Summaries and Comments: Elizabeth C. Shaw and Staff

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit makes the very surprising observation that "Kant is sometimes thought of as a cold, dry, rationalist. But he is really an emotional extremist." I imagine that very few Kantians, and even fewer non-Kantians, would agree with Parfit. Nevertheless, in Emotion, Reason, and Action in Kant, Maria Borges makes an excellent case for the weaker but still surprising thesis that Kant is an emotional moderate. Let us call this thesis "Kantian sentimental education."

Borges's argument for the Kantian sentimental education thesis focuses on his action theory, including morally right and morally wrong actions alike. In turn, she aims to demonstrate that human desires, feelings, and passions (following her lead, I will call these, collectively, human emotions) always accompany and inflect not only the content of our moral principles but also the content of all our morally right or wrong actions alike, even if, strictly speaking, those emotions neither determine the content of those moral principles nor motivate, cause, and justify morally right actions. If correct, this means that human sensibility, at the very least, really matters for rational human morality and action.

Borges's book has nine chapters. In chapter 1 she explicates Kant's action theory and spells out what counts as either a cause or a reason for action. In chapter 2 she discusses whether for Kant we can act in a morally right way without being moved by human affects. She answers "yes" but also argues that there are specifically moral emotions like respect (Achtung) that really matter for morally right action. In chapter 3 she argues that human emotions are essential to Kant's empirical moral anthropology. In chapter 4 she argues that Kant's theory of emotions has contemporary importance by virtue of its acknowledging physiological and cognitive aspects, as well as a diverse continuum of emotions from uncontrollable ones to rationally controllable ones. In chapter 5 she looks at Kant's theory of rationally controllable actions. Correspondingly, in chapter 6 she unpacks Kant's notion of moral virtue as the power to control actions rationally by controlling our emotions. In chapter 7 she investigates Kant's theory of aesthetic conditions for morality, including the experience of the beautiful and the capacity of taste. In chapter 8 she explores Kant's theory of the relationship between women, emotions, morality, and moral education, she and concludes that, even allowing for Kant's sexism, he nevertheless holds that women are gifted with qualities that are specially conducive to morality. Finally, in chapter 9 she locates the moral evil of human emotions specifically in our passions and then develops and defends Kant's notion of a universal ethical community as a social-institutional vehicle for overcoming morally evil passions.

Borges's book is philosophically important. We can see this by distinguishing between two sharply different approaches to Kantian practical philosophy and action theory: intellectualism and nonintellectualism.

Kantian intellectualism says that the content of our moral principles is wholly determined by our conceptual capacities, and that all our specifically morally right actions are motivated, caused, and justified by pure practical reason alone. By contrast, Kantian nonintellectualism says that the content of our moral principles is not wholly determined by our conceptual capacities, and that it is not the case that all our morally right actions are motivated, caused, and justified by pure practical reason alone. Moreover, there are strong and weak versions of Kantian intellectualism and nonintellectualism.

Strong Kantian intellectualism says that human emotions are inconsistent with and excluded by the content of our moral principles, and that the same goes for the motivations, causes, and justifications of our morally right actions. By contrast, weak Kantian intellectualism says that human emotions always accompany and inflect not only the content of our moral principles but also all our morally right or wrong actions alike, even if those emotions neither belong to or determine the content of those moral principles nor motivate, cause, and justify morally right actions. On the nonintellectualist side of things...