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Quote by Allen W. Wood

“From the beginning, there has been a tension in the reception of the Kantian idea of autonomy. If you emphasize the 'nomos' (the law), then you get one picture: the objectivity of ethics. If you emphasize the 'autos' - the self - you get the idea that we make the law. Kant never hesitated in his choice between the two emphases. He emphasizes the nomos (the universal and objective validity of the law).”

Quote by Allen W. Wood

Author

Allen W. Wood, born in 1942, is a renowned professor in the field of philosophy. He has made significant contributions to ethics and political philosophy, with a rich academic career that spans several decades. Wood's research has influenced scholars worldwide, and his works have provided new insights into moral and political theories. more

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“The relation of the law to the self is only a helpful way of thinking about the law, that helps us better understand its validity for us.”

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“Kant says that we may regard ourselves as legislator of the moral law, and consider ourselves as its author, but not that we are legislators or authors of the law.”

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“There is no author or legislator of the moral law. It is simply valid in itself in the nature or essence of things. We become autonomous only when we obey it, because then our will aligns itself with the objectively valid law, and our choice follows the same law as that we give ourselves. We can think of rational faculty (or the idea - the pure rational concept, not exhibitable in experience) as the legislator or author of the law because reason recognizes an objective standard, and to that extent is already aligned with objective moral truth.”

Thinking Giving Ideas Reason Law Choices Moral Pure Standards Concepts Essence Objectives Rational Faculty Legislators Our Choices Autonomous Moral Law

Author:Allen W. Wood

“Kant does not think there is anything wrong with being beneficent from sympathy. He thinks we have a duty to cultivate sympathetic feelings by participating in the situations of others and acquiring an understanding of them. He thinks we also have a duty to make ourselves into the kind of person for whom the recognition that something is our duty would be a sufficient incentive to do it (if no other incentives were available to us). That's what he means by "the duty to act from the motive of duty".”

Ifs Thinking Kind Mean Persons Doe Feelings Would Be Understanding Situation Duty Available Recognition Sufficient Motive Incentives Sympathetic Participating

Author:Allen W. Wood

“Kant does not think that along with choice of an action we also choose in each case the motive from which we do it. He thinks all is well if I act beneficently, realizing that it is my duty but also having sympathetic feelings for the person I help. But I ought to strive to be the sort of person who would still help even if these feelings were absent. And it is such a case that he presents when the sympathetic friend of humanity finds his sympathetic feelings overclouded by his own sorrows, and still acts beneficently from duty.”

Ifs Thinking Wells Persons Doe Stills Helping Feelings Action Humanity Choices Realizing Cases Duty Ought Sorrow Strive Motive Absent Sympathetic

Author:Allen W. Wood

“Notice that tearing oneself out of the insensible state is the opposite of remaining in it; the man who is beneficent from duty nevertheless acts with feelings, if not with empirical inclinations.”

Ifs Men States Feelings He Man Duty Opposites Oneself Nevertheless Inclination Insensible

Author:Allen W. Wood

“If being "iron headed" is to be lacking such feelings, then Kant's position is that an ironheaded person could not be a moral agent because such a person would not be rational.”

Ifs Persons Feelings Moral Position Rational Agents Iron Lacking

Author:Allen W. Wood

“What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your duty except that the moral law commands it.”

Self Law Acting Moral Duty Morality Cease Rational Command Incentives Constraints Moral Law

Author:Allen W. Wood

“In fact, if you read what Kant has to say about feeling, desire and emotion, you see that he is not at all hostile to these. He is suspicious of them insofar as they represent the corruption of social life (here he follows Rousseau), but he also thinks a variety of feelings (including respect and love of humanity) arise directly from reason - there is, in other words, no daylight between the heart and the head regarding such feelings.”

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“Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.”

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Author:Allen W. Wood