Week 7: Kant & midterm exam (Feb. 11-15)

Monday, Feb. 11

Required

1. Bennett, J. (2017). Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Early Modern Texts website Links to an external site.. This is the same text as from last week. Read pp. 6 (starting with "But suppose there were") to the end, p. 8.

• The Kant text, translated by Jonathan Bennett, is on the Library Online Course Reserves page for this course.

 

2. O’Neill, O. (1993). “Kantian approaches to some famine problems.” In T. Regan (Ed.), Matters of life and death: New introductory essays in moral philosophy (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

• For Monday Feb. 11 read only pp. 258 to top of p. 263 (stop at section 23; we'll read starting there for next time).
• You can find this article on the Library Course Reserves page for this course.

 

What to focus on in these texts

• Kant says that to be acting morally correctly, we must treat rational beings (people) as ends in themselves, never merely as means. What does this mean to you?
• Does the O'Neill text pp. 258-263 help make sense of what Kant means by this?
• Kant's examples on pp. 7-8 are meant to show that one would be acting morally wrongly because in each, one would treat oneself or others as mere means to ends. What do you think of his arguments there?

 

Optional

• This section of the Stanford Encyclopedia on Kant’s moral philosophy Links to an external site., on the second form of the categorical imperative, gives a good overview of the form of the C.I. sometimes called the form of humanity.

 

Wednesday, Feb. 13

Midterm exam in class. Information about the midterm will be given in class before this day.

 

Discussion meetings

There will be discussion meetings this week, talking about Kantianism.

 

What to do this week

• In addition to the above, if you haven't done so already, please fill out this anonymous survey to provide feedback on how you think the course is going. Links to an external site. It requires a password; go to the discussion board and find the thread with passwords!
  

 

Image credit: Painting of Kant Links to an external site. by unknown artist, public domain on Wikimedia Commons