Abstract
This article seeks to reevaluate Kant’s treatment of prudence in his ethics, challenging prevalent interpretations that relegate prudence in Kant to mere technique (skill). Scattered across Kant’s texts, there are indications that prudence (practical judgment) fulfills an essential function in Kant’s ethics: by negotiating the contingencies of an uncertain world, prudence adapts the moral imperative to mutable circumstances. However, Kant is convinced that despair is inevitable for humans, when confronted with the inherent uncertainty and indifference of the natural world. The only remedy against this despair for Kant is faith in a providential God: Kant introduces reliance on God’s providence to reconcile human practical reason with chance and nature’s capriciousness. The article thus underscores the inseparable link between human prudence and God’s providence for living a moral life in the Kantian sense.
References
Primary Sources
Citations of Kant’s works are made to Kants gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols, Berlin: de Gruyter (1902 –), in the following form: abbreviated title, volume, page number, line number, with the exception of Kritik der reinen Vernunft, which is cited with reference to the pagination of the original editions of the first (1781) or second (1787) editions of the work, indicated by A or B.Search in Google Scholar
I use the English translations of these texts from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992 –), with occasional minor modifications.Search in Google Scholar
Secondary Sources
Allison, H. “Reflective Judgment and the Application of Logic to Nature: Kant’s Deduction of the Principle of Purposiveness as an Answer to Hume.” In Strawson and Kant, edited by H.-J. Glock, 169–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Aubenque, P. 1963. La prudence chez Aristote. Paris: PUF.Search in Google Scholar
Aubenque, P. 2014. “La Prudence Chez Kant.” In La prudence chez Aristote, 186–212. Paris: PUF.Search in Google Scholar
Barney, R. 2015. “The Inner Voice: Kant on Conditionality and God as Cause.” In The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant, edited by J. Aufderheide, and R. Bader, 158–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Beck, L. 1996. A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Beiser, F. 2006. “Moral Faith and the Highest Good.” In Kant and Modern Philosophy, edited by P. Guyer, 588–629. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Brague, R. 1997. “Prudence, Prévoyance, Providence.” Communio 134 (XXII): 5–14.Search in Google Scholar
Brandt, R. 2005. “Klugheit bei Kant.” In Klugheit, edited by W. Kersting, 98–132. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft.Search in Google Scholar
Brandt, R. 2007. Die Bestimmung des Menschen bei Kant. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Butts, R. 1990. “Teleology and Scientific Method in Kant’s Critique of Judgment.” Nous 24 (1): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/2215610.Search in Google Scholar
Ginsborg, H. 2017. “Why Must We Presuppose the Systematicity of Nature?” In Kant and the Laws of Nature, edited by M. Massimi, and A. Breitenbach, 71–88. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Goy, I. 2014. “Kant’s Theory of Biology and the Argument from Design.” In Kant’s Theory of Biology, edited by E. Watkins, and I. Goy, 203–20. Göttingen: De Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Graband, C. 2015. Klugheit bei Kant. Berlin: De Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Guyer, P. 1997. Kant and the Claims of Taste. New York: Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar
Guyer, P. 2000. Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hare, J. 2000. “Kant on Recognizing Our Duties as God’s Commands.” Faith and Philosophy 17 (4): 459–78. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil200017430.Search in Google Scholar
Herman, B. 2018. From Principles to Practice: Normativity and Judgment in Ethics and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kirkland, S. 2007. “The Temporality of Phronêsis in the Nicomachean Ethics.” Ancient Philosophy 27 (1): 127–40. https://doi.org/10.5840/ancientphil200727131.Search in Google Scholar
Klein, J. 2021. “On Serpents and Doves: The Systematic Relationship between Prudence and Morality in Kant’s Political Philosophy.” Kant-Studien 112 (1): 78–104. https://doi.org/10.1515/kant-2021-0003.Search in Google Scholar
Kleingeld, P. 1995. “What Do the Virtuous Hope for? Re-reading Kant’s Doctrine of the Highest Good.” In Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, Vol. 1, 91–112. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C. 1996. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kuehn, M. 2002. Kant: A Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mendelssohn, M. 2011. Morning Hours: Lectures on God’s Existence, tr. Daniel O. Dahlstrom and Corey Dyck. New York: Springer.Search in Google Scholar
Nelson, E. 2004. “Moral and Political Prudence in Kant.” International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3): 305–19. https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq200444326.Search in Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 2001. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
O’Neill, O. 1983. “Kant after Virtue.” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 26 (4): 387–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201748308602007.Search in Google Scholar
Palmquist, S. 2009. “Kant’s Religious Argument for the Existence of God: The Ultimate Dependence of Human Destiny on Divine Assistance.” Faith and Philosophy 26 (1): 3–22. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil20092611.Search in Google Scholar
Pasternack, L. 2014. “Faith, Knowledge, and the Highest Good.” In Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, edited by L. Pasternack. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Schwaiger, C. 1999. Kategorische und andere Imperative. Zur Entwicklung von Kants praktischer Philosophie bis 1785. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.Search in Google Scholar
Sussman, D. 2001. The Idea of Humanity: Anthropology and Anthroponomy in Kant’s Ethics. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Teufel, Thomas. “Kant’s Transcendental Principle of Purposiveness and the ‘Maxim of the Lawfulness of Empirical Laws.” In Kant and the Laws of Nature, edited by M. Massimi, and A. Breitenbach, 108–28. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Timmermann, J. 2007. Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens. 2022. Kant’s Will at the Crossroads: An Essay on the Failings of Practical Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tomasi, G. 2016. “God, the Highest Good, and the Rationality of Faith: Reflections on Kant’s Moral Proof of the Existence of God.” In The Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy, edited by T. Höwing, 111–30. New York: De Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Tomaszewska, A. 2022. Kant’s Rational Religion and the Radical Enlightenment: From Spinoza to Contemporary Debates. New York: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar
Walker, R. 2006. “Kant and Transcendental Arguments.” In Kant and Modern Philosophy, edited by P. Guyer, 238–68. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Willaschek, M. 2016. “Must We Believe in the Realizability of Our Ends?” In The Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy, edited by T. Höwing, 223–44. New York: De Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Zammito, J. 1992. The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Proportionality and Purposiveness in Kant’s Highest Good
- Providence and Prudence in Kant’s Theology and Ethics
- Book Reviews
- Samantha Matherne: Seeing More: Kant’s Theory of Imagination
- Dunphy, R., & Lovat, T.: Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy
- Morgana Lambeth: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Kant. The Violence and the Charity
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Proportionality and Purposiveness in Kant’s Highest Good
- Providence and Prudence in Kant’s Theology and Ethics
- Book Reviews
- Samantha Matherne: Seeing More: Kant’s Theory of Imagination
- Dunphy, R., & Lovat, T.: Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy
- Morgana Lambeth: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Kant. The Violence and the Charity