Why we go wrong: beyond Kant’s dichotomy between duty and self-love

Sticker, Martin; Saunders, Joe

Abstract

Kant holds that whenever we fail to act from duty, we are driven by self-love. In this paper, we argue that there are a variety of different ways in which people go wrong, and we show why it is unsatisfying to reduce all of these to self-love. In doing so, we present Kant with five cases of wrongdoing that are difficult to account for in terms of self-love. We end by suggesting a possible fix for Kant, arguing that he should either accept a pluralistic account of self-love, or move beyond the duty/self-love dichotomy entirely.

Citation

Sticker, M., & Saunders, J. (online). Why we go wrong: beyond Kant’s dichotomy between duty and self-love. Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2022.2075457

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 11, 2022
• Online Publication Date: May 24, 2022
• Deposit Date: May 26, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: May 26, 2022
• Journal: Inquiry
• Print ISSN: 0020-174X
• Electronic ISSN: 1502-3923
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2022.2075457
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1205877