Kant on Conscience: A Unified Approach to Moral Self-Consciousness

Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2008

In this paper I argue that Kant's claims about conscience in his moral writings of the 1790s reveal a fundamental instability in his moral philosophy. Th e central issue is the relationship between the moral law as the form of universality and the judgment of individuals about specifi c cases. Against Th omas Hill's claim that Kant has only a limited role for conscience, I argue that conscience has a comprehensive role in Kantian deliberation. I unpack the claims about conscience in the Metaphysics of Morals to show that they describe conscience as both a basic act of self-consciousness and as an all-things-considered judgment. I outline the role of conscience in moral motivation, and argue that taken together Kant's writings about conscience reveal a way to rethink Kant's conception of the Fact of Reason.

MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE “VOICE OF CONSCIENCE” IN I. KANT‟S RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, 2022

The notion of "conscience" is one of the most ancient components of the axiological sphere, the central factor of a person"s moral consciousness. The phenomenon is closely linked with the features of the ontological status of man in the world. The authors present the concept of conscience in the philosophical and religious tradition and examine the key ideas of Immanuel Kant"s religious philosophy in connection with moral consciousness as the "voice of conscience". The idea of heterodoxy and contradiction between Immanuel Kant"s religious philosophy and Christian religious and philosophical tradition is substantiated.

This short paper explores Kant's understanding of conscience as developed in Religion, MM, and MPT. It was read at the 2021 Easter APA.

This paper explores Kant's understanding of conscience in Religion, MM, and MPT. It was presented at the 2021 Eastern Philosophical Association Meeting.

The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2016

There is no doubting conscience is central to the human condition and our understanding of it. Still, questions arise. What is its origin and purpose? What does it disclose? And how? Although any historical schema will be imperfect to the extent that it must be incomplete, broadly speaking, the history of the concept of conscience can be usefully divided into four familiar periods: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern. Historically, it has been conceived in numerous ways, whether as an innate capacity responsible for the ability to discern right from wrong (the Hebrew Prophets), as a voice of divine guidance (Socrates), as an internal tribunal whereby we pass judgment on ourselves by way of reason (Kant and German Idealism), as the ontological hallmark of our capacity for authentic individuality (Heidegger), or as an internalization of society’s repressive norms and mores (Freud). This rich and variegated conceptual reception only serves to underscore the phenomenon’s remarkable pertinence to multiple dimensions of philosophical interest. It is, perhaps first above all, a matter of our individual responsibility and morality. What, for example, does the capacity to draw moral judgments on its basis reveal about what it is to be the selves each of us is? It also, second, is an item of social, communal, and political significance. What, for example, does it mean to have our actions laid bare before others for moral and rational appraisal as social and political beings? And, of course, it is a spiritual matter too, as it discloses us before God. How, then, does conscience lay us bare before ourselves, others, and God? From Plato to Kant and Fichte, from Rousseau and Mill to Nietzsche and Freud, from the Prophets and Apostles to Heidegger, this work traces the evolution of the concept of conscience’s formation, in turn highlighting how the capacity to hear, and so heed, its voice forms the heart of man.

Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2019

This article explores Kant’s view, found in several passages in his late writings on moral philosophy, that the verdicts of conscience are infallible. We argue that Kant’s infallibility claim must be seen in the context of a major shift in Kant’s views on conscience that took place around 1790, and that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. This shift led Kant to treat conscience as an exclusively second-order capacity which does not directly evaluate actions, but one’s first-order moral judgments and deliberation. On the basis of this novel interpretation, we develop a new defense of Kant’s infallibility claim that draws on Kant’s account of the characteristic features of specifically moral judgments.

Das Leben der Vernunft. Beiträge zur Philosophie Kants, hrsg. von Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner und Carsten Olk, Berlin-Boston, de Gruyter Verlag, 2013, pp. 364-385., 2013

BACKGROUND We are different from other animals not only on grounds of rationality, but also because we possess an 'inner voice' (Viveka) enabling us to discriminate between good/bad, right/wrong. This voice is present in all; surprisingly whose form, matter and degree of determination are more or less the same in all. For Kant, this Voice of Conscience was perhaps the Categorical Imperative. For Sigmund Freud, the notion of 'Super Ego' or 'Ego Ideal' represented the Voice of Conscience. However, we notice a striking similarity between Kant's Moral law or the Categorical Imperative and Freud's super-ego for both seem to represent the Voice of Conscience, dictating us what we should or should not do. My aim in this paper is to first explore the nature and intensity of such a similarity. It would also try to draw the reader's attention to the fact that 'Morality' is something that is present within us, it is our nature; thus to go against our...