A reflection on Moral Maxims

1993

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Ratio, 2006

I begin with Kant's notion of a maxim and consider the role which this notion plays in Kant's formulations of the fundamental categorical imperative. This raises the question of what a maxim is, and why there is not the same requirement for resolutions of other kinds to be universalizable. Drawing on Bernard Williams' notion of a thick ethical concept, I proffer an answer to this question which is intended neither in a spirit of simple exegesis nor as a straightforward exercise in moral philosophy but as something that is poised somewhere between the two. My aim is to provide a kind of rational reconstruction of Kant. In the final section of the essay, I argue that this reconstruction, while it manages to salvage something distinctively Kantian, also does justice to the relativism involved in what J. L. Mackie calls 'people's adherence to and participation in different ways of life'. My starting point in this essay is Kant's notion of a maxim, as it occurs in some of the cardinal doctrines of his moral philosophy. 1 But the essay is neither a straightforward exercise in Kantian exegesis nor a straightforward exercise in moral philosophy. It is poised somewhere between the two. My aim is to say something about maxims which is both sufficiently plausible to be at least serviceable in a rational reconstruction of Kant and sufficiently Kantian to be at least worth taking seriously. But I shall certainly part company with Kant at various points. The notion of a maxim is one of two that are central to this essay. The other, which I shall introduce in §3, is Williams' notion of a thick ethical concept. But I shall part company with Williams too. I intend to put his notion to work in a way in which he himself never does.

The African Philosophical Inquiry, 2023

Metz's recent book A Relational Moral eory explores a version of ethics that begins from friendliness rather than individual duty or utility. I examine Metz's bracketing of individualism, and explore what ethics might look like if he went even further in that project. I argue for friendliness as an affect, that is, as a way of facing and understanding the world. is allows a more grounded understanding of moral deliberation, moral imagination, and moral luck.

Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía, 2017

In this article, I use the expanded hohfeldian model presented by Wenar to argue that, according to Aristotle’s theory of friendship, every bond of friendship that is based on utility or virtue creates duties and hohfeldian incidents between those who are friends. In section 1, I provide a quick presentation of Hohfeld’s work and of Wenar’s hohfeldian model. In section 2, I present my thesis about the creation of certain hohfeldian incidents and certain duties in virtue and utility friendships as conceived by Aristotle. In section 3, I give a broad characterization of Aristotle’s theory of friendship and of the three great kinds of friendship that he recognizes. In section 4, I defend the thesis that it is only in virtue and utility friendships that duties are created. In section 5, I specify what are the hohfeldian incidents created by these two kinds of friendship. In section 6, I specify the two ways in which, according to Aristotle, these incidents and duties might be created. In section 7, I conclude with a brief recapitulation of the argument.

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87, A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch, 2019

Problems with representing friendship in painting and the novel and its more successful displays in drama reflect the fact that friends seldom act as inspiringly as traditional images of the relationship suggest: friends' activities are often trivial, commonplace and boring, sometimes even criminal. Despite all that, the philosophical tradition has generally considered friendship a moral good. I argue that it is not a moral good, but a good nonetheless. It provides opportunities to try different ways of being, and is crucial to the processes through which we establish our individuality.

Ethics, 1991

I examine the claim that there are acts which it is wrong to perform whatever the circumstances or consequences, including the usages of society, without reference to revelation. Both our need for such absolutes, and our difficulty in believing in them, arise from the same source: the complexity of human beings, the moral demands that bear on us, and the situations in which we find oursidves

2001

Some contemporary Kantians have argued that one could not be virtuous without having internalized certain patterns of awareness that permit one to identify and respond reliably to moral reasons for action. I agree, but I argue that this insight requires unrecognized, far-reaching, and thoroughly welcome changes in the traditional Kantian understanding of maxims and virtues. In particular, it implies that one's characteristic emotions and desires will partly determine one's maxims, and hence the praiseworthiness of one's actions. I try to show this by pointing out an instability in the Kantian understanding of maxims. On the one hand, maxims are thought of as consciously affirmed, subjective principles of action. On the other hand, Kantians claim that nothing counts as an action, nor as morally assessable, unless it has a maxim. One cannot take both thoughts seriously without implausibly constricting the range of behavior that counts as action, hence as morally assessable. This difficulty can be overcome, I suggest, by jettisoning the idea that maxims must be consciously affirmed, and by stressing the way in which maxims are grounded in the pruning and shaping of one's emotions and desires during socialization. This opens the door to a rich Kantian theory of virtue. It also raises questions about the scope and ground of our moral responsibility, which I address at the end of the paper.