Achtung in Kant and Smith
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Michael Walschots
Abstract
This paper argues that Kant’s concept of ‘respect’ (Achtung) for the moral law has roots in Adam Smith’s concept of ‘regard’ for the general rules of conduct, which was translated as Achtung in the first German translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. After illustrating that Kant’s technical understanding of respect appeared relatively late in his intellectual development, I argue that Kant’s concept of respect and Smith’s concept of regard share a basic similarity: they are both a single complex phenomenon with two core aspects, namely an attitude and a feeling. I then suggest that the concept of regard offered Kant a way to deal a problem concerning moral motivation that he was trying to solve at the time he likely first read Smith. I conclude by drawing some implications from the account I have offered for our understanding of Kant’s relation to Smith more generally.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Abhandlungen
- Der „erste Satz“ in Grundlegung I
- Kant’s Political Justification of Social Welfare
- The Troubling Relationship between Pleasure and Universality in Kant’s Impure Aesthetic Judgements
- Achtung in Kant and Smith
- Does the ontological proof of God’s existence really contain all the probative force of the cosmological argument? The early criticisms of Kant’s thesis by Flatt, Abel and Eberhard
- Revelation’s Entrenchment in Pure Reason in Fichte’s Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung
- Berichte und Diskussionen
- Johann Reinhold Grube’s Opposing Remarks on Kant’s Nova dilucidatio
- Buchbesprechungen
- Immanuel Kant: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Christopher Bennett, Joe Saunders and Robert Stern. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 144 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-878619-1.
- Luigi Filieri: Sintesi e giudizio. Studio su Kant e Jakob Sigismund Beck. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2020. 342 Seiten. ISBN 978-884675869-9.
- Henry Allison: Kant’s Conception of Freedom: A Developmental and Critical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 532 p. ISBN 978-1-107-14511-5
- Rudolf Meer: Der transzendentale Grundsatz der Vernunft: Funktion und Struktur des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik der Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2019 [Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte 207]. xii + 314 S. ISBN 978-3-11-062316-1.
- Dennis Vanden Auweele: Pessimism in Kant’s Ethics and Rational Religion. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019. 221 Seiten. ISBN 9781498580397
- Rainer Enskat: Urteil und Erfahrung. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung. Tl. 1 u. 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015 u. 2020. 295 u. 466 Seiten. ISBN: 978-3-525-23013-8 u. 978-3-525-30200-2
- Mitteilungen
- KANT 300
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Abhandlungen
- Der „erste Satz“ in Grundlegung I
- Kant’s Political Justification of Social Welfare
- The Troubling Relationship between Pleasure and Universality in Kant’s Impure Aesthetic Judgements
- Achtung in Kant and Smith
- Does the ontological proof of God’s existence really contain all the probative force of the cosmological argument? The early criticisms of Kant’s thesis by Flatt, Abel and Eberhard
- Revelation’s Entrenchment in Pure Reason in Fichte’s Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung
- Berichte und Diskussionen
- Johann Reinhold Grube’s Opposing Remarks on Kant’s Nova dilucidatio
- Buchbesprechungen
- Immanuel Kant: Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Christopher Bennett, Joe Saunders and Robert Stern. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 144 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-878619-1.
- Luigi Filieri: Sintesi e giudizio. Studio su Kant e Jakob Sigismund Beck. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2020. 342 Seiten. ISBN 978-884675869-9.
- Henry Allison: Kant’s Conception of Freedom: A Developmental and Critical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 532 p. ISBN 978-1-107-14511-5
- Rudolf Meer: Der transzendentale Grundsatz der Vernunft: Funktion und Struktur des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik der Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2019 [Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte 207]. xii + 314 S. ISBN 978-3-11-062316-1.
- Dennis Vanden Auweele: Pessimism in Kant’s Ethics and Rational Religion. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019. 221 Seiten. ISBN 9781498580397
- Rainer Enskat: Urteil und Erfahrung. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung. Tl. 1 u. 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015 u. 2020. 295 u. 466 Seiten. ISBN: 978-3-525-23013-8 u. 978-3-525-30200-2
- Mitteilungen
- KANT 300
