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Kant's Change Of Heart: Radical Evil And Moral Transformation, Christina Drogalis
Kant's Change Of Heart: Radical Evil And Moral Transformation, Christina Drogalis
Dissertations
In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), Kant makes the claim that all humans are radically evil, both by nature and through a free choice. This radical evil, which is the state of having a Gesinnung (disposition) that commits oneself to prioritizing incentives of inclination above incentives of duty, throws into question whether humans can ever become morally good. For this reason, many commentators have dismissed the Religion as not cohesive with Kant's corpus and do not consider it to play an important role in his ethical theory, in particular. Contrary to this traditionally-held interpretation, I show in …
Humanity In The Balance: The Relationship Between The Moral Law And The Promotion Of The Moral World In Kant's Ethics, John J. Garcia
Humanity In The Balance: The Relationship Between The Moral Law And The Promotion Of The Moral World In Kant's Ethics, John J. Garcia
Dissertations
This dissertation deals with the tension between two seemingly divergent approaches to morality. On the one hand, there are those who take the view that morality concerns itself with the promotion of certain ends. This is a teleological or consequentialist view of ethics. On the other hand, we see thinkers who take the view that rationality or some other criteria provide us certain moral imperatives that may not be violated, regardless of our desire to bring about a particular end. Kant is usually depicted not only as a member of the latter camp, but indeed as the father of this …
An Experiential Approach To Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply To Dogmatism, Formalism And Rigorism, Chris Mctavish
An Experiential Approach To Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply To Dogmatism, Formalism And Rigorism, Chris Mctavish
Dissertations
Many of Kant's commentators and critics interpret his moral philosophy solely in terms of the cognitive dimension of his categorical imperative. Such a predominant manner of reading Kant gives rise to the criticism that his moral philosophy is too far removed from the actual way in which human beings orient themselves as moral persons in the world. In response to this general tendency in Kant interpretation, my dissertation proposes to offer an experiential approach to Kant's ethics. By the expression experiential I mean an approach to Kant's thinking that attends to the living sense in which we experience the phenomena …