On Kantian Obligatory Ends and Their Maxims of Actions

In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant introduces the concept of an end that is also a duty and explains that these obligatory ends prescribe maxims of actions rather than actions themselves. A common view in the literature is that these maxims of actions are promotional in nature. In this paper, I work from the logic of ends to defend the view that each obligatory end prescribes multiple maxims of actions: the familiar positive, promotional maxim of actions, but also a negative, non-diminishing maxim of actions, epistemic maxims of actions, and dispositional maxims of actions. The account of obligatory ends I present is consistent with what Kant writes in the Doctrine of Virtue, but also develops the concept in ways that Kant did not, at least not explicitly

Active Sympathetic Participation: Reconsidering Kant's Duty of Sympathy

In the Doctrine of Virtue Kant divides duties of love into three categories: beneficent activity , gratitude and Teilnehmung – commonly referred to as the duty of sympathy . In this paper I will argue that the content and scope of the third duty of love has been underestimated by both critics and defenders of Kant's ethical theory. The account which pervades the secondary literature maintains that the third duty of love includes only two components: an obligation to make use of our natural receptivity to sympathetic feelings as a means to fulfilling other duties of love, and an indirect duty to cultivate these feelings. As a result, Kant's duty of sympathy has been widely regarded as a duty whose value is derived from the way in which it serves other duties, in particular, the duty of beneficent activity, which obliges agents ‘to promote according to one's means the happiness of others in need’ . Teilnehmung has thus assumed something of a second-class status among the duties to others. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that the prevailing account of Kant's third duty of love is incomplet