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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 275 I couch this example in terms of respect for a moral imperative in order to show that this analysis can refute the Humean and Anti-Rationalist, even on the most exoteric and commonplace interpretation of Kant's moral psychology. In fact, as indicated in Chapter I, I do not think this interpretation does justice to Kant's concept of Achtung; nor, therefore, that talk of respect or, for that matter, of imperatives is fully adequate to the spirit of Kant's view. In addition to the scholarly issue of correct translation, I also object to Beck's and Paton's translations of Achtung on aesthetic and strategic grounds: It makes Kant's moral psychology look much more cumbersome and eccentric than it is in fact. I explained in Chapter V how an occurrent thought or belief can directly precipitate rational action, and the same considerations apply here. On Kant's view (and on mine), we in fact do not necessarily experience an emotional response to the normative moral principles that motivate and guide our behavior. Rather, they elicit from us a certain attitude toward them - of susceptibility or rapt attentiveness or mindfulness or interest or receptivity. As I suggested in Chapter V.5.1, the moral principles that motivate and guide our behavior compel our attention in the same way that modus ponens does. I defend these claims at greater length elsewhere, and have more to say about imperatives in Chapter IX, below. But in order to address the Humean and Anti-Rationalist criticism on its own terms, I continue to use this exoteric terminology here. Their complaint about this case then would be that I am motivated to rescue Ellsworth first by a desire to obey the imperatives of my moral theory and not by my compassion for Ellsworth. However, this complaint is mistaken. Recall Kant's distinction between a purpose and a motive for acting.11 A purpose for acting is the goal, end, or intentional object to the achievement of which my behavior is directed. A motive for acting is the psychological cause of action, i.e. that which moves me to behave intentionally. Under the Humean influence, most of the philosophers discussed in Volume I assume that the purpose of my action is necessarily its psychological cause, i.e. its motive, as well. They assume this because they suppose that the purpose of my action must be the object of a desire, or, minimally, of a "pro-attitude" toward it, which suffuses it with a weak but rosy glow and inspires me to pursue it. And according to Brandt and Kim's analysis discussed in Volume I, Chapter II.1.1, I have such a desire or pro-attitude toward this object if, when I fail to achieve it, I experience disappointment, frustration or regret. But that my action is directed toward the achievement of this object does not imply, even minimally, any such pro-attitude it in any nontautological sense. For example, I may be caused to purposefully peel the label off the This distinction is first made explicitly by Kant, in Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft; see 2C, Anmerkung I to Lehrsatz IV. H. A. Pritchard relies on this distinction, although he uses it to different ends, in "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?" Mind XXI, 81 (January 1912), 21 - 37. 11 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
