Overview

What happens when human beings fail to do as reason bids? This book is an attempt to address this age-old question within Kant's mature practical philosophy, i.e. the practical philosophy that emerged with the watershed discovery of autonomy in the mid-1780s. As always, Kant is good for a surprise. There is, it is argued, not one answer but two: He advocates Socratic intellectualism in the realm of prudence whilst defending an anti-intellectualist or volitional account of immoral action. This 'hybrid' theory of practical failure is more than a philosophical curiosity. There are ramifications for Kant's theory of practical reason as a whole. In particular, the hybrid account emphasizes the divide between pure and empirical practical rationality to the extent that the latter, while containing practically relevant propositions, no longer counts a branch of practical reason at all. Hypothetical and categorical imperatives exemplify two entirely distinct kinds of normativity. In fact, the dichotomy between pure and empirical determining grounds of the will goes hand in hand with many other dualisms and dichotomies that, whether we like them or not, continue to define Kant's mature ethical thought.

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9780192896032

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Reviews

Jens Timmermann's work, Kant's Will at the Crossroads, provocatively and insightfully claims that Kantian moral theory has gone wrong by focusing unduly on cognition, as borne out by the associated talk of 'reasons'. * British Journal for the History of Philosophy * Timmermann develops a distinctive treatment of the principal ideas in Kant's moral psychology and conception of rational agency... Kant's Will at the Crossroad develops a comprehensive approach to Kant's conception of practical rationality supported by careful reading of the principal texts. By re affirming several (familiar) dualisms that other commentators have played down, it lays out an alternative to one influential trend in recent Kant scholarship. These issues are subtle and complex, and we should be grateful to Jens Timmermann for putting them on the table so clearly and giving us the opportunity to think them through once more. * NDPR * Timmermann's work delivers in a way that will surprise many Kant interpreters by challenging certain mainstays of contemporary interpretation...if you want to know more about Kant's ethics, then you absolutely should read this book. * European Journal of Philosophy *

Author Information

Jens Timmermann is the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He is a leading authority in Immanuel Kant's ethics and is the author of several books on Kant, including Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (2007) and Sittengesetz und Freiheit (2003). He is also the editor of the first German-English edition of Kant's Groundwork (2011).

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