Mündigkeit und Tugend. – David Hume, Immanuel Kant und Adam Smith über Dispositionen zu moralischem Handeln und Strategien, sich der moralischen Verpfl ichtung zu entziehen
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Christel Fricke
Abstract
Moral principles are universally valid, valid for all human beings in so far as they are mature, responsible and of a sound mind – this idea is an essential part of our understanding of morality. Moral principles do not allow for any exceptions. Therefore, we expect from every person we take for mature and responsible to do her or his moral duty. This does not mean that we are naive about the moral goodness of human beings. We just cannot give up this expectation without considering a person as immature and irresponsible, as not being provided with a sound mind so that we cannot blame her or him for any moral failure. Any analysis of moral motivation therefore has to explain both that all responsible persons can and must have a disposition to moral agency and that for all of them this disposition is somehow privileged so that, in a case of confl icting dispositions of volition and action, it is the moral dispositions that finally determine the aim or purpose of the action. On this background, the theories of moral motivation provided by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith are compared. Whereas Hume seems to give up the whole idea of universal validity of moral principles and moral obligation, both Kant and Smith try to explain how dispositions to moral agency can be as omnipresent and motivationally strong as they should be – given the implication of our moral expectations. However, both theories meet with essential difficulties because they cannot exclude the influence of contingent factors on the moral motivation of a responsible person.
© Philosophia Press 2004
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial Remark
- Hermeneutic Practice and Theories of Meaning
- On the possibility of a philosophical justifi cation for universally binding principles. in an age of one-state supremacy and shrinking interstate institutions
- Mündigkeit und Tugend. – David Hume, Immanuel Kant und Adam Smith über Dispositionen zu moralischem Handeln und Strategien, sich der moralischen Verpfl ichtung zu entziehen
- Kant and Plato
- “This all but universal illusion …”. Remarks on the question: Why did Mill write On Liberty?
- A defense of the causal efficacy of dispositions
- Freedom as Satisfaction? A Critique of Frankfurt's Hierarchical Theory of Freedom
- Smilansky's Baseline Objection to Choice-Egalitarianism
- Reply to Lippert-Rasmussen On the Paradox of the Baseline
- Review Essay
- Heidegger on Subjectivity and Self-Consciousness
- Book Reviews
- Stephen Darwall, Welfare and Rational Care, Princeton Monographs in Philosophy, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. 135 pp.
- Review of Steen Brock: Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Quantum Physics in the Light of the Helmholtzian Tradition of Theoretical Physics, Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2003, 303 pp.
- Fredrik Sundqvist, Perceptual Dynamics: Theoretical Foundations and Philosophical Implications of Gestalt Psychology, Acta Philosophica Gothoburgensia 16, Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2003. 248 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial Remark
- Hermeneutic Practice and Theories of Meaning
- On the possibility of a philosophical justifi cation for universally binding principles. in an age of one-state supremacy and shrinking interstate institutions
- Mündigkeit und Tugend. – David Hume, Immanuel Kant und Adam Smith über Dispositionen zu moralischem Handeln und Strategien, sich der moralischen Verpfl ichtung zu entziehen
- Kant and Plato
- “This all but universal illusion …”. Remarks on the question: Why did Mill write On Liberty?
- A defense of the causal efficacy of dispositions
- Freedom as Satisfaction? A Critique of Frankfurt's Hierarchical Theory of Freedom
- Smilansky's Baseline Objection to Choice-Egalitarianism
- Reply to Lippert-Rasmussen On the Paradox of the Baseline
- Review Essay
- Heidegger on Subjectivity and Self-Consciousness
- Book Reviews
- Stephen Darwall, Welfare and Rational Care, Princeton Monographs in Philosophy, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. 135 pp.
- Review of Steen Brock: Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Quantum Physics in the Light of the Helmholtzian Tradition of Theoretical Physics, Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2003, 303 pp.
- Fredrik Sundqvist, Perceptual Dynamics: Theoretical Foundations and Philosophical Implications of Gestalt Psychology, Acta Philosophica Gothoburgensia 16, Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2003. 248 pp.
