Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
-
Henrik Jøker Bjerre
Abstract
This paper takes on the broad theme of the relation between legality and morality in Immanuel Kant's practical philosophy. It aims, more specifically, at a clarification of Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment. I claim that Kant's statements in his later writings, especially in the Metaphysics of Morals, of the obligation of citizens of a state to subject themselves unconditionally to the sovereign in power, must be seen in connection with his earlier moral writings in order to maintain a proper Kantian conception of the relation between legality and morality. To this end, Kant's use of the concept of enjoyment is instructive, and looking at it closely makes it possible to spell out why obedience in itself does not suffice for a moral existence. Subjecting ourselves to the prescriptions of positive law might actually function as a way of escaping the insatiable demands of the moral law. In this case, the positive law not only sustains our enjoyment (by securing basic liberties), but also comes to function as an object of enjoyment itself.
© Philosophia Press 2005
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- The Dialectic of Perspectivism, I
- Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
- Incorporating Feminist Standpoint Theory
- Contractualist Account of Reasons for Being Moral Defended
- Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
- Ethics in the Tractatus and Imaginative Understanding
- A Bee's-Eye View on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
- Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
- Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
- Book Review
- Robin May Schott, Discovering Feminist philosophy; Knowledge, ethics politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. x +157
- Cecilia Sjöholm, The Antigone Complex, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2004, pp. 240
- Phenomenology and Psychiatry: A Contemporary Diagnosis Introducing the Work of Thomas Fuchs
- Gunnar Foss and Eivind Kasa (eds.), Forms of Knowledge and Sensibility: Ernst Cassirer and the Human Sciences, Høyskoleforlaget AS – Norwegian Academic Press, 2002, pp. 223
- Dan Zahavi, Søren Overgaard and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer (eds.), Den unge Heidegger, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag 2003, 229 pp.
- Philosophical Aspects on Emotions, ed. Åsa Carlson, Stockholm: Thales, 2005. 351 pp.
