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Copyright of Kant-Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick made the argument that income redistribution violates the Kantian categorical imperative. Nozick’s retrospective enslavement argument is still used today in discussions about the moral justification of taxation. This article explicates four implicit premises of Nozick’s argument: the self-ownership principle, its fullness, the absence of restrictions on the appropriation of natural resources, and the absence of restrictions on the distribution of the fruits of cooperation. Without additional justification for each of these premises, Nozick’s argument cannot show that income redistribution violates the categorical imperative.

This paper delves into the intersection between Kant’s moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on personhood. It explores how Kant’s emphasis on rationality in moral agency aligns with evolutionary studies on the development of moral behaviors. By examining the transcendental implications of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) and the evolutionary origins of moral agency, this study aims to illuminate the link between Kant’s conception of moral agency and personhood. Additionally, it investigates how Kant’s call for CI resonates with evolutionary insights on the adaptive nature of social cooperation in human societies. Through this analysis, we seek to deepen our understanding of the cognitive, social dimensions of moral agency and moral status within the framework of Kant’s moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on personhood.

The problem of AI alignment has parallels in Kantian ethics and can benefit from its concepts and arguments. The Kantian framework allows us to better answer the question of what exactly AI is being aligned to, what are the problems of alignment of rational agents in general, and what are the prospects for achieving a state of alignment. Having described the state of discussions about alignment in AI, I will reformulate them in Kantian terms. Thus, the process of alignment is captured by the concept of enlightenment, and for the final state of alignment in Kant’s lexicon there is the concept of the “kingdom of ends.” I will argue that the discourse of alignment and the Kantian ethical program 1) are devoted to the same general end of harmonizing the thinking and acting of rational agents, 2) encounter similar difficulties, well known in the Kantian discussions with its comparatively longer history, and 3) for a number of reasons lying on the side of humanity, do not have and, despite the hopes and attitudes of some participants in the AI discussions, will not have a theoretically rigorous, harmonious and practically implementable, conflict-free solution – alignment will remain a regulative idea in the Kantian sense, but will not become a reality.

Kant’s philosophy directly addresses theological issues, one of which is the question of love for one’s neighbour. Its philosophical interpretation makes it possible not only to soften the rigorism of Kantian ethics, but also to resolve some of its characteristic paradoxes and to clarify the question of the concrete application of the categorical imperative. The article considers, in particular, the “paradox of method” used by Kant to define good and evil: evil is defined as reason’s abuse of its own freedom. It is precisely because of this understanding of evil that confidence in the moral quality of one’s own judgment becomes impossible. Kant even strengthens this point by introducing the notion of conscience as a self-judging reason, the latter being the strictest judge, whose verdict will always be accusatory. In order to avoid such undesirable conclusions, which leave no hope of justification in the face of the moral law, Kant introduces the concept of love for one’s neighbour as “a necessary addition to the imperfection of human nature”. True, such love, according to Kant, is impossible in respect to all people. But it is its presence in relation to some that allows us to overcome our own imperfection. Love for one’s neighbor precisely means voluntary recognition of the objective imperfection of one’s own subjective judgment about the morality and reasonableness of other people. And this recognition itself allows a person to rise to a moral height that would otherwise be inaccessible. In interpreting Kant’s ethics and, in particular, his concepts of reason and judgment, the author of the article relies on the concept of Joseph Simon, one of the leading modern German scholars of Kant studies in recent decades.

The article explores the applicability of Kant’s ethics, which prohibited the use people as mere means, in solutions to various Trolley problem scenarios. Based on the distinction between notions ‘using as mere means’ and ‘treating as mere means’, the precise requirements of Kant’s prohibition are reconstructed.

The problem of AI alignment has parallels in Kantian ethics and can benefit from its concepts and arguments. The Kantian framework allows us to better answer the question of what exactly AI is being aligned to, what are the problems of alignment of rational agents in general, and what are the prospects for achieving a state of alignment. Having described the state of discussions about alignment in AI, I will reformulate them in Kantian terms. Thus, the process of alignment is captured by the concept of enlightenment, and for the final state of alignment in Kant's lexicon there is the concept of the "kingdom of ends." I will argue that the discourse of alignment and the Kantian ethical program 1) are devoted to the same general end of harmonizing the thinking and acting of rational agents, 2) encounter similar difficulties, well known in the Kantian discussions with its comparatively longer history, and 3) for a number of reasons lying on the side of humanity, do not have and, despite the hopes and attitudes of some participants in the AI discussions, will not have a theoretically rigorous, harmonious and practically implementable, conflict-free solution - alignment will remain a regulative idea in the Kantian sense, but will not become a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the intersection between Kant's moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on personhood. It explores how Kant's emphasis on rationality in moral agency aligns with evolutionary studies on the development of moral behaviors. By examining the transcendental implications of Kant's Categorical Imperative (CI) and the evolutionary origins of moral agency, this study aims to illuminate the link between Kant's conception of moral agency and personhood. Additionally, it investigates how Kant's call for CI resonates with evolutionary insights on the adaptive nature of social cooperation in human societies. Through this analysis, we seek to deepen our understanding of the cognitive, social dimensions of moral agency and moral status within the framework of Kant's moral theory and evolutionary perspectives on personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the basic elements of Immanuel Kant's ethics, stand out the categorical imperative as the main reason of ethical determination, its appeal to the capacity to judge, and the possibility of considering Kantian ethics of duty also as a model for the formation of character and therefore also as virtue ethics. Kant's approach is productive even in ethical proposals that differ from him in what could be called his "material ethics". Finally, it is shown how contemporary ethical discussion cannot do without the insights offered by the philosopher of Königsberg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy is the property of Con-Textos Kantianos (CTK) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

John Hare interprets the moral gap according to Kant's teachings that is in practical reason and between moral will and human desire. He considers the first step to bridge this gap with the help of two categorical imperative: general law and the end in itself. The categorical imperative requires us to obey moral laws, because if it were not within our power, we would not be commanded to do so. So, we have to choose a rule that we can consider as a general law and act according to it; then we should be able to put humanity as our goal and prioritize other people's goals and objectives over our own desires; However, despite the evil that is inherent in humans, preferring our happiness over the happiness of others is dangerous. Using these rules leads to an internal revolution that is not possible except with divine assistance. That is, one should believe that there is a supreme good that if a person prefers the happiness of others to his own happiness and leads a virtuous life, he will be given a happiness commensurate with his virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to reconstruct Kant’s derivation of the formula of the categorical imperative from its mere concept with the help of the resources of Searle’s and Vanderveken’s illocutionary logic. The main exegetical hypothesis is that the derivation envisaged by Kant consists in deriving the formula from the success conditions of categorical imperatives. These conditions, which are analogous to the success conditions of ordinary orders, contain restrictions for the successful construction of a system of moral laws that determine what the content of the categorical imperative must be.

Nicholas Dixon's Kantian argument for why mixed martial arts (MMA) is intrinsically immoral has received several critical responses. We offer an additional critical response. Unlike previous responses, ours does not rely on an interpretation of the categorical imperative that Dixon would find tendentious. Instead, we grant that Dixon's views about what makes other sports consistent with the categorical imperative are correct and argue from this assumption that MMA is also consistent with the categorical imperative. Our argument focuses on Dixon's claims about certain cycling tactics, which we call 'pain-leveraging cycling tactics'. We argue that MMA is consistent with the categorical imperative for the same sort of reasons that Dixon claims make pain-leveraging cycling tactics consistent with the categorical imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant’s solution for the problem of freedom of the will rests on his transcendental idealism and its differentiation of appearances and things in themselves. Human beings, with their bodies and observable inner and outer activities, are objects of perception (empirical intuition) and therefore appearances. These are only the appearances of their noumenal selves. Human beings are determined by laws of nature in all their perceivable alterations which include all their actions, but their noumenal selves, not being in time, are not determined by the necessity of causal laws of nature, but can be determined by the moral law of their pure practical reason which they give to themselves. The actions of the will, observable volitions and external actions, can therefore, at the same time, be under the necessitating law of nature, i.e. be unfree, and, as appearances of the self-determination of their noumenal will (by fulfilling the demands of the moral law), be free. Two professors of Jena University, Ulrich and Schmid, accept part of Kant’s transcendental idealism but contend that the many transgressions of the moral law in human acting must have their noumenal reason in the agent’s intelligible character or in the intelligible substrate of nature. This theory is called “intelligible fatalism”.

Despite the popularity of many of Kant’s ethical notions, such as autonomy, dignity and respect for persons, there is a perception, even among Kant scholars themselves, that one cannot reliably derive concrete duties from Kant’s moral philosophy. Against this, I shall argue that — properly understood — Kant’s ethics is of prime importance even today. I shall argue that Kant’s preferred procedure is actually the way we develop new ethical rules during the recent Coronavirus pandemic. In order to demonstrate this, I shall first reflect on how we came up with ethical rules such as keeping six feet of distance, wearing a mask, or restricting the number of people who can occupy a room at the same time. I shall then give the reasons why I do not follow the standard interpretations of how one derives concrete duties from Kant’s main formulation of the Categorical Imperative or the Formula of Humanity. Finally, I shall present the textual evidence that Kant proposes a method like the one we use today during a pandemic, and argue that this alternative interpretation can deal much better with the main objections that are commonly levelled against the standard interpretation of Kant’s procedure to derive concrete duties from the Categorical Imperative.

According to the positive duties objection, it is not possible to derive positive duties from Kant’s Formula of Universal Law (FUL). However, in his recent “Deriving Positive Duties from Kant’s Formula of Universal Law”, Guus Duindam tries to answer this objection. More specifically, Duindam tries to show how both a duty of benevolence and a duty of self-perfection can be derived from the FUL. I critically examine Duindam’s arguments. I maintain that Duindam’s argument for the positive duty of benevolence is ambiguous and that this ambiguity exposes him to a fatal dilemma: on one horn, Duindam faces the same objection that he concedes to be effective against other attempts to answer the positive duties objection; on the other horn, the procedure he recommends cannot be based on the FUL (because it does not evaluate actions on the basis of their corresponding maxims). In addition, I maintain that Duindam’s benevolence argument rests on a procedure that is, in general, intractable and, in this particular case, foredoomed (because it can be shown that there are no positive duties of the kind he tries to derive). From there, I turn to Duindam’s argument for the positive duty of self-perfection. I explain that Duindam’s derivation of the duty of self-perfection, even if successful, does not answer the positive duties objection. This is because Duindam never appeals to the FUL in his derivation of the duty of self-perfection (the derivation is based, rather, on instrumental reasoning from the second-order end to accomplish our first-order ends). I elaborate on this by comparing and contrasting Duindam’s argument with Oliver Sensen’s interpretation of how to apply the FUL in the latter’s recent “Universal Law and Poverty Relief”.

Resumen La intención de este trabajo es analizar si el suicidio siempre es moralmente reprobable. Para ello, se expondrán y evaluarán los argumentos propuestos por Kant, uno de los más fervientes detractores del suicidio. El prusiano consideraba que el suicidio resultaba incondicionalmente reprochable al representar el aniquilamiento de la naturaleza racional y, por tanto, de la dignidad humana. Ahora, condenar de forma absoluta el suicidio es problemático, puesto que se pueden legitimar conductas o estados que contrarían, justamente, la dignidad humana. Por consiguiente, en aras de exponer la viabilidad moral del suicidio, se resaltará la importancia de considerar, antes de juzgar el acto, las circunstancias en que es consumado el suicidio y, asimismo, el posible daño que éste pueda llagar a representar para el individuo y la sociedad. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether suicide is always morally reprehensible. In this regard, we will examine the arguments put forth by Kant, one of the most fervent critics of suicide. Kant considered suicide to be unconditionally reprehensible, as it represented the annihilation of rational nature and, consequently, human dignity. However, an absolute condemnation of suicide poses problems, as it may legitimize behaviors contrary to human dignity. Therefore, in order to explore the moral viability of suicide, we will emphasize the importance of considering the circumstances in which the act occurs and the potential harm it may represent for the individual and society.

This paper examines the work of Immanuel Kant in the light of a new theory on the nature of truth, knowledge and falsehood (the Inversion Theory of Truth). Kant’s idea that knowledge could be absolutely certain, and that its truth must correspond with reality, is discredited by a dissection of the Correspondence Theory of Truth. This examination of the nature of truth, as well as knowledge and falsehood, is conducted with reference to Sir Karl Popper’s writings on regulative ideas, the criterion of demarcation and the principle of falsifiability. It is argued that if truth is to be regarded as certain, it should be used to describe objects and events in the objective (noumenal) state, and that subjective knowledge must contain (and is improved by) falsehood. Perceptions and knowledge are obtained by the biological and evolutionary process of Active Subjectivism. Ideas we have knowledge of can be metaphysical or scientific, according to Popper’s Criterion of Demarcation. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” claim that our intellect imposes absolutely true laws on nature could not allow for the possibility that ideas might be constructed from fallible perceptions, and hence that all knowledge is uncertain. Instead, he developed a Critique of Practical Reason in which religion, though not provable through logical reasoning, could be proved by our innate moral sense, giving us a Categorical Imperative that could lead to perverse results. By rejecting the absolute certainty of a priori knowledge, and admitting a degree of essential falsehood, we arrive at a more reasonable grounding for moral behavior.

Community as a Form of Thinking. How One Turns Kant Towards Social Philosophy with Fink, Nancy, and Esposito - In the times of nihilism, it is necessary to recall, with Roberto Esposito, the fact that, strictly speaking, in philosophy and its history, there is no other subject than community, insofar as everything that becomes the subject of philosophy can only become so because of the fact that there is community. That communality is a form of thinking or that the latter is constitutively communal, is another way of expressing what Emmanuel Levinas once put in the more succinct phrase that in consciousness one is always in two, even if one is alone. In order to explain the implications of this, I draw a line in my essay from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (specifically, its “positive” definition of being as “merely the position of a thing” [B 626], which receives much less attention than its negative aspect emphasized in the same passage, according to which being is not a real predicate) to the readings of Kant by Eugen Fink, Jean-Luc Nancy, and the aforementioned Roberto Esposito, in order to arrive at an understanding of being as an exposition of the disposition of things in us, i.e., as community.

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía UCSC is the property of Francisco Novoa-Rojas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the work of Immanuel Kant in the light of a new theory on the nature of truth, knowledge and falsehood (the Inversion Theory of Truth). Kant's idea that knowledge could be absolutely certain, and that its truth must correspond with reality, is discredited by a dissection of the Correspondence Theory of Truth. This examination of the nature of truth, as well as knowledge and falsehood, is conducted with reference to Sir Karl Popper's writings on regulative ideas, the criterion of demarcation and the principle of falsifiability. It is argued that if truth is to be regarded as certain, it should be used to describe objects and events in the objective (noumenal) state, and that subjective knowledge must contain (and is improved by) falsehood. Perceptions and knowledge are obtained by the biological and evolutionary process of Active Subjectivism. Ideas we have knowledge of can be metaphysical or scientific, according to Popper's Criterion of Demarcation. Kant's "Copernican revolution" claim that our intellect imposes absolutely true laws on nature could not allow for the possibility that ideas might be constructed from fallible perceptions, and hence that all knowledge is uncertain. Instead, he developed a Critique of Practical Reason in which religion, though not provable through logical reasoning, could be proved by our innate moral sense, giving us a Categorical Imperative that could lead to perverse results. By rejecting the absolute certainty of a priori knowledge, and admitting a degree of essential falsehood, we arrive at a more reasonable grounding for moral behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Phainomena is the property of Phenomenological Society of Ljubljana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The authors of the idea of a “new Enlightenment”, Ernst von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman, in their 2018 report to the Club of Rome analyse the causes of the explosive development of science and technology in the Modern period and come to the conclusion that their triumph and existential threats stem in many ways from the ideals of Enlightenment, so that the future of humankind depends crucially on an ideological rethinking of man’s status in the world. They stress the need to enhance the responsibility of the individual so that each individual becomes conscious of sharing the destiny of the whole of mankind and the world. I argue that in the framework of Enlightenment 2.0 the Kantian concept of social development, which is closely linked with the moral ideal — the kingdom of ends — may form the basis of the concept of society in which individual freedom and social development are interconnected and the mutually determining elements of the human being in whom freedom can be exercised only if it contributes to social good. The Kantian interpretation of social development as the human being forming the sphere of free being can be the basis of a critical assessment of the content of video games in terms of their media impact on the shaping of the ideology of modern society. I show that the boundaries of the exercise of freedom in a video game, supported by artificial intelligence, influence the way an individual perceives society and his/her place in it. I come to the conclusion that video games, which express a certain idea about society, can contribute to or impede the formation of a new ideological foundation of society whose aim, according to Enlightenment 2.0, should be overcoming the antagonism between the individual and the collective.

Copyright of Kant-Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the key ethical debates in Russian religious thought, initiated by Leo Tolstoy, concerned the question of nonresistance to evil by force. The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of Kant’s ethics and philosophy of religion on the course of this debate and to determine the place and significance of the arguments and considerations expressed on this issue by Semyon Frank in the early and late periods (1908 and 1940s) of his work. To this end I reconstruct the general course of the debate, notably the positions and arguments of Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Solovyov, Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev. Beginning with Tolstoy, Russ­ian thinkers introduced the original ethical content of the idea of nonresistance derived from the Gospel into the ethics of duty borrowed from Kant. The Tolstoy version of this idea was challenged mainly from two directions: from the Kantian grounding of the legitimacy of coercion and attempts to bring in styles of moral thinking other than the ethic of duty. Ilyin’s apolo­gia for the use of force in the struggle against evil prompted Russian émigré thinkers to take a closer look at Tolstoy’s ethical concept and pay attention to its positive content. On this basis Berdyaev and especially Frank create their version of the Christ-centered ethic of salvation which, in the perspective of “protecting the world against evil” includes the ethic of duty and links it with the possibility of using force, always a wrongful act, but one justified “in a situation of extreme need”.

Commanders gain authority from obedience and lose authority from disobedience. We should expect commanders to therefore devise commands that reduce the probability of disobedience. To aid recognition of these techniques for reducing the risk of disobedience, I focus on the extreme of case of commands that reduce the probability to zero. Each of my ten commandments illustrates a logical technique for engineering out disobedience. Once you master these safety measures, you can confidently legislate your own universal maxims. Your innovations will be good news for Immanuel Kant's characterization of morality in terms of categorical imperatives. The commandments also raise interesting questions about responsibility for necessities and the nature of rule following. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two issues are at the core of a seemingly never-ending debate about Groundwork III: First, does Kant in GMS III still think he has to deduce the moral law partly from non-moral presuppositions by making a transition from theoretical to practical freedom, as Schönecker argues? Or does Kant already regard the categorical imperative as grounded in a fact of reason, as Puls argues? It is, secondly, no less unclear what exactly is meant by the "deduction" Kant mentions in three places in GMS III. While Puls claims that Kant is referring to the deduction of the idea of freedom from the unquestionable consciousness of pure practical reason, Schönecker contends that GMS III is ultimately about the deduction of the categorical imperative. Schönecker takes issue with Puls's position as developed, and Puls replies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether an artificial moral agent (AMA) is possible implies discussion of a whole range of problems raised by Kant within the framework of practical philosophy that have not exhausted their heuris­tic potential to this day. First, I show the significance of the correlation between moral law and freedom. Since a rational being believes that his/her will is independent of external influences, the will turns out to be governed by the moral law and is autonomous. Morality and freedom are correlated through independence from the external. Accordingly, if the actions of artificial intelligence (AI) are determined by something or someone external to it (by a human), then it does not act morally and freely, but heteronomously. As a consequence of AI’s lack of autonomy, and thus lack of access to the moral law, it does not and cannot have a moral understanding that proceeds from the moral law. Another consequence is that it has no sense of duty, which would follow from the moral law. Thus, moral action becomes impossible for the AMA because it lacks autonomy and moral law, moral understanding and sense of duty. It is concluded that, first, AMA not only cannot be moral, but should not be that, since the inclusion of any moral principle would imply the necessity for the individual to choose it, making the choice of the principle itself immoral. Second, although AI has no will as such, which prima facie makes not only moral but also legal action impossible, it can still act legally in the sense of conforming to legal law, since AI carries a quasi-human will. Thus, it is necessary that the creation of AI should be based not on moral principles, but on legal law that prioritises human freedom and rights.

The Russian intuitivist philosopher Nikolay Lossky repeatedly admitted Kant’s substantial formative influence on him as a scholar. Moreover, Lossky was a disciple of the Russian Kantian Aleksander Vvedensky, and was one of the most successful translators of the first Critique. However, his own philosophical project is rather the opposite of the critical programme. While in the framework of Lossky’s epistemology the specificities of his reading of Kant have received a fair amount of attention in Russian scholarship, in the ethical field the Russian philosopher’s comments on Kant have passed largely unnoticed. My task is to reveal the link between Kant’s practical philosophy and Lossky’s ethics. A demonstration of the degree of Kant’s influence in this field will enlarge and concretise the current thinking about Lossky’s perception of Kant. We are looking at a whole range of parallels and borrowings. My comparative analysis focuses on the following aspects: 1) definition and uses of the term “categorical imperative”, 2) free will as the condition of the possibility of moral action, 3) the cause of moral evil, 4) the role of the idea of God in ethics. As a result, I reveal how Lossky used elements of Kant’s practical philosophy as conceptual, terminological and rhetorical resources in his theonomic ethics, and how the Russian philosopher interpreted them in line with his own doctrine. I argue that Lossky’s use of the Kantian moral terminology is incautious and debatable and point out several intersections of ethical argumentations in the light of its projection on radically different ontological and epistemological principles.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to play an ever more important role in our lives and societies. Here, some boundary conditions and possibilities for shaping and using AI as well as advantageously embedding it in daily life are sketched. On the basis of a recently proposed cognitive architecture that claims to deliver a general layout for both natural intelligence and general AI, a coarse but broad perspective is developed and an emphasis is put on AI ethics. A number of findings, requirements, and recommendations are derived that can transparently be traced to the hypothesized structure and the procedural operation of efficient cognitive agents according to the Ouroboros Model. Including all of the available and possibly relevant information for any action and respecting a “negative imperative” are the most important resulting recommendations. Self-consistency, continual monitoring, equitable considerations, accountability, flexibility, and pragmatic adaptations are highlighted as foundations and, at the same time, mandatory consequences for timely answers to the most relevant questions concerning the embedding of AI in society and ethical rules for this.

Their important exegetical and philosophical disagreements notwithstanding, Pauline Kleingeld and Marcus Willaschek, on the one hand, and Alyssa Bernstein, on the other, seem to agree that Kant's Categorical Imperative transcends the contemporary dichotomy between moral realism and ethical constructivism. My contribution is an attempt to further elaborate on the third, unique, conceptual option that they have identified. I employ the notion of an "enabling condition," introduced in epistemology and action theory by Jonathan Dancy, in order to show that the Categorical Imperative enables action and is enabled by action. The Categorical Imperative (as distinct from specific categorical imperatives and moral laws) is discussed as a structural, but still normative, coherence and consistence norm of practical reasoning. As such it is two things at the same time, namely, first, the most fundamental normative background condition of practical deliberation, choice, and action. Second, however, the mutual enabler-enablee-relationship between action and Categorical Imperative points in the other – "not-so-Kantian" – direction as well: individual practical deliberation, understood as the mundane phenomenon that penetrates the lives of agents, is the (existence) condition that enables the Categorical Imperative in normatively-structured action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pauline Kleingeld has argued persuasively that Kant's Principle of Autonomy draws an analogy between two relationships: 1) that between an individual agent and their maxim, and 2) that between a legislator and their legislation. She also suggests that Kant's evolving views on the normative significance of popular elections made his analogy inapt, which explains its disappearance from his later writings. This comment concurs with Sorin Baiasu that the merits of Kant's analogy were untouched by his evolving political views. The analogy presupposes that when lawmakers legislate, they do so as representatives of the people, but even Kant's mature writings posit that unelected lawmakers are representatives of the people in the necessary sense. Facts about whether a lawmaker acquired legislative authority by election, heredity, or conquest do have normative implications in the larger context of Kant's political theory, but such facts are necessarily temporally upstream of the relation between legislator and legislation, just as facts about how an agent became rational are upstream of the relation between individual agent and maxim. Because the analogy focuses exclusively on these two relationships, it cannot be damaged by such upstream facts. Moreover, we should consider the possibility that Kant's Principle of Autonomy compares a human will to the united general will of the people itself rather than to the will of a fallible public official or institution. On this alternative reading, it is even more clear that Kant's evolving views on the significance of elections could have no possible relevance to the Principle of Autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I critically engage with Pauline Kleingeld's 'volitional self-contradiction' interpretation of Kant's formula of universal law. I make three remarks: first, I seek to clarify what it means for a contradiction to be volitional as opposed to logical; second, I suggest that her interpretation might need to be closer to Korsgaard's 'practical contradiction' interpretation than she thinks; and third, I suggest that more work needs to be done to explain how a volitional self-contradiction generates both a 'contradiction in conception' and a 'contradiction in will.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some ideas expressed in the collective monograph Universality in Morality (2020), edited by Ruben Apressyan, are here critically examined. The book is based on the results of a large-scale study by professional ethical philosophers devoted to the question of the nature of universality in morality and the mechanisms of universalisation of individual maxims and norms from antiquity to modern ethical theories, represented above all by the analytical tradition in philosophy. Of great interest is the analysis of related phenomena in morality, which makes it possible to determine the causes and nature of the transformation of morality in different eras and the accompanying change in the terminological apparatus of absolute ethical universalism, considered to be the starting point in the analysis of key modern concepts of moral universality. The article also suggests possible avenues for continued research in this area which could prompt modifications not only to the history of the concept of universality in morality, but also to our assessment of the contribution of individual authors and entire eras to the progress of human civilisation. This concerns above all the moral theory of contractarianism and the Enlightenment. Focus on their ideas goes a long way to determining the direction of current historical-philosophical research that reconstructs the history of ethical teachings and individual concepts. The importance attached today to a new view of the theory of the social contract, considered not only from socio-political but also from moral positions, forces us to approach in a new way the question concerning the universality of the key philosophical categories developed within this theory throughout its history. Elaborating the ideas set forth in the monograph, the author also stresses the relevance of the problem of justifying the thesis about the moral law as an analogue of the universal law of nature in the modern context.

One misunderstands Kant’s ethical approach when one requires him to show the ‘origin’ of his moral values in human consciousness. They are not ‘found’ strictly speaking. They do not hide anywhere waiting to be discovered, but they are postulated, and through this postulation, they make intelligible morality as a specific domain of human existence and not as a tradition-based set of behaviors that are applied automatically as psychological reflexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delgadillo Macías, Carlos Antonio. The Type of Contradiction in the Four Examples of the First Formula of the Categorical Imperative in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, published by Immanuel Kant in 1785, explains the different formulations of the categorical imperative. For the first one, it offers four examples of maxims that cannot be accepted because they are contradictory. The aim of this article is to clarify what Kant is referring to with the concept of "contradiction" in this argumentative context. For this, I make reference to his conception of the system of nature, outlined in works such as Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]