Kant on the Obstacles of Reflection: Affects, Passions and Maxims

2.1 How Passions Impede Reflection

Kant tells us that “inclination that prevents reason from comparing it with the sum of all inclinations in respect to a certain choice is passion” (Anth 7:265). In the Anthropology, he elaborates that “passions are cancerous sores for pure practical reason” (Anth 7:266) since passion “directly contradicts the formal principle of reason” (Anth 7:266). The “formal principle of reason” is “not to please one inclination by placing all the rest in the shade or in a dark corner, but rather to see to it that it can exist together with the totality of all inclinations” (Anth 7:266). What this means, I would claim, is that passions preclude one to properly evaluate this one passion in light of the sum of all other inclinations one has, since all these other inclinations would be overlooked. Now, Kant often says that human beings sum up “the entire satisfaction” of their “needs and inclinations” under the name of happiness (GM IV 405.7–8), and happiness is the idea “that all inclinations unite in one sum” (GM IV 399.8–9, cf. GM IV 394.17–18). So, we can infer that passions preclude one from properly comparing this one passion to all of one’s other inclinations when evaluating one’s choice in light of one’s overall happiness.

Kant provides us with an example to illustrate how passions work:

The ambition of a human being may always be an inclination whose direction is approved by reason; but the ambitious person nevertheless also wants to be loved by others, the maintenance of his financial position, and the like. However, if he is a passionately ambitious person, then he is blind to these ends, though his inclinations still summon him to them, and he overlooks completely the risk he is running that he will be hated by others, or avoided in social intercourse, or impoverished through his expenditures. It is folly (making part of one’s end the whole) which directly contradicts the formal principle of reason itself. (Anth 7:266)

Here, Kant compares the ambitious person and the passionately ambitious person. The ambitious person, in addition to his ambition, also desires to be loved by others and to maintain his financial position, and he is able to deal with his ambition in a way that fits with these other inclinations. By contrast, Kant tells us that the passionately ambitious person, though still desiring to be loved by others and to maintain his financial position, completely overlooks the risk of not satisfying these other inclinations. He does not properly compare this one passion with the sum of all his other inclinations by conflating the part (his passion) with the whole (the sum of all his other inclinations). Thus, Kant tells us, he overlooks completely the risk that he will be hated by others, avoided in social intercourse, or impoverished through his expenditures.

To sum up: Kant tells us that passions preclude reflection in that they preclude the comparison of this one passion with the sum of one’s other inclinations in light of one’s overall happiness when it comes to a certain choice of action.

2.2 How Affects Impede Reflection

Kant claims that what constitutes being in a state of affect is that one lacks reflection in comparing this one affect with the sum of all other feelings of pleasure and displeasure one has: “It is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure or displeasure)” (Anth 7:254). In the Anthropology, he elaborates that “the feeling of a pleasure or displeasure in the subject’s present state that does not let him rise to reflection (the representation by means of reason as to whether he should give himself up to it or refuse it) is affect.” (Anth 7:251). Here, Kant holds that, when one is in a state of affect, one is not allowed to reflect. By reflection, he means the representation by means of reason as to whether one should give oneself up to one’s feeling or refuse it. Thus, one who is subject to an affect is impeded in the comparison between this one affect and the sum of all other feelings one has. Affects prevent one from properly answering the question “Should I give myself up to this affect? Or should I refuse to act from it?” Thus, comparing this one affect with the sum of all other feelings one has is relevant for answering the normative question about whether one should give oneself up to one’s affect or refuse to act from it.

Let us look at an example Kant provides to further illustrate this point:

The rich person, whose servant clumsily breaks a beautiful and rare crystal goblet while carrying it around, would think nothing of this accident if, at the same moment, he were to compare this loss of one pleasure with the multitude of all the pleasures that his fortunate position as a rich man offers him. However, if he now gives himself over completely to this one feeling of pain (without quickly making that calculation in thought), then it is no wonder that, as a result, he feels as if his entire happiness were lost. (Anth 7:254)

Here, Kant describes a rich man who gives himself over completely to his feeling of pain when his servant breaks a beautiful and rare goblet. This man, Kant tells us, would probably think nothing of this accident, were he to compare the loss of this one pleasure with the multitude of all the pleasures that his fortunate position as a rich man offers him. The comparison at stake is a “quick calculation,” presumably of quantities of feeling in a pain-pleasure scale. Since Kant tells us that as a result of not making this calculation the rich man feels as if his entire happiness were lost, we can infer that what is at stake in making this calculation is his ability to properly evaluate whether he should give himself over to his feeling in light of his overall happiness.

That the rich man fails to properly compare this affect to the sum of all other feelings he has, I would argue, means that he fails to properly evaluate whether he should give himself up to his affect or refuse to act from it in light of his overall happiness. If he were to properly compare his affect to the sum of all of his other feelings, then he would be able to determine that he should not have allowed his affect to influence his action as it did, that is, he should not have given himself up to his affect.

The example of the rich man in the throes of affect resembles the example of the passionately ambitious person. In both cases, the failure to properly compare the affect or passion to the sum of all of one’s feelings or inclinations, respectively, leads the affect or passion to have an inappropriate influence over one’s actions. As a result, the way in which affects preclude reflection mirrors the way in which passions preclude reflection.

2.3 Some Implications of Affects and Passions Both Impeding One Kind of Reflection

The previous discussion has made clear that Kant holds that both affects and passions preclude a certain kind of reflection, namely the capacity of comparison. The relevant comparison affects preclude is the comparison between this affect and the sum of all other feelings one has. The relevant comparison passions preclude is the comparison between this one passion and the sum of all other inclinations one has. That both affects and passions preclude comparison in this way means that both affects and passions work by precluding the agent in the proper assessment of whether she should act from this one affect or this one passion. Moreover, Kant tells us that what is at stake in properly evaluating whether one should act from this one affect or this one passion is one’s overall happiness: both affects and passions are threats for prudence. But, of course, affects and passions are also threats for morality: both affects and passions would impede the agent’s proper assessment of what duty requires her to do (MM 6:408–409).^[3] Indeed, Kant tells us that we have a duty to be free from affects and passions, and he calls this duty the duty of apathy (MM 6:408).^[4]

In this section, I will argue that – in contrast to some widely accepted views in Kant scholarship – affects do not prevent the kind of reflection needed for adopting maxims. The argument I will present is not the only one that can be provided for this claim, but I will only briefly summarize these other arguments here.

When scholars claim that, according to Kant, affects prevent the agent from adopting maxims of action, they often draw on Kant’s claim that “it is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure or displeasure)” (Anth 7:254). They take this to mean that Kant sees affects as feelings that, in Patrick Frierson’s words, “suspend the influence of the power of choice, that is, the higher faculty of desire” (Frierson 2014b, 219). This reading relies on two claims. First, it identifies the power of choice with the higher faculty of desire. “The power of choice is precisely a power of the higher faculty of volition” (Frierson 2014b, 63). Second, it claims that one can adopt maxims only when the determining ground of one’s action lies in the higher faculty of desire. According to Frierson, one subject to affects would “act directly from lower desires” (Frierson 2014b, 63) such as “stimuli” or “impulse” (Frierson 2014b, 22), rather than on maxims, precisely because, according to this position, maxims have their determining grounds in the higher faculty of desire.

However, there is textual evidence that this was not Kant’s considered view.^[5] For example, in the Second Critique Kant makes it clear that the determining ground of all material practical rules stems from the lower faculty of desire: “All material practical rules put the determining ground of the will in the lower faculty of desire” (KpV 5:22). Material practical rules are those “which place the determining ground of choice in the pleasure or displeasure to be felt in the reality of some object” (KpV 5:22) rather than in the “merely formal laws of the will” (KpV 5:22), and “belong without exception to the principle of self-love or one’s own happiness” (KpV 5:22). This tells us that maxims of self-love have their determining ground in the lower faculty of desire. Thus, the passage clearly rules out that one can adopt maxims only when the determining ground of one’s action lies in the higher faculty of desire. The passage also rules out that the power of choice is to be identified with the higher faculty of desire alone: Kant holds that adopting a maxim that has its determining ground in the lower faculty of desire – that is, a maxim of self-love – amounts to a determination of one’s power of choice: “A rule that the agent himself makes his principle on subjective grounds is called his maxim” (MM 6:225).

Another piece of evidence can be found in the Metaphysics of Morals, where Kant asserts that “[l]aws proceed from the will, maxims from choice (Willkür)” (MM 6:226). Key for understanding the relevance of this passage is Kant’s claim that the faculty of desire in general – be it higher or lower – amounts to the faculty for choice (cf. MM 6:213). Since Kant claims that maxims stem from the faculty of choice and does not specify that maxims only stem from the intellectual power of choice – which Kant identifies with the higher faculty of desire – there is no reason to hold that maxims cannot stem from the sensitive power of choice – which Kant identifies with the lower faculty of desire.

I move now on to the argument by comparison, which I take to undermine the assumption of a number of Kant scholars that affects never allow acting on a maxim whereas passion always allow acting on a maxim. I start with analyzing Frierson’s account of this difference.

To determine to what extent passions can involve reflection, Frierson focuses on Kant’s remark that “the calm with which one gives oneself up to [a passion] permits reflection and allows the mind to form principles” (MM 6:408) as well as his claim that passion always presupposes a maxim, and is “therefore always connected with his reason” (Anth 7:266).^[6] Thus, for Frierson passions allow reflection in the sense of the capacity to form principles of action, that is, maxims. For Frierson, then, the kind of reflection that is impeded by affects but not by passions is the capacity to form maxims:

One with a passion for vengeance would be motivated by this principle, structuring decisions, formulating subordinating maxims, and so on, all in accordance with the desire for revenge. By contrast, one with a pure inclination, in the strict sense, for revenge would not even formulate maxims but would simply strike out in retaliation. While this might be possible, Kant would classify it under the affect of anger rather than the passion of vengeance with its lasting maxims. (Frierson 2014a, 108)

However, I hold that Frierson’s interpretation runs into textual and interpretative problems. Kant clearly states that an affect is a feeling that impedes the kind of reflection needed for proper evaluation: “It is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure and displeasure)” (Anth 7:254).^[7] But passions also impede reflection in the sense of proper evaluation. Thus, if it were the case that affects preclude the capacity to form principles because of their impeding reflection, then passions would also preclude the capacity to form principles. Frierson’s account would imply that we can attribute to Kant both the claim that passions preclude the capacity to form principles and the claim that passions entail the capacity to form principles. So, Frierson seems to be wrong to take the fact that affects preclude reflection to mean that affects preclude the capacity to form principles. That affects preclude the kind of reflection needed for proper evaluation cannot on its own establish that affects preclude the capacity to form principles.

Another prominent account of affects and passions worth analyzing is Melissa Merritt’s. In Kant on Reflection and Virtue, Merritt claims that affects and passions work “as distinct modes of reflective failure” (Merritt 2018, 19). She distinguishes between two kinds of reflection, reflection-c and reflection-n:

There is a sense of reflection that goes on by default whenever anyone does anything – or has a view about how things are – at all. One “reflects” in this sense simply by having some tacit handle on oneself as the source of a point of view. Call this reflection-c – since, on Kant’s view it is constitutive of the thinking of a rational being. It may need to be distinguished from – and complemented by – some souped-up variety of reflection that does not obtain by default […] Reflection in this sense belongs to the deliberate consideration of whether one has reason to x or to take it that p […] Call it reflection-n. (Merritt 2018, 19)

If I am reading Merritt correctly, reflection-c pertains to what it takes to reflect at all, whereas reflection-n pertains to a normative requirement, that is, to how one should reflect.

On Merritt’s account, the agent in the throes of affect lacks what it takes to reflect at all, that is, reflection-c. Passions, instead, allow the agent to engage in reflection-c, but they impede the agent to meet some normative standards when reflecting, that is, to engage in reflection-n:

Affect lacks reflection altogether: it is a momentary madness, whereby one loses one’s grip on oneself as the source of a point of view on how things are and what is worth doing. Affects lack reflection-c, and a fortiori lack reflection-n. But passion involves reflection-c: a passionate person takes a point of view on how things are and what is worth doing. (Merritt 2018, 21)

Merritt’s account, however, overlooks Kant’s claim that both affects and passions impede reflection by impeding the proper evaluation of whether one should act from one’s affect or one’s passion. That is to say, if the way that affects preclude comparison does not allow the agent to engage in reflection-c, then the way that passions preclude comparison would not allow the agent to engage in reflection-c either. Merritt is unwilling to claim this about passions and for good reason: Kant clearly allows for reflection-c in the case of passions, indicating that the problem with passions is that they preclude the agent from meeting some normative standards (i. e., engage in reflection-n).^[8] Having shown that affects are not any more likely than passions to preclude the kind of reflection needed for adopting maxims, I consider Kant to assume that, like passion, affect “presupposes a maxim on the part of the subject” (Anth 7:266).

Before turning to the next section, it is important to clarify which kind of maxims both affects and passions presuppose. In the Groundwork, Kant defines maxims as subjective principles of actions:

A maxim is the subjective principle of acting, and must be distinguished from the objective principle, namely the practical law. The former contains the practical rule determined by reason conformably with the conditions of the subject (often his ignorance or also his inclinations), and is therefore the principle in accordance with which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle valid for every rational being, and the principle in accordance with which he ought to act, i. e., an imperative. (GM 4:421n)

According to this definition, maxims are principles according to which the agent actually acts (or at least principles that are actually presupposed by the agent’s action, as it might be the case for scenarios involving weakness of the will). Objective practical principles, instead, are principles that specify how agents would act if they were perfectly rational; as such, they specify how imperfectly rational beings like human beings ought to act.

Recent work has shown that Kant used the term ‘maxim’ in different senses. According to Timmermann, for instance, Kant conceives of (a) ‘thin’ maxims that are the agent’s specific first-order principles of volition and consequently action; (b) higher-order subjective principles of action on which ‘thin’ maxims are chosen; and (c) maxims in the ‘thick’ sense, that is, higher-order subjective principles that are particularly vigorous, and can be best understood as ‘life rules.’^[9] Most relevant to my purposes, Timmermann characterizes ‘thin’ maxims as maxims that

do not require a firm resolution nor do they have to be morally worthy. Rather, they might be hollow so as always to let whims and inclinations have their way. We read of a person with such a maxim in the third example illustrating the law-of-nature formula in the Groundwork, where the maxim of neglecting one’s talents is shown to conflict with this version of the categorical imperative (IV:422 f.). Even careless behavior like that requires a ‘thin’ maxim as its underlying subjective principle. (Timmermann 2000, 41)

While not all ‘thin’ maxims are maxims adopted from affect – indeed, the maxim in the example of the Groundwork that Timmermann mentions is not one that the agent adopts from affect – choosing to act from affect should be regarded as acting on a ‘thin’ maxim. Indeed, the conceptual framework offered by Timmermann is particularly useful for thinking about the maxims that affects presuppose. Acting from affect is careless acting, precisely because the agent in the throes of affect does not properly evaluate whether she should act from this one affect or not and rather mindlessly follows her whims.

3.1 Affects, Passions and their Respective Relation to the Maxims One Endorses

Kant seems to never explicitly state which kind of reflection is not impeded by passions. Nonetheless, Kant’s text offers us some elements for assessing this issue. First, they help us determine which desiderata such a notion of reflection should meet. Kant writes:

It is also easy to see that they [passions] do the greatest damage to freedom, and if affect is drunkenness, then passion is an illness that abhors all medicine, and it is therefore far worse than all those transitory emotions that at least stir up the resolution to be better; instead, passion is an enchantment that also refuses recuperation. (Anth 7:266)

According to this passage, the notion of reflection we are looking for should be able to explain how passions, unlike affects, (a) do the greatest damage to freedom; (b) are worse than transitory emotions such as affects; and (c) unlike affects, do not encourage the resolution to be better.

Second, Kant offers some indication of how we should think about the kind of reflection that passions do not impede by writing that “one can list being passionately in love [among the passions] […] but one cannot list any physical love as passion, because it does not contain a constant principle with respect to its object” (Anth 7:266). Here, Kant claims that what is distinctive of passions is that they are inclinations driven by a constant principle of action. Similarly, passions are said to be coupled “with the persistence of a maxim established for certain ends” (Anth 7:268). That the maxims one would be acting on when acting from passion are persistent, I suggest, is key for understanding what kind of reflection passions entail that affects do not entail.

Since both passions and affects presuppose maxims of action, we cannot draw the distinction between them on the basis of whether they rest on a maxim. Instead, the distinction should be traced back to the kind of maxim the agent would adopt when acting from an affect or from a passion. Only in the latter case, I argue, does the agent adopt a maxim of action that is persistent. In the remaining part of this section, I examine what it means to adopt a maxim that is persistent, and what kind of reflection the adoption of such a maxim would entail.

Before I start putting forth my proposal, I will address a possible way of characterizing the kind of maxims one would adopt when acting from passion. According to Morrisson, “some maxims actually justify actions twice over. They justify actions both in terms of the immediate end contained in the maxim and in terms of the end of happiness” (Morrisson 2008, 82). Drawing on Morrison’s distinction, Frierson writes that other maxims justify actions only in one sense, that is, merely in terms of proposing good means to achieve the end contained in the maxim:

[P]assions would allow the second sort of maxim – one justified in terms of the immediate end of inclination – but preclude the first – one also justified in terms of overall happiness, or, more generally, a consideration of all of one’s ends (pragmatic and moral). Thus, […] the maxim ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ (i. e., ‘retaliate for wrongdoing only after waiting’) might be well justified in terms of the inclination (passion) for revenge, but might not be justified in terms of one’s overall long-term happiness. (Frierson 2014a, 108)

I agree with Frierson that, for Kant, the kind of maxims one adopts from passion justify action only in the sense of proposing means to achieve the immediate end contained in one’s inclination. But this account is not enough to distinguish such maxims from those one would adopt from affects: the latter would also justify action only in the sense of proposing means to achieve the immediate end contained in one’s inclination. Since for Kant affects prevent one from properly evaluating whether one should act from ones’ affect or not in light of one’s overall happiness, maxims adopted from affects could not justify actions both in terms of the immediate end contained in the maxim and in terms of the end of happiness. Moreover, Frierson’s proposal is not enough to make sense of Kant’s remark that a maxim adopted from passion would be persistent. Thus, we need more elements for drawing a helpful distinction between affects and passions and the kind of maxim that one would adopt when acting from passions as opposed to the kind of maxim one would adopt when acting from affects.

To fully articulate my proposal, I start from Henry Allison’s claim that Kant considered maxims to be hierarchically arranged.^[10] In his Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Allison holds that “one might think of maxims, in analogy with concepts (considered intensionally), as arranged hierarchically, with the more general embedded in the more specific, like genera in species” (Allison 1990, 93). For instance, “the person who ‘makes it his maxim’ to promise falsely to repay debts likewise makes it his maxim to disregard the truth when it suits his purposes and, more generally still, to treat others in a manipulative manner” (Allison 1990, 94). On this view, the relatively specific maxims on which the agent acts presuppose a commitment to more general principles (but not vice versa).

According to Allison’s proposal, the more general principle need not be an explicit factor in the agent’s adoption of the maxim. Indeed, we can “distinguish between the maxim on which the agent actually acts and other, more general principles, likewise maxims, that are implicit in the operative maxim as ‘background conditions’ without being explicit factors in the decision” (Allison 1990, 94). So, when one adopts the maxim to promise falsely to repay debts, one need not explicitly adopt the more general maxim to disregard the truth when it suits one’s purposes, or the even more general maxim to treat others in a manipulative manner. These more general maxims are rather to be understood as background conditions for the adoption of the maxim to promise falsely to repay debts. The agent can be more or less explicitly committed to (some of) these general maxims or not to any of them.

As Allison writes, Kant “recognizes that the choices of rational agents, or in his terms, the maxims they adopt, must be conceived in relation to an underlying set of intentions, beliefs, interests, and so on, which collectively constitute that agent’s disposition or character” (Allison 1990, 136). Since character, for Kant, is a question not “of what nature makes of man, but of what man makes himself” (Anth 7:292), the agent’s explicit endorsement of (at least some of) the set of intentions, beliefs, interests underlying the adoption of her maxim concerns “the moral life of that person as a whole” (Allison 1990, 137). For instance, we assess differently the character of someone who makes it her maxim to promise falsely to repay debts without being explicitly committed to more general maxims and someone who is explicitly committed to the maxim to treat others in a manipulative manner. Exactly how we should make such assessment is a tricky question that I will not try to answer here. My goal is merely to account for the fact that acting from affects and acting from passions rests on different kinds of maxims that bear on one’s character to differing degrees.

Here is my proposal: I would argue that someone who adopts a maxim from affect is not at all explicitly committed to more general maxims that underlie one’s maxim but would only fail to properly assess whether one should act from that affect or not. Someone who adopts a maxim from passion, by contrast, would to a certain degree be explicitly committed to at least some of the more general maxims that underlie one’s maxim. In this case, one would not only fail to properly assess whether one should act from that one passion or not; one would also exercise one’s capacity of reflection in explicitly endorsing the more general principles underlying one’s maxim. Importantly, in explicitly endorsing these more general principles, one would extend to those principles one’s failure in making proper assessments.^[11]

On the account I propose, one’s explicit commitment to (some of) the more general maxims that underlie the maxim one has adopted would result from the agent’s reflection. Reflecting in this sense would entail that one abstracts from a given maxim and identifies and endorses (some of the) more general underlying maxims to some extent.

For instance, to go back to one of Kant’s favorite examples, when one adopts the maxim ‘retaliate for wrongdoing only after waiting’ from the passion of revenge, one would be able to reflect so as to consider the more general maxim ‘disregard the humanity in others when it satisfies one’s inclinations’ as embedded in one’s given maxim (Anth 7:270). One would also be able, upon reflection, to endorse the more general maxim ‘disregard the humanity in others when it satisfies one’s inclinations’ on the basis of one’s impaired ability to properly assess the soundness of one’s choice in relation to prudential or moral standards.^[12]

The type of reflection with which passions go hand in hand and affects do not is not simply the ability to adopt a maxim over time: if the adoption of a maxim over time entails any form of reflection at all, like Kant tells us, then it rests on an underlying reason the agent is committed to over time. As Allison puts it, “every maxim reflects an underlying interest of the agent, which provides the reason for adopting the maxim” (Allison 1990, 90). The kind of underlying reason the agent would be committed to over time when acting from passion would need to be fitting for the practical situation the agent is facing both, say, at T1, T2, and T3. Thus, it would need to entail a certain degree of generality. Being committed to such a reason would amount to being committed to a general maxim that would reflect the agent’s endorsement of such a reason.

3.2 Maxims, Reflection and the Distinction between Affects and Passions

Instead of assuming that acting from affects never allows acting on a maxim and acting on a passion always entails acting on a maxim one has adopted, as scholars have often suggested, I have argued that Kant draws the distinction between affects and passions in terms of the kind of maxim one adopts from affect or from passion, as well as in terms of the weight that adopting such maxims bears on one’s character. I have argued that this distinction depends on the kind of reflection that is impeded by affects but not by passions.

I further hold that my proposal meets the desiderata mentioned in Section 3.1 above. As seen, any proposal should be able to explain how passions, unlike affects, (a) do the greatest damage to freedom; (b) are worse than transitory emotions such as affects; and (c) unlike affects, do not encourage the resolution to be better.

I will start with (c). Passions do not encourage the resolution to do better because one’s adoption of a maxim from passion entails that one is (more or less) explicitly committed to the more general principles that underlies that maxim. Accordingly, one would not regret one’s adoption of such a maxim or one’s action in the first place – one would rather be likely to see that action as stemming from one’s own deeper commitment(s). One would not question such commitments, because of passions’ capacity to ‘infect’ one’s other maxims with the inability to properly assess whether one should endorse such maxims from passions or not. By contrast, affects are transitory feelings, that quickly arise, surprising us with their impetuosity, and quickly dissipate. On the account I have put forth, affects encourage the resolution to do better because one’s adoption of a maxim from affect would not have any consequences for the other maxims to which one would commit oneself. When one would act from affect on a maxim, one’s bad action would likely not be regarded by the agent as something that stems from one’s own deeper commitment(s).

This is also the reason why Kant considers passions to be worse than transitory emotions such as affects (b). On my account, when one acts from affect on a maxim, one adopts that maxim without being explicitly committed to the more general underlying principles connected to it. One’s adoption of that maxim is merely contingent, and has no serious consequences for one’s character. When one acts from passion on a maxim, instead, the adoption of that maxim of action would have consequences for one’s character: one’s own deeper commitments would be ‘infected’ by the passion, and one would not be able to properly assess one’s deeper commitments in light of normative standards. One would not only “take up what is evil” (MM 6:408) into the maxim one adopts from passion, but also “take up what is evil” into one’s deeper and more general maxims. Affects, instead, are momentary feelings that have no consequences for one’s character and thus acting from them amounts only to “a lack of virtue” (MM 6:408).

The account I have proposed is also able to make sense of why passions do greater damage to freedom than affects (a). Passions do the greatest damage to freedom because they are able to ‘infect’ one’s reasoning and commitments at a deep level: when one acts on a maxim from passion, one’s lack of reflection in the sense of a lack of proper assessment extends to the more general principles to which one explicitly commits oneself. Affects, on the contrary, do only a momentary damage to freedom because they do not infect one’s reasoning and commitments at a deep level: the adoption of a maxim from affect does not have consequences for the other more general maxims to which one commits oneself. Since affects do not ‘infect’ our deeper maxims as passions do, affects are “honest and open,” whereas passions are “deceitful and hidden” (Anth 7:252).