Vol. 30 No. 2 (2010)
Articles

Some Apparent Obstacles to Developing a Kantian Virtue Theory

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  • Amy Lara
Amy Lara
Kansas State University, Estados Unidos
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.2010.129

Published 2010-11-01

Keywords

  • Teoría de la virtud,
  • Ética kantiana,
  • John Mc Dowell
  • Virtue theory,
  • Kantian ethics,
  • John McDowell
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Several neo-Kantians have questioned the standard deontological interpretation of Kant's ethical theory. They have also responded to charges of rationalism and rigorism by emphasizing the role of virtues and emotions in Kant's view. However, none have defended a fully virtue theoretic interpretation of Kant's theory. I claim that virtue theory has much to offer Kantians, but that resistance to developing a Kantian virtue theory rests on faulty assumptions about virtue theory. In this paper I clear away three apparent obstacles to developing a Kantian virtue theory. The first regards his account of the virtues, which I argue is tangential to the issue of whether he can be interpreted as a virtue theorist. The second is Kant's codification of moral principles, which I argue is compatible with virtue theory. The third is the apparent explanatory primacy of the Categorical Imperative, which I argue is not fully supported by the textual evidence.

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