In recent years, Kant scholars have paid increased attention to Kant’s claim that, in his ethics, he merely systematizes and grounds what common human reason already discloses to every rational human being. Kant’s methodological approach has been lauded as a systematically attractive phenomenological approach to ethics (Grenberg Reference Grenberg2013), and his commitment to common human reason has been explored more generally as it pertains to standards of good judgement (Merritt Reference Merritt2018), sensus communis (Zhouhuang Reference Zhouhuang2016), and his metaphysics (Ameriks e.g. Reference Ameriks2000). Owen Ware’s new book is the latest addition to this literature and continues the tradition of adding value to Kant scholarship by discussing Kant’s method and aims with reference to ‘a shared, pre-theoretical, and hence common standpoint’ (p. 4).
Ware proposes that, in his endeavour to justify moral common sense, Kant avails himself of four different methods, the discussion of which structures the first four chapters of Ware’s book.
First, a sceptical method makes a claim doubtful ‘as a way of exposing certain obstacles in our ordinary and philosophical thinking about morality’ (p. 18) and ultimately with the aim to arrive at the claim’s rational source. Kant here does not intend to refute a philosophical sceptic (more on this below) but instead to address worries on the part of agents who are committed to morality but who also suffer from a tendency to rationalize against the moral law.
Secondly, an experimental method can provide an ‘illustration’ (p. 45) of the Fact of Reason. Such an illustration can be elicited by thought experiments, the method for which Kant elaborates on in his prima facie puzzling analogies with the chemical method (cf. CPrR, 5: 92–3, 163). Ware stresses that the illustration that these thought experiments yield is neither a deduction or proper proof nor simply empirical evidence.
Thirdly, a polemical method counters dogmatical denials of claims which lie beyond the reach of human reason. This method is especially important for Groundwork III.
Fourthly, a phenomenological method investigates how an agent’s consciousness of morality impacts our sensibility. Ware stresses that Kant does not think that we should approach ethics from an observer-perspective but rather take up the standpoint of common human reason ourselves ‘so that we can illustrate our consciousness of the moral law from a practical, first-personal perspective’ (p. 57). This will allow us to understand how our consciousness of the moral law interacts with our faculty of sensibility.
The methodological pluralism Ware uncovers in Kant is significant since the monograph that is most parallel to Ware’s own is Grenberg (Reference Grenberg2013), a book that focuses on the latter method as the key to Kant’s ethics. In fact, I would have liked to see a more explicit discussion of these methods and their relation to each other. I believe that Ware is right in reading Kant as a methodological pluralist, and this is an important contribution to our understanding of Kant’s method. However, I also think that Kant avails himself of a fifth method (see below).
Apart from presenting Kant’s different methods, Ware’s most important contribution is to present an anti-foundationalist account of Kant’s justification of ethics. Ware’s reading is a middle-ground position between maximalists who think that Kant intends a proper refutation of moral scepticism, and minimalists who think that he does not engage with the sceptic at all. According to Ware, the parameters of this debate are ‘unduly narrow’ (p. 2). Kant’s starting point is modest – he does not intend to derive the moral law from non-moral premisses – but it is also rich as it is the distinct conception of morality disclosed to us by common human reason. It should be noted that Ware’s own position seems much closer to the minimalist than the maximalist position and his book presents an elaborate anti-foundationalist conception of Kant’s justification of ethics and a discussion of how such a justification impacts our understanding of central elements of Kant’s moral-psychology.
The most significant upshot of Ware’s anti-foundationalist reading of Kant’s ethics is that it calls into question the idea of a great reversal between Groundwork and the second Critique. Chapter 3 presents a continuity reading between these works and will be central for anyone working on the relation between them. According to Ware, Kant does not intend to derive morality from non-moral premisses, as many think he intended to in Groundwork III. In fact, there is ‘remarkable consistency’ (p. 88) between the Groundwork and the second Critique and the ‘real difference’ between the two works is one ‘of focus’ (p. 96). The Groundwork is supposed to clear the way, especially from popular philosophy, whereas the second Critique is a genuinely critical work showing that pure reason has a legitimate use in the practical sphere. Both works follow an analytic ascendance to the highest formula of the moral law and a synthetic return to common human reason. The Groundwork ‘has a longer way of ascent’ (p. 99), since it presents the supreme principle of morality in its various formulae (Groundwork I and II) and then, in its synthetic descent, shows how this principle is binding (Groundwork III). The second Critique can presuppose the analytic work of the Groundwork and the ‘way of descent in his later work turns out to be much longer and more elaborate than in Groundwork III’, and is ‘much broader in scope than commentators have traditionally thought’ (p. 99). This is so because in the second Critique Kant presents a theory of moral sensibility, which is, Ware emphasizes, not an addendum but an essential step in the synthetic path of this work.
In chapter 4, Ware turns to this theory of sensibility. His discussion furthers our understanding of the role of our sensuous nature for Kant’s ethics in two significant ways. First, Ware presents a new version of the affectivist reading. He maintains that consciousness of the moral law alone is not enough to motivate action, as intellectualist readings maintain. However, he also rejects McCarty’s (Reference McCarty1993) battle-of-forces model because it is third-personal. It does not capture the specific first-personal or phenomenological perspective we should adopt when we enquire into moral matters. Respect is necessary to move us to action, and the phenomenological method helps us to understand how consciousness of the moral law effects our sensuous nature from the agent’s point of view.
Secondly, Ware takes on a view that is currently defended by Grenberg (Reference Grenberg2013) and Schönecker (Reference Schönecker2013) and that he also attributes to Heidegger, namely, that ‘the Fact of Reason is only revealed to us through the feeling of respect’ (p. 123). By contrast, Ware argues that, whilst our moral sensibility has an important (and often overlooked) role for the justification of morality, it is not the case that we can discover the Fact only through our sensibility. Ware here maps out carefully the different recent takes on the role of sensibility for Kant and positions himself with a nuanced and innovative account of the role of sensibility in Kant.
Finally, in the last chapter, which will be of great interest for those working on Kant’s doctrine of introspective opacity and conscience, Ware focuses on the form of scepticism that Kant does intend to address: without knowing whether our moral progress is genuine or not we might fall into a state of hopelessness or despair. Ware believes that the conception of conscience Kant develops in his latest writings is supposed to address this despair. Conscience functions as an impartial judge issuing a ‘verdict the agent could hope to receive were his whole life placed before a judge’ (p. 146). Conscience can give us certainty about our character, but not knowledge, and thus does not violate epistemic limits or the opacity thesis.
I have a few minor textual quarrels with Ware, such as that I do not believe that conscience judges our ‘life as a whole’ (p. 153). Rather, I believe that it judges our actions or maxims and whether an agent reasons with sufficient caution about them (cf. MM, 6: 186.17–18). However, I would like to focus on two big-picture points.
(1) I do think Ware’s idea to read Kant as a methodological pluralist is a major contribution of his work, but I would like to add one more method that is neglected by Ware and the literature more generally: revision. Kant does not merely systematize and justify common human reason, but he also revises agents’ conceptions of their concrete duties to some extent. This becomes apparent in how the duties Kant presents in Groundwork I, his survey of the common conception of duty, and Groundwork II, his philosophically elaborated conception of duties based on the CI formulae, differ in at least two important ways: The indirect duty to one’s own happiness in Groundwork I (4: 399.3–7) becomes an imperfect duty of self-perfection in Groundwork II (4: 422.37–423.16). Moreover, the duty to not make false promises is presented in Groundwork I as if the common agent thinks of it as an imperfect duty, one yielded by a mere contradiction in the will (4: 403.4–17). Kant himself thinks of this duty as a paradigm case of a perfect duty yielded by a contradiction in conception (4:422.29–35; cf. also Sticker Reference Sticker2017).
When we pay close attention to Kant’s examples of our duties, according to common human reason and according to his critical systematization of common human reason, a great deal of commonality emerges, but so do differences. The common agent needs to be corrected about the status of her own happiness and the stringency of perfect duties. Whilst Ware stresses that Kant is no ‘apologist for common sense’ (p. 12) the dimension of revision remains underdeveloped in his book.
(2) The many recent and excellent works on Kant’s take on common human reason, Ware’s included, share an important shortcoming: there is surprisingly little discussion of whether Kant’s claims are true. They contain excellent thoughts on where Kant’s claims historically come from, how they can be made consistent, how they enrich our understanding of many aspects of his philosophy, but hardly ever are the most pressing philosophical problems tackled head on. Are there even such things as universally shared moral insights and are they the insights that Kant makes the basis of his ethics? To even begin to answer this question we need a much more concrete understanding of how Kant envisages ordinary moral reasoning about contentious issues about which agents from different cultures (and also from one and the same culture) might disagree, and of how Kant can deal with cultural and other differences.
Ware’s work is excellent, but he does grant Kant a lot, for instance, when he dismisses sceptical concerns about our consciousness of the moral law’s necessity largely by granting Kant’s assumptions that only philosophers taking up the theoretical perspective would harbour such doubts (pp. 68–9). Are we simply to believe that every non-philosopher, at all times, in all cultures and under all socio-economic conditions, did and does find Kantian moral experiences within themselves? In the conclusion of his book, Ware does address critical reactions to Kant by his contemporaries (Reinhold, Creutzer, Maimon). This, like many of the other historical sources Ware presents throughout his work, is fascinating historical material but reads a bit like a prolegomena to the debate we must be having at some point. Is there a common human reason and is it a Kantian one?
