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More than a feeling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

E. Sonny Elizondo
E. Sonny Elizondo*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA93106-3090, USA
*
*Email: eselizondo@philosophy.ucsb.edu
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Abstract

According to rationalist conceptions of moral agency, the constitutive capacities of moral agency are rational capacities. So understood, rationalists are often thought to have a problem with feeling. For example, many believe that rationalists must reject the attractive Aristotelian thought that moral activity is by nature pleasant. I disagree. It is easy to go wrong here because it is easy to assume that pleasure is empirical rather than rational and so extrinsic rather than intrinsic to moral agency, rationalistically conceived. Drawing on underappreciated elements of Kant’s moral psychology, I sketch an alternative form of rationalism, according to which moral activity is by nature pleasant because at least some pleasures are by nature rational.

Keywords

Kantrationalismmoral agencyfeelingpleasure
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 3-4 , August 2014 , pp. 425 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

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