant in Progress, the Kant Reading Party, and Leif Wenar’s CEPPA talk.

For more information on CEPPA and its events, visit http://ceppa.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/