WiP - Nathan Howard / How Cold is the Motive of Duty?
WiP - Nathan Howard / How Cold is the Motive of Duty?
October 2, Nathan Howard presents his work at our WiP Series, asking "How Cold is the Motive of Duty?"
Abstract
Some, such as Paulina Sliwa, Zoe Johnson King, and Jessica Isserow, defend the idea that a de dicto concern to do what’s right suffices for the morally best kind of motivation as an expression of Kant’s idea that only respect for the moral law suffices for moral worth. Even those who reject this kind of concern, such as Nomy Arpaly and Julia Markovits, characterize it as ‘Kantian’. My aim in this paper is twofold. First, I argue that this kind of concern cannot suffice for the morally best kind of motivation because it cannot account for compunction. Second, I argue that the Kantian view is best understood as a version of the competing idea that moral worth involves a de re concern to do what’s right.