| Popis: |
This chapter starts with the idea that when competing moral theories adjust to each other’s attractive parts in a ptolemaic manner, the resulting theory is neither satisfactory nor stable. Contemporary contractualists who align themselves with Kantian aversion to maximizing principle in just this way not surprisingly miss the core commitments of Kantian moral theory and inadvertently drift towards consequentialism. Their mistake is in regarding reasons as primitive and the moral relevance of states of affairs that reasons track as about benefits and burdens. But the core commitment of Kantian theory begins in reasoning: to actions, ends, and principles. Reasons and interests enter only as justified in relation to the conditions of rational and moral agency. The chapter argues that the deliberative structure about the choice of ends, both for individuals and for their social environment, shows Kantian ethics, often treated as a retrospective, individualist view, has natural continuity with forward-looking social and political philosophy. |
