Kant’s account of moral feeling is continually disputed in the secondary literature. My goal is to focus on the Religion and make sense of moral feeling as it appears in this context. I argue that we can best understand moral feeling if we note its place in Kant’s concerns about the possibility of moral conversion. As Kant notes, if the new, morally upright man is of a different character than the man he used to be, then (...) it remains unclear how the new man can properly bear the debts of his old self. To address this issue, we need the presupposition that a person is both continually conscious of her empirical, bodily identity and capable of experiencing a felt recognition of the moral law; without this presupposition, I argue that fair punishment and the just payment of evil debts is impossible. (shrink)

There are many moral qualities which are valued in men. But the question of virtue, of the moral worth of the person as an agent, is quite a different question from that of whether or not he possesses these moral qualities. The problem with which Kant wrestled for many years was that of the nature of the relation between the ‘feeling’ and the ground or motivation of moral action. His Critical doctrine was that the moral (...) feelings lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of our receptiveness to the concept of duty. The Critical doctrine was to allocate the moral feeling to the causality of reason in its practical use, and in that way deliver it from the subjectivism which Kant attributes to all feelings. In the Prize Essay Kant explicitly limits the task of philosophy, however provisionally, to the analytic one of exhibiting, in Newtonian fashion, the basic elements of experience. (shrink)

Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the practical (...) domain—i.e., determining what one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy contains thirty-three short articles and reviews, written for a popular audience; after an introductory essay, ‘Analytic Philosophy and Huma.

This paper argues that contrary to what is often thought, virtue for Kant is not just a matter of strength of will; it has an essential affective dimension. To support this claim, I show that certain affective dispositions, namely moral feelings and desires, are virtuous in the sense that they are constitutive of virtue at the affective level. There is thus an intrinsic connection between an agent’s practice of virtue and the cultivation of her affective dispositions.

Technology is increasingly prominent as a topic of philosophical and normative reflection, as recent technological advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence and climate technologies have demonstrated their capability to disrupt our existing social, political, and moral practices. Recently, there is a call to diversify philosophy of technology, a field which has so far largely failed to engage with philosophical traditions outside the United States and Europe. While there are an increasing number of works that have attempted to answer (...) the call, they are primarily attempts to apply normative values and/or frameworks of specific philosophical and cultural traditions. These works have not delved extensively into the questions of technology in these philosophical and cultural traditions; in particular, they have yet to explore how these philosophical and cultural traditions conceive and construct human-technology relations, namely how humans and technology are—and should be—related. This essay distinguishes itself from other attempts to apply normative values and/or frameworks of specific philosophical and cultural traditions. Our aim is to offer a Confucian view of human-technology relations through reviving three Confucian ideas in early Confucianism, namely Creating Qi from the Images (zhi qi shang xiang 制器尚象), Evoking Moral Feelings through Things (yi gu xing wu 以故興物), and Embedding the Rites into Qi (cang li yu qi 藏禮於器). Constructing human-technology relations in the Confucian perspective will offer us an account of how Confucianism sees technology (co-)shaping our perception of and action in the world; it can also provide us with alternative ways to consider technology’s normative implications. (shrink)

Although in his earlier ethical writings Kant explains the concept of moral feeling, inherited from the British sentimentalists, as a peculiar feeling of respect for the moral law that functions as an incentive for moral actions, the Doctrine of Virtue seems to add complexity to the issue. There, Kant discusses two similar aesthetic predispositions, moral feeling and respect, whose relationship to the feeling of respect is far from clear. This article offers a much needed elucidation of (...) the relationship between these three concepts. In the first part, I show that Kant, in the writings before the Doctrine of Virtue, transforms the British sentimentalists’ construal of moral feeling into that of the feeling of respect as the sole moral incentive. In the second part, I argue that, although in the Doctrine of Virtue Kant distinguishes, for a specific reason, between the aesthetic predisposition of moral feeling and that of respect, they are both ultimately identical to the feeling of respect. The conclusion is that nothing of substance changes between Kant’s earlier thinking and his views in the Doctrine of Virtue; for Kant there is just one feeling that properly deserves the name of moral feeling, the feeling of respect. (shrink)

This book consists of two essays that are related to each other: "Gut Feelings and Moral Knowledge" and "Moral Reality and Moral Progress." The longer second essay has not been previously published. Both are concerned with moral epistemology and our means of access to moral truth; both are concerned with moral realism and with the resistance to subjectivist and reductionist accounts of morality; and both are concerned with the historical development of moral (...) knowledge. The second essay also proposes an account of the historical development of moral truth, according to which it does not share the timelessness of scientific truth. This is because moral truth must be based on reasons that are accessible to the individuals to whom they apply, and such accessibility depends on historical developments. (shrink)

Technology is increasingly prominent as a topic of philosophical and normative reflection, as recent technological advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence and climate technologies have demonstrated their capability to disrupt our existing social, political, and moral practices. Recently, there is a call to diversify philosophy of technology, a field which has so far largely failed to engage with philosophical traditions outside the United States and Europe. While there are an increasing number of works that have attempted to answer (...) the call, they are primarily attempts to apply normative values and/or frameworks of specific philosophical and cultural traditions. These works have not delved extensively into the questions of technology in these philosophical and cultural traditions; in particular, they have yet to explore how these philosophical and cultural traditions conceive and construct human-technology relations, namely how humans and technology are—and should be—related. This essay distinguishes itself from other attempts to apply normative values and/or frameworks of specific philosophical and cultural traditions. Our aim is to offer a Confucian view of human-technology relations through reviving three Confucian ideas in early Confucianism, namely Creating _Qi_ from the Images (_zhi qi shang xiang_ 制器尚象), Evoking Moral Feelings through Things (_yi gu xing wu_ 以故興物), and Embedding the Rites into _Qi_ (_cang li yu qi_ 藏禮於器). Constructing human-technology relations in the Confucian perspective will offer us an account of how Confucianism sees technology (co-)shaping our perception of and action in the world; it can also provide us with alternative ways to consider technology’s normative implications. (shrink)

Kant’s critical theory on moral feeling can be divided into two stages: early and late. In the early stage, Kant was committed to accepting and transforming the traditional concept of moral feeling, while in the later stage he turned to developing his own unique theory on the topic. His beliefs about moral feeling changed between these two stages, both regarding the basic meaning of moral feeling and the function of moral feeling in moral philosophy. (...) This paper argues that these shifts help clarify the framework of Kant’s moral philosophy and introduce a new dimension to Kant’s definition of feelings and the relationship between sensibility and intellectuality. Namely, sensibility is not only determined by intellectuality but also has its unique initiative. Through acting on the body, intellectuality generates intellectual feelings, which in turn assist humans in realizing their intellectual purpose as a limited rational being. (shrink)

Hume's project, in Book 3 of the Treatise, of showing that virtue and vice are discerned by feeling, not reason, is notorious for its contradictions. Armies of Humean scholars have fought valiantly, ingeniously, but unsuccessfully, to resolve them, and in the first half of Hume's Morality, Cohon shows herself an admirably doughty follower in their footsteps. The second half concerns Hume's division between natural and artificial virtues. We learn how self-interest is redirected, and moral sentiment strengthened to provide artificial (...) virtues with the motives they lack naturally, so as to enable them to facilitate impersonal co-operation, though a particular virtuous act may benefit no-one. The author explains why .. (shrink)

This article explores Mencius’ extension of moral feelings and its potential to address a key challenge in cosmopolitan education: how to motivate students to expand their existing affection and obligations towards their family and community to the rest of the world. Rather than strong universalism, a Mencian orientation is aligned with rooted cosmopolitanism that takes into account localised and cultural contexts that underpin, determine and give value to social practices. Mencius’ approach, as argued in this essay, highlights the (...) spontaneous human reactions to ethical situations, innate human goodness, analogical reasoning, moral character and agency. A Confucian form of cosmopolitan education gives emphasis not only to the students’ moral imagination but also their instinctual responses, self-reflection and rationality. Such an education seeks to integrate emotions and reasoning through the utilisation of paradigm scenarios that identify and reinforce the natural compassionate feelings in the learner. (shrink)

An influential body of recent work on moral psychology has stressed the interconnections among ethics, narrative, and empathy. Yet as Patrick Colm Hogan argues, this work is so vague in its use of the term 'narrative' as to be almost substanceless, and this vagueness is in large part due to the neglect of literary study. Extending his previous work on universal story structures, Hogan argues that we can transform ill-defined intuitions about narrative and ethics into explicit and systematic accounts (...) of the deep connections between moral attitudes and narratives. These connections are, in turn, inseparable from empathy, a concept that Hogan proceeds to clarify and defend against a number of widely read critiques. In the course of the book, Hogan develops and illustrates his arguments through analyses of global narratives, constructing illuminating ethical interpretations of literary works ranging from Shakespeare to Chinese drama and the Bhagavad Gita. (shrink)

1. Kantian moral theories have been criticized for their inability to make sense of the phenomenology and propriety of regret in the face of difficult moral choices. As Bernard Williams puts it, re...

Offered here is an interpretation of the ancient Confucian philosopher Mengzi's (372–289 B.C.E.) method of cultivating moral feelings, which he calls "extension." It is argued that this method is both psychologically plausible and an important, but often overlooked, part of moral life. In this interpretation, extending our moral feelings is not a project in logical consistency, analogical reasoning, or emotional intuition. Rather, Mengzi's method of extension is a project in realigning the human heart that harnesses (...) our rational, reflective, and emotional capacities in order to extend the feelings we already have to the appropriate objects for these feelings. It is argued that there are three main features of Mengzi's account that make it an attractive explanation of the cultivation of moral feelings. The first is the way Mengzi sees reasoning and philosophical reflection as an aid to, rather than the foundation for, moral development. The second is Mengzi's precision regarding the relationship between the basic moral feelings we start with (the "sprouts") and their corresponding virtues. The method of extension acts as a well-designed bridge between feelings and virtues. Third, Mengzi's account, unlike that of the Mohist Yi Zhi, whom he criticizes, pays special attention to the complexities and limitations of human psychology. In conclusion it is shown how a Mengzian understanding of the relationship between feelings and morality can answer some traditional challenges, especially Kantian ones, regarding the proper role of emotion in moral life. (shrink)

Rachel Cohon offers an original interpretation of the moral philosophy of David Hume, focusing on two areas.

The apriority of moral feeling is an indispensable part of Kant's insistence on moral certainty as a foundation for ethics. Even though the moral feeling of respect cannot be the source of our knowledge of the authority of the moral law, moral feeling is a catalyst to self-criticism and moral self-confidence. It is argued that moral feeling reveals a nonempirical object, one's moral character. In fact, moral feeling plays a representational role (...) that parallels sense experience, but does not derive from sense experience. His general remarks on sensibility and representations and his specific discussion of moral sensibility make it hard to take feeling as central to his ethics, but this paper explains how they in no way preclude a representational function for moral sense. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to discuss Kant’s engagement with what is arguably the core feature of Hutcheson’s moral sense theory, namely the idea that the moral sense is the foundation of moral judgement. In section one I give an account of Hutcheson’s conception of the moral sense. This sense is a perceptive faculty that explains our ability both to feel a particular kind of pleasure upon perceiving benevolence, and to appraise such benevolence as morally (...) good on the basis of this feeling. Section two summarizes Kant’s discussion of the moral sense during his pre-Critical period. Kant’s appraisal of the concept changes during this time and culminates in the 1769/70 rejection of the moral sense as the foundation of moral judgement. In section three I turn to the main reason why Kant rejects the moral sense as the foundation of moral judgement, namely because it is incapable of issuing sufficiently universal and necessary judgements of moral good and evil. I argue that underlying Kant’s rejection of the moral sense is the fact that he understands the faculty not as a “sense” proper, but as a “feeling” according to his technical understanding of these terms. In the fourth section I conclude by briefly evaluating what my analysis says about Kant’s engagement with Hutcheson. I suggest that while Kant never accepted the existence of a moral sense, Hutcheson’s position was a view with which Kant often contrasted his own, and as such it played an important role in the development and expression of Kant’s mature moral philosophy. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of hatred in philosophic, psychological, and ethical aspects, and of its motivating role during the war. Explicating the philosophical un- derstanding of hatred, the author analyzes the “Treatise of Human Nature” by Hume and ex- plains the structure of hatred as the unity of the elements “cause-object-end” as well as the role of empathy in their genesis. In the article, the author proves that hatred as a passion is not a (...) hu- man instinct or only an emotion, while having an intention towards the understanding of another person and ethical evaluation of his or her motives and actions. The author analyzes the psycho- logical structure of hatred as a durable complex of negative attitudes, motives, emotions, and dispositions of a person formed in individual and social existence. The multilevel way of experience and content of hatred explicated by the range from simple negation of other beings to the ex- pression of moral judgement and demand of the retribution of hurt and struggle against evil. The author analyzes the concept of hatred by R. and K. Sternberg as a negation of intimacy of the other combined with various emotions and commitments of a person to act. Based on that, the article discusses the possibilities of the acquisition of ethical content by hatred and analyzes the typology of hatred by J. Gee (simple hatred, prejudicial hatred, malice and spite, retributive hatred, and moral hatred). The author of the article argues that the higher forms of conscious and controlled hatred possess rational components and moral content. The author concludes that the retributive hatred as a reactive moral attitude towards the blame of the wrongdoer and the de- mand of holding him responsible is an appropriate form of motivation for the resistance during the war and the establishment of peace. This kind of hatred plays a legitimate role in a mature person’s moral life and can be ethically justified. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The main goals of this paper are two. First, it articulates what kinds of knowing pure knowing is in its narrow sense pure knowing as the capacity of moral judgment; pure knowing as moral knowledge and standard. Besides, it analyses pure knowing’s different features through a phenomenological description. All these aspects of pure knowing are tied by moral feeling. Second, this paper addresses two sets of theoretical problems that have been raised in Confucian discourse with respect to (...) pure knowing and Heavenly principle, primarily those that render Wang’s notion of pure knowing to be static recognition toward particular moral issues, or immediate response, which reading cannot really admit the possibilities of extension, reflection, moral cultivation, and reform of institution; and those that understand pure knowing to be merely abstract without concrete content, such as merely being a metaphysical substance. When properly understood, that is, from the perspective of moral emotions, Wang Yangming’s account of pure knowing provides for the possibilities of enhancement and cultivation, while insisting that the content of pure knowing is always accessible to us. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to resolve the Frierson-Grenberg debate on the nature of Kant’s account of moral motivation that took place in the third issue of Con-textos Kantianos. In their respective interpretations, Frierson and Grenberg fail to accommodate the a priori status of moral feeling when incorporating it into Kant’s moral motivational structure. In response, I provide a novel transcendental interpretation – one that takes the a priori moral feeling both as an incentive of morality (...) and as that which conditions the possibility of morality in human agents. I argue that Kant developed the notion of moral feeling solely in order to resolve the problem of motivational skepticism concerning the moral law. Since this problem occurs as a part of Kant’s search for the supreme principle of morality, the notion of moral feeling becomes a part of both Kant’s moral motivational structure and his argument to justify the moral law. (shrink)

In the past few decades a remarkable change occurred in Kant scholarship: the "other" Kant has been discovered, i.e. the one of the doctrine of virtue and the anthropology. Through the rediscovery of Kant's investigations into the empirical and sensuous aspects of knowledge, our understanding of Kant's philosophy has been enriched by an important element that has allowed researchers to correct supposed deficiencies in Kant's work. In addition, further questions concerning the nature of Kant's philosophy itself have been formulated: the (...) more the "other" Kant comes to the fore, the stronger the question concerning the connection between pure philosophy and empirical investigation becomes. The aim of this study is to show that the psychological and anthropological interpretations of Kant's pure philosophy are not convincing and at the same time to illustrate some connections between his critical and anthropological investigations by means of an analysis of the theory of the faculties. Against both a "transcendental psychological" and an "anthropological" reading, the book presents Kant's theory of the facultiesas a constitutive part of his critical philosophy andshows that there is a close connection between Kant's pure philosophy and his moral aesthetic. (shrink)

In my paper, I shall take seriously Kant’s puzzling statements about the moral feeling of respect, which is, according to him, “a feeling self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different” from all common feelings. I will focus on the systematic position of the moral feeling of respect within the framework of Kant’s transcendental idealism. By considering its volitional structure, I argue for a compatibilist account of the moral feeling of respect, according to (...) which both intellectualist and affectivist interpretations are true. As such, respect can be understood in terms of a process of moral self-consciousness and self-formation, which means that the will must be freed from initial empirical motives, and finally be determined only by rational principles. (shrink)

In analyzing moral distress, perhaps greater attention should be given to the possible implicit sources of feelings of distress, as well as explicit sources.

I oppose the way John Skorupski characterizes morality in terms of the blameworthy and the role he consequently assigns to punitive feelings in directing one's will and shaping one's character. Skorupski does not hold that the punishment involved in blame- and guilt-feelings grounds the normativity of moral obligation. He defends a specific view of moral psychology and moral practice in which the blame-feeling disposes to the withdrawal of recognition, which involves some sort of casting the (...) transgressor out of the community resulting in the suffering of repentance which is necessary to make atonement (at-one-ment) possible. I argue that this picture threatens to socialize morality. I defend the Kantian idea that the will is not aligned to obligation through castigation, but through our consciousness of our vocation as takers and givers of reasons. This highlights very different feelings as essential to the typically moral stance, feelings that are not necessarily punitive, like feelings of respect and reverence. (shrink)

The research examined the use of moral justification as a mediating mechanism of stress, used by compulsory Israeli soldiers who had served at army roadblocks in the West Bank. Employing Bandura’s model of moral disengagement, we expected that the greater the justification of army roadblocks by the soldier, the more he would feel adjusted to army demands. Feelings of adjustment to this situation were examined using three components: cognitive, affective and behavioral. The sample was composed of 170 (...) Israeli ex-soldiers who had served for at least 1 month at army roadblocks in the West Bank during the Al-Aksa Intifada. The results supported the hypothesis regarding association between moral justification and feelings of adjustment at the end of army service. The mediating hypothesis was partially supported. Significance of moral justification as a mechanism of coping with the enforced situation of military law is discussed. (shrink)

Positive Psychology has turned its attention to the study of emotions in a scientific and rigorous way. Particularly, to how emotions influence people’s health, performance, or their overall life satisfaction. Within this trend, Flow theory has established a theoretical framework that helps to promote the Flow experience. Flow state, or optimal experience, is a mental state of high concentration and enjoyment that, due to its characteristics, has been considered desirable for the development of the performing activity of performing musicians. Musicians (...) are a population prone to health problems, both psychological and physical, owing to different stressors of their training and professional activity. One of the most common problems is Musical Performance Anxiety. In this investigation, an electronic intervention program was carried out for the development of psychological self-regulation skills whose main objective was to trigger the Flow response in performing musicians and the coping mechanism for Musical Performance Anxiety. A quasi-experimental design was used with a control group in which pre- and post-measures of Flow State, Musical Performance Anxiety and, also, Social Skills were taken. Sixty-two performing musicians from different music colleges in Spain participated in the program. Results indicated that the intervention significantly improved Flow State, and Sense of Control, and decreased Music Performance Anxiety, and self-consciousness of the participants in the EG but not CG. The changes in the EG after the program showed the inverse relationship between Flow and Anxiety. Two important theoretical factors of both variables, such as worry and the feeling of lack of control, could be involved. The results are under discussion and future lines of research are proposed. (shrink)

Is the epistemology of moral intuitions compatible with admitting a role for emotion? I argue in this paper that moral intuitions and emotions can be partners without creating an epistemic threat. I start off by offering some empirical findings to weaken Singer’s (and Greene’s and Haidt’s) debunking argument against moral intuition, which treat emotions as a distorting factor. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the standard contrast between intuition and emotion is a mistake. (...) Moral intuitions and emotions are not contestants if we construe moral intuition as non-doxastic intellectual seeming and emotion as a non-doxastic perceptual-like state. This will show that emotions support, rather than distort, the epistemic standing of moral intuitions. (shrink)

Kant's conception of moral agency is often charged with attributing no role to feelings. I suggest that respect is the effective force driving moral action. I then argue that four additional types of rational feelings are necessary conditions of moral agency: The affective inner life of moral agents deliberating how to act and reflecting on their deeds is rich and complex . To act morally we must turn our affective moral perception towards the (...) ends of moral action: the welfare of others ; and our own moral being . Feelings shape our particular moral acts . I tentatively suggest that the diversity of moral feelings might be as great as the range of our duties. (shrink)

Bell argues that contempt has an important role to play in confronting and addressing immorality, and in that respect is essential to moral relations. Her book is not just a defense of contempt, but an account of the virtues and vices of it, providing a model for thinking more generally about the negative emotions as a response to vice.

Derk Pereboom argues that since we are not ultimately morally responsible for our thoughts and actions, it is irrational and unfair to feel and express moral anger towards agents for their wrongdoings. Furthermore, he argues, moral anger is not practically beneficial, typically causing more harm than good. Thus, he proposes that we replace moral anger with moral sadness, or disappointment in response to agents’ wrongdoings. I offer a functional account of moral anger to argue that (...) moral anger has important intrapersonal and interpersonal functions that cannot be served by moral sadness. I show that when we feel and express moral anger in the right contexts, it a) promotes long-term wellbeing, b) benefits relationships, and c) is the best way to change agents’ future behavior. I conclude by discussing implications of my functional account for Pereboom’s claim that moral anger is rational and fair only if we are ultimately morally responsible. (shrink)

Rachel Cohon's Hume is a moral sensing theorist, who holds both that moral qualities are mind-dependent and that there is such a thing as moral knowledge. He is an anti-rationalist about motivation, arguing that reason alone does not motivate, but allows that both beliefs and passions are motivating. And he is both a descriptive and a normative moral theorist who, despite having resources for putting checks on our sentimentally-based moral evaluations, does end up with a (...) kind of a relativistic account of the virtues and vices. Professor Cohon's arguments in Hume's Morality1 are tight and vigorous. Anyone working on these . (shrink)

This study takes as its point of departure a question posed by Francis Hutcheson in An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, an important text of the Scottish Enlightenment. Hutcheson asked: “Whence arises this Love of Esteem, or Benevolence, to good Men, or to Mankind in general, if not from some nice Views of Self-Interest?” . As will be well known to readers of this journal, Hutcheson in his answer pointed to the workings of a (...) “moral sense,” arguing: “The Universality of this moral Sense, and that it is antecedent to Instruction, may appear from observing the Sentiments of Children, upon hearing the Storys with which they are commonly entertain’d as soon as they understand Language. They always passionately interest themselves on that side where Kindness and Humanity are found; and detest the Cruel, the Covetous, the Selfish, or the Treacherous. How strongly do we see their Passions of Joy, Sorrow, Love, and Indignation, mov’d by these moral Representations, even tho there has been no pains taken to give them Ideas of a Deity, of Laws, of a future State, or of the more intricate Tendency of the universal Good to that of each Individual!”. (shrink)