Day 6: Finishing Up Kant

•     Morality and Objectivity

•     Review Study Questions

•     Assessing Kant

•      Read Mackie’s “The Subjectivity of Values” (on line)

Morality and Objectivity

•      What are we trying to do when we make moral judgments?  What do moral judgments mean?

•      Kant: we are trying to say what someone is obligated to do independent of what they desire; that they should act out of duty, not desire, inclination, or instinct

Morality and Objectivity

•      Is there a proof or some reason to believe or some way to know that we ought to act out of duty or independently of how we desire?  Does Kant take himself to have answered that in sections 1 & 2 of FPMM?

Morality and Objectivity

•      One way to think of FPMM:

   In sections 1 and 2, Kant is trying to show that if morality is objective, then we ought to act from duty or independently of how we desire; he also tries to show that it is part of our common sense view that when we make moral judgments, we try to say something objectively valid.

Morality and Objectivity

•      In sections 1 & 2 of FPMM, Kant does not take himself to have shown that there are objectively correct answers to moral questions or that we succeed in saying something objectively correct when we try to do so

•      Explanation of the above

•      Some remarks on section 3 of FPMM and the Critique of Practical Reason

Evaluation