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Kant on Emotions and Moral Worth

Traditionally, Kant is taken to hold the view that acting from inclination is insufficient for moral worth. In recent years, some scholars have challenged this view by shedding light on how Kant’s account of emotions provides us with reasons for thinking that Kant took emotions to be properly responsive to value and importantly connected to judgments of value. Because of this, these scholars argue that we should amend Kant’s theory and adopt the view that acting from inclination can be sufficient, albeit not necessary, for moral worth. I disagree with these scholars. I defend Kant’s claim that only acting from duty has true moral worth by focusing on the question pertaining to which kind of value emotions are responsive, and I argue that, even though emotions are value tracking, they do not track moral value.

► this event is hybrid. Join in person at the Centre for Ethics (Larkin building, room 200) or online here.

Martina Favaretto

Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Toronto

Wed, Oct 9, 2024
12:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin