Julia Peters: Kant on Hard Moral Choices (Digital Kant-Lectures)

Kant on Hard Moral Choices (Decisions) Julia Peters (Heidelberg) Kant’s critical writings on moral philosophy contain a striking number of examples of a particular type of decision: a fundamentally good person finds themselves in an exceptional situation in which their moral orientation is dramatically put to the test. They are confronted with especially weighty and previously unforeseen incentives to deviate from their established moral principles. In this talk, I argue that the structure of these examples is of central importance for Kant. It highlights a core aspect of his understanding of moral decision-making over time: even someone who has made the right fundamental moral commitment and thus possesses a good disposition has not thereby decided once and for all against revising this stance in the face of radically new circumstances. Human moral life is therefore marked by a fundamental openness: we are never immune to unforeseen exceptional situations that compel us to make hard moral decisions. Das Digitale Kant-Zentrum NRW verknüpft in kooperativer Weise mehrere Forschungsprojekte, deren gemeinsame Grundfrage ist, wie kantische Antworten auf gesellschaftspolitische Fragen ausfallen könnten; es soll also Kant für die Gegenwart fruchtbar gemacht werden. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter https://kant-zentrum-nrw.de/ Gefördert wird das Digitale Kant-Zentrum NRW durch das Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.