Marcus Willaschek

Right and Coercion : Can Kant's Conception of Right be Derived from his Moral Theory?

Abstract Recently, there has been some discussion about the relationship between Kant’s conception of right (the sphere of juridical rights and duties) and his moral theory (with the Categorical Imperative as its fundamental norm). In section 1, I briefly survey some recent contributions to this debate and distinguish between two different questions. First, does Kant’s moral theory (as developed in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason) imply, or validate, a Kantian conception of right (as developed in the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Doctrine of Right)? In other words, is the Categorical Imperative sufficient to show that the fundamental principles of right are normatively valid? Second, does Kant’s conception of right presuppose his moral theory? In other words, is the Categorical Imperative necessary to show that the basic principles of right are normatively valid? In this paper, I will be primarily concerned with defending a negative answer to the first of these questions. In section 2, I will discuss Paul Guyer’s attempt to vindicate a positive answer to the same question. In section 3, reasons will be given why any attempt to derive Kant’s conception of right from the Categorical Imperative must fail because of the analytic connection between right and coercion.

Kant's Account of Cognition

In this paper, we offer an overview of the basic structure of Kant’s account of cognition, of the conditions on the notion of cognition most central to the first Critique, and how they are satisfied in the case of human beings. Our primary aim in this regard is to provide a comprehensive (albeit not exhaustive) framework for understanding Kant’s account of (theoretical) cognition. In the course of doing so, we argue for various interpretative claims, which, taken together, amount to a novel understanding of Kant’s account of cognition. First, we argue that cognition is a mental state that determines a given object by attributing general features to it. Second, we explain what it means for Kant for an object to be given: givenness in the relevant sense involves an immediate relation to an existing object. These first two claims imply that cognition (Erkenntnis) is distinct from knowledge (Wissen), both in Kant’s sense and in our modern sense. Third, we note some fundamental ambiguities about what sensibility and understanding are, and point out that purely causal interpretations of these faculties are problematic. Fourth, we distinguish between an intuition and an intuitive representation (analogous to the distinction between a concept and a discursive representation) in such a way that an intuition is one specific kind of intuitive representation. Fifth, we describe two different accounts of concepts (‘logical’ and ‘psychological’) and explain how they complement each other (despite their distinctness). Sixth, we diagnose several confusions regarding whether Kant is or is not a non-conceptualist about intuitions (though without attempting a definitive resolution to that debate). Finally, we show how our analysis of cognition clarifies what the most promising lines of argument are for Kant’s claim that we cannot have cognition of the objects of traditional metaphysics (while still allowing for limited kinds of knowledge of things in themselves).

Kant on cognition and knowledge

Even though Kant’s theory of cognition (Erkenntnis) is central to his Critique of Pure Reason, it has rarely been asked what exactly Kant means by the term “cognition”. Against the widespread assumption that cognition (in the most relevant sense of that term) can be identified with knowledge or if not, that knowledge is at least a species of cognition, we argue that the concepts of cognition and knowledge in Kant are not only distinct, but even disjunct. To show this, we first (I) investigate Kant’s explicit characterizations of the nature of cognition. As it turns out, he introduces several different notions that must be carefully distinguished before identifying the one that is central to his project in the first Critique. We then (II) consider the basic features of Kant’s conception of knowledge, indicating both how it involves assent and objective justification and how it relates to our contemporary conception. Next (III), we compare and contrast Kant’s understanding of cognition and his conception of knowledge in a way that allows us to present their fundamental differences and connections. We argue that while cognition, in the most relevant sense, is a species of representation that differs from other representations in that it involves the conceptual determination of a sensibly given object, knowledge (for Kant) is a kind of assent to a judgment that requires consciousness of a sufficient epistemic ground. Finally (IV), by appreciating the differences between cognition and knowledge, we explain several of the implications this conception of cognition has for some of Kant’s main claims in the Critique of Pure Reason as a whole. Among other things, we show how Kant can deny cognition of specific things in themselves while allowing philosophical knowledge about things in themselves in general (e.g. that they exist, are not in space and time, etc.).

Givenness and Cognition: Reply to Grüne and Chignell

abstract: We are grateful to Stefanie Grüne and Andrew Chignell for their thoughtful commentaries on our paper. Both focus their remarks on the issue of ‘givenness,’ which could seem like a relatively narrow topic within the much broader subject matter of cognition that we have attempted to describe in our paper. However, we think that givenness, properly understood, plays an important role in Kant’s account of cognition, since it is central to both of the conditions that Kant places on cognition (which we call the ‘givenness condition’ and the ‘thought condition’). In particular, we maintain that givenness is an independent condition on cognition, one that has a meaning and function distinct from what it contributes to the thought condition. Full consideration of the givenness condition allows one to see more clearly how it gives expression to one of Kant’s most fundamental concerns in the first Critique. For, in our view, the primary role of givenness is to help to explain how it is that representations can refer, or fail to refer, to objects in a specific, cognitively significant way, an achievement that Kant is marking with the term ‘cognition.’ To make good on these claims and to substantiate this picture of the broader significance of givenness within Kant’s account of cognition, we address Grüne’s paper first, then Chignell’s.

The Non-Derivability of Kantian Right from the Categorical Imperative: A Response to Nance

Can Kant’s Universal Principle of Right (UPR) be derived from the Categorical Imperative (CI)? In a paper published in this journal, I have argued that it cannot. My reasoning was that according to Kant, the UPR analytically implies the legitimacy of legal coercion, which cannot be derived from the CI. Although in his response to my paper, Michael Nance agrees that the UPR cannot be derived from the CI alone (551; 552), he does claim that it can be derived from the CI in conjunction with ‘additional empirical premises about human nature’, in particular with the premise ‘that we are embodied and affected by inclinations’ (553; cf. 547, 552). In my paper, I had dismissed this possibility (too hastily it now seems) by saying that if the legitimacy of coercion cannot be derived from the CI alone, then adding factual (non-normative) premises won’t allow you to derive it either. Nance is surely right to point out that this claim needs further argument and elaboration. He himself proposes that the UPR (including the legitimacy of coercion) can be derived from the CI in conjunction with the empirical premise about human nature cited above. Although I agree with much of what Nance says and find many of his observations helpful and illuminating (in particular his analogy between the moral law and the CI on the one hand, and the CI and the UPR on the other), in the end I find myself unconvinced by his proposed derivation of the UPR. I’ve divided this brief response to Nance’s response into five sections: first, I will rehearse (and restate) the reasons why the legitimacy of legal coercion cannot be derived from the CI (1); second, I explain how it can be derived from the UPR (2); next, I will try to explain more fully why I think that adding factual premises to the CI does not allow for a derivation of the legitimacy of coercion (3); after that I say where I believe Nance’s proposal fails (4); and International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 20(4), 557–564

Mini-symposium on Kant and cognition

Kant’s position in the history of philosophy is unique in that many of the most important schools of thought over the past two hundred years in both analytic and continental philosophy are all, in one way or another, reactions to Kant and have a common source inKant, despite the fact that they often have radically differentmethods, terminologies, and positions. Now one popular point of departure in Kant has been his assertion of synthetic a priori cognition, where much attention has been paid both to the analyticsynthetic distinction (in the logical positivists andQuine) and to the possibility ofwhat, if anything, can be established a priori (in Philip Kitcher, Richard Rorty, Lawrence Bonjour and, again, Quine). Surprisingly, much less explicit attention has been paid to the third crucial term, cognition (Erkenntnis), and to exactly how it is to be understood. It is true that different traditions have taken very different stances on cognition. For example, Sellars and some of his prominent followers (such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell) have proceeded on the assumption that Kant’s basic interest in the Critique of Pure Reason lies in developing a theory of intentionality (or representationality). But it has also been quite common to take Kant to be an arch-epistemologist (responsible for synthesizing the rationalist and empiricist epistemological traditions), a view that was encouraged by Norman Kemp Smith’s influential English translation of the first Critique, which translated both ‘Wissen’ and ‘Erkenntnis’ as knowledge. (If ‘Erkenntnis’ just is knowledge, then Kemp Smith is correct, but by not marking the