Virtue and morality in Kant’s lectures on ethics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2025.e108628Keywords:
Virtue, Ethics, Autocracy, Categorical ImperativeAbstract
Among the moral theories of modernity, the Kantian doctrine is, according to many, the most remarkable. Kant’s doctrine of virtue occupies a special place among modern theories, as it develops both from a rigorous grounding of the concepts of duty and obligation, and as a doctrine of autonomy, features that characterize Kant’s doctrine of the categorical imperative. Thus, although Kant draws extensively on his modern predecessors, he certainly surpasses them insofar as he elaborates his doctrine of virtue on the basis of a distinctive and deeper conception of ethics. However, my aim in this paper is not to investigate in greater depth the main features of Kant’s doctrine of virtue, but rather to show how the principal aspects of this conception were already developed by the mid-1770s in the Lectures on Ethics. In my attempt at reconstruction, I focus specifically on five characteristics of the Kantian concept of virtue, namely: 1) virtue as analogous to strength, “autocracy,” and “self-mastery”; 2) virtue as “self-coercion” grounded in a principle of “inner freedom” and as resistance to radical evil; 3) virtue as a characteristic of a “finite will” for which the moral law presents itself as an “imperative” representing a practical necessitation; 4) virtue as an “anthropological element” that allows feelings and inclinations to have a place and play a role within the whole of human nature; and 5) virtue as “acquired”, with “education” as a fundamental aspect of this process.
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