When, therefore, sensibility abhors what the understanding considers abhorrent, this is the moral feeling. (Kant in Lectures on Ethics, Collins' notes, p. 72)Excuse me there. If you go upon arguments, they are never wanting, when a man has no constancy of mind. My father never changed, and he preached plain moral sermons without argument, and was a good man -- few better. When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery-book. That's my opinion, and I think anybody's stomach will bear me out. (Mrs. Farebrother, in George Eliot's Middlemarch, chapter 17)
There are few things more difficult to imagine that a moral philosophy requirement at Brown, and indeed the idea that ethics or morals should be an explicit part of K-12, or K-16 education in the US has long gone out of fashion. Why do you think this is the case? Is it that we no longer know what we would/should teach under this heading? Do we think schools have no "right" to engage in moral education, or do we no longer think it very important, or both? Have we lost faith in the idea that education can have a moral impact on students? On a more personal level, do you think your own ethics has been, can be, or should be influenced by your education?
Compared with Utilitarianism and "rights-based" ethical theories, Kant offers a more formidable set of requirements for what should be considered moral. Indeed, Kant has been criticized for requiring too much of us, and limiting excessively the sorts of motivations that can be considered truly moral (a funny title for a class session in Elijah Milgram's Seminar in Ethics: Kant's Moral Philosophy, at utah.edu, reads "Do Kantians Have Friends?"). So, two questions:
Kant's Lectures on Ethics, pp. 90-149
Jeffrey has bravely volunteered to present the first half of this section, but before we have him present we'll brainstorm a bit in order to identify the most prominent/puzzling ideas and formulations in Kant's text. One way to do this is to try and pick the most exemplary remark or passage in the text; another is to simply reflect on the sense you had of what Kant was talking about (and why); and still another is to focus on a passage or remark that totally lost (or annoyed) you.
For Wednesday:: Read pp. 149-222 in Kant's Lectures on Ethics.