Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Moral Theory
Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Moral Theory
This chapter enumerates and illustrates eight distinct critiques of Kant’s moral philosophy from Hegel’s perspective. These critiques include both explicit and implicit—or “buried”—arguments. These “buried” criticisms include Kant’s failure to define morality’s most basic principle, the will, and insofar as Kant does provide an account of the will it is non-naturalistic (not empirical). Hegel’s other implicit criticisms arise from the overly abstract quality of Kant’s moral theory. Namely, Kant’s account does not tell us how we can strengthen our moral agency by integrating it with other drives and duties, and he also lacks an account of moral action altogether. Hegel also criticizes Kant explicitly for being too formalistic and rigoristic; for the emptiness of the categorical imperative, and for the social philosophy, which emerges from it, which is based not on freedom, but coercion.
Keywords: Kant, Hegel, morality, ethics, will, categorical imperative, formalism, rigorism
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