Delusions of Virtue: Kant on Self-Conceit, by Kate Moran

One of the more common misunderstandings of Kant’s moral theory is that it is centrally concerned with assessing the moral worth of others. It is perhaps easy to see where this misreading comes from: for better or worse, one of his most memorable discussions exhibits what seems like a rather critical stance on the moral worth of a friendly sort of person who helps others out of love and fellow feeling. (GMS 4:398–9) What readers often miss, however, is that the discussion of moral worth in the Groundwork serves only a very narrow purpose, i.e. establishing the non-contingency of moral action – the first of three common sense propositions that bring us to the doorstep of the categorical imperative. To be sure, Kant thinks that we have a natural inclination to discuss and judge the moral worth of others’ actions. And within limits, he thinks, we can harness that natural inclination in the service of moral education (KpV 5:135). 

Crucially, however, when it comes to judging the moral worth of actions, our duty lies primarily in turning the lens inward and interrogating our own motives, and the moral character of our own actions. Failing to engage in this sort of internal assessment leads, in part, to the failure of self-conceit discussed in this essay. Self-conceit is a tendency, at bottom, to think of oneself as effortlessly virtuous. We engage in self-conceit, for example, when we congratulate ourselves for beneficence without examining the background conditions against which we are able to be beneficent – for example that our ability to be charitable (and the very need for that charity) may be the product of a past injustice of which we are the beneficiary (KpV 5:155n). What Kant’s discussion of self-conceit shows us is that virtue needs to be coupled with a persistent humility – an acknowledgment that virtue is not an exercise of effortless nobility, but rather a constant striving and a work in progress.

Active Sympathetic Participation: Reconsidering Kant's Duty of Sympathy, by Melissa Seymour Fahmy
In ‘Active Sympathetic Participation,’ I argued that we should understand Kant’s third duty of love as a duty to participate actively and affectively in the fate of others. The recent protests for racial justice are powerful examples of active sympathetic participation. Protesters stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, often carrying homemade signs expressing their shared outrage. But I also maintained that the third duty of love is fundamentally a duty to resist the temptation to isolate ourselves from others. De facto racial segregation demonstrates that a kind of racial isolation can be achieved even if it is not pursued directly. Many of us live racially segregated lives. Black people are under-represented in philosophy at all levels. In many parts of the U.S., public schools and neighbourhoods are nearly as segregated now as they were when segregation was legally mandated. Kant urged his reader not to avoid impoverished places, sickrooms, and prisons, but to seek them out. Each of these places can serve as a marker for areas where striking racial disparities persist, especially in the U.S.: wealth distribution, health outcomes, and punishment. The third duty of love, then, can require not avoiding troubling truths about ourselves and our society, truths which will likely cause painful feelings, but rather to seek them out, so that all might actively and sympathetically participate in the fate of those who have suffered from the brutal history of racial injustice.

Natura Daedala Rerum? On the Justification of Historical Progress in Kant's Guarantee of Perpetual Peace, by Lea Ypi
Nature, Kant emphasizes, in the Critique of Judgement has not taken human beings for her special favourite; it has rather spared them ‘just as little as every other animal in her destructive effects, whether pestilence, hunger, danger of flood, cold, attacks by animals’. To this list we may add: global pandemics. The current threat from COVID19 reminds us of our shared vulnerability to natural catastrophes regardless of where we live. Its asymmetric impact on peoples’ lives, depending on whether they are rich or poor, men or women, white or people of colour, sheds light on the historical and structural injustices that underpin the current global order. To criticise that order and to orient our efforts to change it, Kant’s concept of progress plays a crucial role. The relation between nature and freedom on which the idea of progress is grounded, is crucial from a critical perspective, to reflect on how social injustices affect our response to natural challenges. That idea also shapes our thinking about the future. In times of crisis, the belief in progress gives us collective grounds for hope.

To defend progress and maintain optimism in the middle of a global pandemic, when everything in the world seems to contrive against us, may sound slightly deranged. And yet the idea of progress is necessary, Kant suggests, and it can be justified by thinking about the moral efforts of human beings as coordinated through social and political institutions, and as continuous across generations. Contrary to what is often argued, Kant’s defence of progress is not rooted in nature’s inherently benevolent disposition towards human beings. It is grounded on something entirely distinct: human beings’ collective commitment to shape political institutions and cultural practices that realize moral ideals over time. Progress is a necessary idea on which we rely not so much to take comfort in our past, but to learn the right lessons from it. It is also a necessary idea to project a future in which our moral capacities are collectively realised.

Kant's Political Zweckmässigkeit, by Dilek Huseyinzadegan
Kant’s contribution to contemporary moral-political philosophy is largely construed as an ideal theory of a well-ordered society, that is, a theory that lays out a plan for what our political norms and institutions ought to look like. This leads many authors to disregard any of Kant’s claims that utilize teleological language, especially because those claims do not sit well with how we want to view an ideal society today. The wager of this 2016 article is this: part of Kant’s contemporary legacy for political thought is the very fact that he grasped and grappled with the fundamental relevance of history for political theorizing vis-à-vis his methodology of teleology, or what I name in the article his ‘political Zweckmässigkeit [purposiveness]’. As I begin to show here, and develop more fully in my subsequent book, Kant holds teleological views of history, culture and geography and these views significantly inform and inflect his major political ideals.

As I reflect on my work and re-contextualize this article for this virtual special issue, I encourage Kant scholars (and anyone who studies Kant) to analyse not only Kant’s abstract ideals such as the idea of a cosmopolitan world order, but also the nonideal undercurrents of these ideals, together with their still-unfolding history in the present, from the scientific concept of race to the Eurocentric idea of a world history and cultural production. In other words, let us reckon with the entirety of Kant's claims: the good, the bad and the ugly. I hope that this piece offers a compelling case for the urgent need to re-assess the rich but complicated contemporary legacy of Kant's and Kantian philosophy at this time.

Making the Ideal Real: Publicity and Morality in Kant, by Melissa Zinkin
In my paper, I wanted to explore why we do not disclose to others aspects of ourselves, such as our personal ends and motivations, despite the fact that they are morally right. If making our moral motives public makes us vulnerable, this is an indictment of our society, whose norms make us keep secrets. Nevertheless, I think that in a non-ideal world, we are still morally obligated to make public our humanity, even when this reveals our vulnerability, and thereby to promote social progress. Kant’s philosophy provides a way to discuss these ideas because, as I argue, for Kant, reason has not only the property of universality but also of publicity. A right reason for my action does not belong just to me. Rather, right reasons belong to all rational beings and therefore should be publicly known. Even if I do not trust someone to respect my reasons, I should give them the opportunity to respond in the right way. This is what I take Kant to mean by saying ‘act as if you were always through your maxims a law-making member in the universal kingdom of ends’. We should act as if we are in a kingdom where everyone knows and respects each other’s ends. We should act as if we are not vulnerable and make public what we know is right. By following this imperative, we become moral exemplars and public figures. This is why Kant says that the kingdom of ends ‘is a practical idea for the sake of bringing about … that which does not exist, but which can become real by means of our conduct’. This can be related to the current social protests. Signs read ‘silence is compliance’ and ‘white silence = white consent’. And the world is witnessing multitudes of moral exemplars who, indeed, indict society and, hopefully, can bring about social change.

Civility and Hospitality: Justice and Social Grace in Trying Times, by Sarah Holtman
US citizens’ failures to honour and act on settled convictions of justice in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 provide the original backdrop for this piece. An effort to develop and extend Kantian theory for practical purposes, it sketches Kant-based accounts of civic virtue and social grace and explores their role in sustaining and advancing justice in times of social turmoil. Civic virtues (e.g. civic respect and concern) are developed dispositions that aid citizens in fulfilling obligations of justice. Social graces, e.g. of civility and hospitality, are manners of behaviour giving voice to these virtues. Civility encompasses practices that evidence and help us maintain commitments of justice to fellow citizens; hospitality includes practices supporting just relations with those who are ‘foreigners’.

2001 is not 2020, and terrorist attacks differ from racially motivated police brutality in many ways. But the concerns that prompted this exploration of civic virtue and social grace as a means of bracing and tempering Kantian commitments are as alive in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers as they were in 2001. Fear of institutional change and suspicion of those whose message and method are unfamiliar are as likely now as then to silence thoughtful voices committed to justice. The inclination to treat those deemed as ‘foreigners’ as enemies, though they are fellow citizens, is the source of both the brutality that sparked worldwide protests and the ingrained tendency to ignore it. The need to develop justice-supporting attitudes and practices, among ordinary citizens and those (like police) who serve in institutional roles, is now essential not only to avoiding injustice in the moment, but to prospects for establishing justice over time. My hope is that this extension of Kant’s work offers insight towards justice on the ground, differing context notwithstanding.