Among the textbook views on Kant’s ethics, two characterisations have proven remarkably resilient: first, that Kant’s moral philosophy is a rigid form of deontology which lays the emphasis on formal principles of right action and categorical obligation; and second, that Kant’s ethics is fundamentally opposed to any sort of consequentialism or eudaemonism which ground morality in the pursuit of some material good or an agent’s happiness. As is often the case with such textbook distinctions, they fail to capture a philosopher’s actual thought and to do justice to the complexity of the original texts.
Jeanine Grenberg’s insightful book – like her earlier monographs Kant and the Ethics of Humility (2005) and Kant’s Defense of Common Moral Experience (2013) – does a great deal in correcting such misapprehensions of Kant’s ethics through careful and meticulous interpretations of his writings. In Kant’s Deontological Eudaemonism, she envisages the challenge of showing that the deontological elements in Kant’s ethics are intertwined with teleological considerations about moral ends and eudaemonist reflections on the pleasure experienced in exercising one’s free aptitude for virtue. Kant’s moral philosophy is thus most aptly described, in Grenberg’s terms, as a combination of ‘deontological teleology’ and ‘deontological eudaemonism’, in which the realisation of moral ends and human flourishing are part and parcel of the dutiful pursuit of virtue.
In part I of the book, Grenberg sets the stage for Kant’s deontological eudaemonism by emphasising that the complete fulfilment of one’s empirical desires cannot be an ultimate telos for sensibly affected rational beings (chapter I.i). Instead, she argues that only the absolute value of respect for persons as such can provide such a final goal. This value, as Kant unfolds in full detail in his Doctrine of Virtue, acts as a deontological and teleological principle: it grounds his system of categorical duties and informs an agent’s end-setting independently from her inclinations (chapter I.ii). Grenberg’s interpretation of respect for persons as a deontological and teleological principle is based on a materialised reading of the Formula of Humanity of the Categorical Imperative. Understood in this way, the Categorical Imperative does not only impose negative constraints on which ends one may set, but commands that one actively promote the value of respect for persons (chapter I.iii). In so doing, respect for persons can structure and govern one’s end-setting all the way down. Notably, as Grenberg points out, it does so more successfully than any empirical desire, because it provides the evaluative distance that is needed to reflect appropriately on which ends are worth pursuing as such (chapter I.iv).
In the second part of her book, Grenberg explores how the lives of agents who have worked their way up to a firm virtuous disposition by making respect for persons their ultimate guiding telos will transform. Through a state of moral apathy, they have learnt to put things of relative value in their right place (chapter II.i). What is more, through acquiring such an evaluative distance, the exercise of their free aptitude for virtue has its very own kind of happiness to offer, a happiness that is distinct from mere desire-satisfaction. This ‘happiness, rationally or intellectually conceived’ (p. 280) consists in a non-felt pleasure, akin to Aristotle’s account of the pleasure found in the unimpeded activity of one’s proper function. The virtuous person, who has brought her will and her faculty of choice into perfect alignment, has reached a state where the exercise of virtue is done with ‘ease, alacrity, composure, and tranquillity’ (p. 298). This experience of ease is pleasurable because it reveals a harmony between one’s practical faculties of will and choice that indicates the successful realisation of one’s true moral self. In this regard, Kant’s ethics turns out to be close in spirit to Aristotle’s account of human flourishing and the idea that every substance strives to realise its proper function (chapter II.ii). Yet, the exercise of one’s free aptitude for virtue does not only offer intellectual pleasure (chapter II.iii): the virtuous person finds herself in a better position to pursue all kinds of pleasures, because her desires are ‘now pursued in a less self-absorbed way’ (p. 350). For Kant, as Grenberg puts it, ‘[t]he tools of virtue are also the tools of happiness’ (p. 401).
There are at least four merits of Grenberg’s book. First, her book is perhaps the most rigorous attempt to date to read Kant’s main ethical writings through the lens of the Doctrine of Virtue. It offers a detailed exposition of how sensibly affected rational beings are able to live up to the commands of the moral law, and it includes illuminating discussions of themes from Kant’s mature moral philosophy, such as beneficence, sympathy, self-cognition, duties with regard to animals and non-human beings, and the scope and demandingness of imperfect duties to oneself.
Second, Grenberg’s suggestion to parallel Aristotle’s argument that every substance has its proper function – and that the unimpeded exercise of one’s proper function is experienced as pleasurable – with Kant’s notion of the free aptitude for virtue strikes me as the most innovative move of the book, which sets Grenberg apart from previous attempts to understand the relation between Kant and eudaemonism. The more general lesson to be learnt from her suggestion is that deontology, teleology, and eudaemonism are not opposed moral theories, but that there are ways in which elements of each can be meaningfully integrated into a consistent unity.
Third, Grenberg makes a compelling contribution to the existing literature by arguing that the Categorical Imperative rests on an absolute value, thereby placing herself in sympathy with realist interpretations of Kant’s ethics. While Grenberg’s reading may not fully persuade anti-realist or constructivist interpreters of Kant’s ethics, her account of a materialised version of the Categorical Imperative demonstrates the strengths of looking at Kant from a realist point of view and advances the debate over whether we should read him as a realist or an anti-realist.
Fourth, Grenberg provides a compelling account of how the different formulations of the categorical imperative are related to one another (pp. 141ff., 197ff.). One of the book’s central claims is that only the Formula of Humanity can generate positive duties – beyond imposing merely negative constraints on one’s end-setting – and guide agents in determining which ends they should set. Grenberg’s persuasive argument for this claim is that one would find oneself in a contradictory state if one were willing to treat others never merely as a means, but failed to consider respect for persons as a positive command. The ‘threat of indifference’ (p. 159), as she calls it, is averted only if one understands the Formula of Humanity as a positive demand to make respect for persons as such one’s end.
One objection Grenberg addresses at greater length is that making respect for persons one’s ultimate telos might lead to an overly moralised life of virtue, in which all one’s activities become an expression of this value (pp. 224f., 373, 379). While she contends that this result is perfectly compatible with Kant’s conception of virtue, I wonder whether there is still room for activities that are merely permissible, although they do not advance the value of persons as such. While it would be deficient in virtue if all one’s activities were merely permissible, it strikes me that it is not morally unworthy to forego opportunities to promote this value. Grenberg allows for such innocent pleasures ‘as a sort of balance to the quasi-demands I place upon myself’ (p. 392), though she doubts their lasting appeal. I am less optimistic about this conclusion and wonder whether the enjoyment of merely permissible pleasures can be integrated within her framework or whether respect for persons demands that one’s resources be used wisely. Given that one’s time is limited, should one really waste it with drinking whisky, eating chocolate, watching TV, or enjoying the summer at the beach, while one could also advance the value of persons as such? If respect for persons is one’s life-guiding telos, it seems to me that little room is left for merely permissible enjoyments.
After reading the book, one would have wanted Kant himself to reflect on these issues at greater length. Even though there are numerous passages in Kant’s writings which prove that he is open to the kind of happiness and eudaemonism Grenberg identifies in his moral philosophy – especially when he talks about contentment of oneself – he did not articulate these aspects as thoroughly as she did. By this, I do not want to claim that Grenberg is trying to make Kant look better than he actually is; rather, her engagement with his writings in such a productive and intriguing way reveals that some version of teleology and eudaemonism may be more consistent with acting on a priori moral principles than Kant himself was able to see.
Grenberg’s Kant’s Deontological Eudaemonism is an immensely rich and compelling book. It is no exaggeration to say that it should be regarded as a mandatory reading for anyone interested in how the dutiful pursuit of virtue can not only be reconciled with leading a life that is well-lived but is an integral part of the pursuit of happiness.
