Browsing by Subject "Kantian ethics"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Kant and the duty to promote one’s own happiness
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    In his discussion of the duty of benevolence in §27 of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that agents have no obligation to promote their own happiness, for ‘this happens unavoidably’ (MS, AA 6:451). In this paper I argue that Kant should not have said this. I argue that Kant should have conceded that agents do have an obligation to promote their own happiness.
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    Obligatory Actions, Obligatory Maxims
    (2021) Kahn, Samuel
    In this article, I confront Parfit’s Mixed Maxims Objection. I argue that recent attempts to respond to this objection fail, and I argue that their failure is compounded by the failure of recent attempts to show how the Formula of Universal Law can be used to demarcate the category of obligatory maxims. I then set out my own response to the objection, drawing on remarks from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals for inspiration and developing a novel account of how the Formula of Universal Law can be employed to determine the deontic status of action tokens, action types, and maxims.
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    The Problem with Using a Maxim Permissibility Test to Derive Obligations
    (Linköping University Electronic Press, 2022-06-23) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    The purpose of this paper is to show that, if Kant’s universalization formulations of the Categorical Imperative are our only standards for judging right from wrong and permissible from impermissible, then we have no obligations. I shall do this by examining five different views of how obligations can be derived from the universalization formulations and arguing that each one fails. I shall argue that the first view rests on a misunderstanding of the universalization formulations; the second on a misunderstanding of the concept of an obligation; the third on a misunderstanding of the concept of a maxim; the fourth on a misunderstanding of the limits of action description; and the fifth on a misunderstanding of the universalization formulations again.