Annotation
Starting with the famous Schiller’s criticism, Kant has been often criticized for his hostility towards feelings in ethics. However, since the last decade of the 20th century, several scholars have tried to refute such a view, emphasizing that Kant does count in his ethics with feelings.
In this course, we will hence try to understand to role Kant assigns to feelings or emotions in his ethics. We will read excerpts from Kant’s ethical and anthropological works, including his university lectures, and discuss topics like what Kant exactly means when he speaks about feelings and how they differ from other emotions, what is the role of feeling in the moral motivation and if we need feelings (and if so, which ones) in our moral life.