There is little doubt that Kant saw respect as a central piece of his moral theory. It might even be considered the linchpin, because by means of it and it alone reason becomes practical. But as Kant describes it, respect has a duality of nature that seems to embody a contradiction; namely, respect is both a moral motive and a feeling.Footnote 1 And given the basic metaphysical and anthropological framework of his moral theory, where there exists a deep division between the moral/rational and natural orders, it seems that these two aspects of respect land on opposite sides of the metaphysical divide. As a moral motive, respect must be purely in the rational order, unadulterated by sensibility. But in order to be a feeling, that is, to be felt, sensibility must be involved. So respect, as a feeling, cannot be a moral motive.
Given how deeply incompatible these two characteristics appear to be, it is not surprising that Kant's account of respect has been considered an extremely problematic element of his theory. In response, most sympathetic commentators have suggested that Kant never really intended for respect to be understood as both a moral motive and a feeling. Thus, most attempts at resolving this issue have focused on eliminating this duality. Rather than see respect as a single mental state with dual qualities, they instead bifurcate it into distinct, albeit closely connected, states involved in the determination of the will, only one of which is properly called respect. On the one side, we have the consciousness of the moral law and/or the recognition of its authority (a purely rational, cognitive state). On the other, we have the effect of this cognitive state on our sensibility in the form of a painful thwarting of inclination (a natural/empirical, affective state). The two dominant views diverge in regards to which of the two states they identify as respect. Andrews Reath is one who argues that respect is consciousness of the moral law, and so the moral motive, whereas Paul Guyer identifies respect with the pathological aftermath, and so views it as a feeling.Footnote 2
Though these are both interesting accounts, I think they are ultimately unsuccessful because the basic strategy they both pursue for resolving the problem fails to capture what is unique about respect, and therefore fails to understand how respect motivates. Specifically, I believe that Kant thinks respect can function as the moral motive because it is a feeling, not despite it. So rather than eliminate the unique dual character of respect, I suggest we preserve it, and instead explore Kant's view of emotion giving rise to it. For Kant to make such a bold claim about respect, he certainly must have had a fairly substantial theory operating in the background (whether or not it ever manifested itself explicitly in his main works). And I believe he did – it will just take some philosophical excavation to uncover it and piece it together. Moreover, I believe his various discussions of respect are places where he was working out one of the more difficult elements of his theory – specifically, where he was attempting to merge the motivational aspect of emotion with the objectivity of pure reason.
In the past decade, several have argued (directly or indirectly) that Kant could accommodate a more cognitive, Aristotelian-like account of emotion in place of the non-cognitive or mechanistic theory that he adopted (a theory in which emotions are thought to be pleasure and pain-like sensations that blindly impel a subject to action). Having Kant abandon the non-cognitive view is seen as a step forward because it would allow reason at least some ability to shape or influence non-moral motivation. But even if an Aristotelian-like account could be imported, it would still not solve the problem at hand. In order to account for respect, emotion will have to take on a purely cognitive/rational form, a form absent any involvement from sensibility. How does Kant achieve this end? By characterizing emotion primarily in terms of its function, i.e., in terms of its characteristic role in the activity of the mind. More specifically, emotions are action-initiating evaluative judgments, a position revealing a deep Stoic influence. The forms, objects, principles and characteristics of these judgments will vary across a wide spectrum, from the purely non-rational/non-cognitive analogues of judgment on the instinctual end,Footnote 3 to the purely rational/cognitive judgments on the moral end, and passing through the usual evaluative judgments of ordinary emotional responses in between. With this general framework in place, Kant can then account for the emotions of any living, animate being, from non-rational animals all the way up to a purely rational, non-embodied god. And since the key functional feature of emotions is that they are action-initiating judgments, emotions emerge as the centerpiece of Kant's motivational account. Reason becomes practical by becoming emotional.Footnote 4 It follows, then, that there is in fact no motivation in Kant without emotion – moral or otherwise.
1. The Nature of Feeling in Kant
One hindrance to uncovering Kant's theory of emotion is his potentially misleading terminology. Because of the strong associations that some of his terms tend to elicit, his discussions of emotion are often misinterpreted, if not missed altogether. For example, putting emotion under the heading of ‘The Faculty of the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure’ strongly suggests that emotions are a type of pleasant or painful sensation, so strongly that on the basis of this suggestion alone many commentators have ascribed a non-cognitive view to him. This view, in turn, is thought to entail psychological hedonism with respect to non-moral action, where emotions motivate because of the pleasant or painful aspect of these sensations. A painful sensation is inherently aversive, and as such, it motivates behavior to remove oneself from the pain inducing circumstances (while anticipation of pain motivates behavior to prevent such circumstances from coming about at all).
But when feelings of pleasure and their connection to motivation are understood in this way, certain passages in Kant become quite puzzling. Consider his discussion of sweet sorrow in the Anthropology. He states
…we also judge enjoyment and pain by a higher satisfaction or dissatisfaction within ourselves (namely moral): whether we ought to refuse them or give ourselves over to them… The object can be disagreeable:Footnote 5 but the pain concerning it pleasing. Therefore we have the expression sweet sorrow: for example, the sweet sorrow of a widow who has been left well off but does not want to allow herself to be comforted…Footnote 6
In this example, Kant is describing the sensible pain of grief as pleasing, and since it is pleasing, it motivates the widow to linger in her sorrow rather than be comforted by her good fortune. However, the contrast between the pain of grief and the pleasure of grieving Kant draws here is in tension with the hedonic account above. If the sensation of pain is itself motivating, then her grief would move her to be comforted. But the widow is not so moved. Instead, she lingers in the pain of her grief. But why? Kant's answer is that she finds the thought of doing so pleasing, despite there being no pleasant sensation involved. She does not linger because she feels a pleasant sensation in the painful experience of grief itself, if this is even coherent. (When one speaks in this way, the pleasure is not a sensation, but rather a form of assessment – i.e., the pain is something with which one ‘is pleased’.) Nor does she linger in her grief because she anticipates the action producing a sensation of pleasure. For example, she does not grieve in order to purge herself of the emotion, and thus alleviate the pain. And with the hedonic model, there are no other options – only a current or anticipated sensation of pleasure would motivate one to linger.
So what then are we to make of her finding grief pleasing? A straightforward interpretation suggests that she lingers because she sees there being something good or valuable to the painful experience of grief. Grieving is often a way of recognizing the value of the loved one who has died. And because she sees this action as being good or valuable, it is pleasing to her. This is what Kant means when he says that the higher pleasure (or satisfaction) judges the enjoyment or pain. Put another way, the hedonic account suggests that the positive assessment of a sensation of pleasure is part of the sensation's essence. Pleasure by definition attracts, pain repels. Kant denies this by distinguishing the assessment of the sensation (and its context) as a distinct type of pleasure (or displeasure). It is in this sense that we can have mixed states such as sweet sorrow and bitter joy (the converse example), where a painful sensation can be pleasing (positively assessed and so maintained), and a pleasant sensation displeasing (negatively assessed and so avoided).
This second type of pleasure – specifically, the assessment of the sensation that causes the widow to linger – is, in essence, an action-initiating evaluative judgment, and as such, it explains her motivation without direct appeal to a sensation. Without any felt quality, however, it may seem odd for Kant to call the judgment itself a pleasure. But if we understand Kant's use of feeling of pleasure to mean a positive, practical emotion (an ordinary sense of Gefühl), rather than a sensation, this is no longer the case. Furthermore since Kant characterizes pleasures primarily in terms of their function, certain pleasant sensations and certain judgments both fall into the same category because they have the same effect in motivation – they initiate action, or more specifically, they promote the life or activity of the subject.
That Kant describes pleasure in terms of its function in the activity of the mind, rather than in terms of its affective character or visceral feel, should be no surprise. He strongly believed that there could be various forms of life, with radically different types of sensibility. Animals, for example, have no inner sense. Angels, as spiritual beings, have no outer sense. Saturnians and Mercurians are likely to have versions of the inner and outer senses vastly different from ours. God, unlike a finite creature, is a purely active being and so has no senses at all.Footnote 7 This variety of sensibility (or lack thereof) poses a challenge, because the faculty of feeling is a faculty Kant believed to be shared by all minds, even God's, because it plays an integral role in the activity of a mind as such.Footnote 8 So he must be able to characterize the faculty in a way that is independent of the particular form of life a being might have, and he does this by describing pleasures in terms of their functional role in motivation. If, instead, Kant had described pleasures in terms of a felt experiential quality, then God would have the faculty of feeling without being able to feel, among other problems.Footnote 9
2. The Faculty of Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure
The two most basic features of Kantian emotion have now emerged. First, they are defined in terms of their function. That is, any representation capable of motivating action (i.e., determining the will) is, by Kant's definition, a feeling. Second, what enables these representations to motivate is the underlying structure they all share. Feelings are judgments with a particular evaluative form.
Kant describes both of these features of feeling in an early passage of the second Critique, where he states
…the determining ground of choice is then the representation of an object and that relation of the representation to the subject by which the faculty of desire is determined to realize the object. Such a relation to the subject, however, is called pleasure in the reality of an object.Footnote 10
In other words, pleasure is a representation of an object, not as it is in itself, but as it relates to the subject. Or more specifically, it represents how the object relates to the subject's faculty of desire – the source of his activity.Footnote 11 Without this connection to the subject's source of activity, an object cannot move us to act. It is in this regard, where pleasure is a type of judgment representing this relationship, that Kant says the faculty of desire is determined by a pleasure in an object. Motivating action (determining the will) is thus the function of pleasure.
But perhaps the most striking discussion of this functional characterization of pleasure can be found in the Lectures on Metaphysics, where Kant is discussing the moral feelings – feelings that he admits would stretch the use of the term feeling beyond its ordinary limits.
I am supposed to have a feeling of that which is not an object of feeling, but rather which I cognize objectively through the understanding. Thus there is always a contradiction hidden in here. For if we are supposed to do the good through a feeling, then we do it because it is agreeable. But this cannot be, for the good cannot at all affect our senses. But we call the pleasure in the good a feeling because we cannot otherwise express the subjective driving power of objective practical necessitation. [my italics]Footnote 12
In this passage, Kant is saying that even though the good is not something I cognize through the senses (and hence involves no sensation or felt quality), it is still a feeling because this cognition has a subjective driving power, i.e., it motivates.Footnote 13
Now, to see how this view of feeling works, consider watching a storm move in over Lake Michigan. That stormy weather can produce large waves and fresh, cool air does not in itself motivate me to head to the lakefront for a walk. But when I hold a particular fascination with the changing moods of the lake, and recognize that I have been inside all day writing and could use some fresh air, a brewing storm does motivate me to head outside. The stormy air and the crashing waves will help to clear my mind and stimulate new ideas. Kant describes this relationship between the storm and my subjective condition as a sort of ‘fit’ that promotes my life or activity – in this case, my philosophical writing. The representation of this fit, in the form of fascination and excitement at the wonders of nature, is the pleasure that determines my will. Furthermore, when I judge watching a storm in this way, as positively fitting with my needs and activities, then I am at the same time judging it to be good (i.e., to be pleasing). These pleasures, then, are a type of evaluative judgment that involves the subjective predicates of good/bad – or more specifically, of agreeable/disagreeable and (moral) good/evil (where the use of evil distinguishes the moral good from the generic good).Footnote 14
The same holds for displeasure. If instead I were out sailing when the storm approached, I would likely feel fear or anxiety rather than excitement. The strong winds and high waves would increase the chance of capsizing, putting my life at risk – i.e., they would negatively fit with my needs and activities. As a result, I would judge the storm to be bad (i.e., displeasing), and immediately head to shore to avoid it. Any object that neither pleases nor displeases me in this way (neither promotes nor hinders my activity) leaves me motivationally disengaged. I am indifferent to it because it would have no connection to my will at all, the source of my activity.Footnote 15 So unless a representation, of whatever kind (from physical objects to moral concepts), is connected to the faculty of desire in this way, it cannot motivate. But any such connection is a feeling. It thus follows that all motivation must go through the faculty of feeling, and so must take the form of a pleasure – even the moral motive of respect. And insofar as feelings are judgments that determine the will, I believe Kant understands them to be practical cognitions, which he defines as ‘cognition[s] having to do only with the determining grounds of the will’.Footnote 16
We now have a general sketch of Kant's functional account of feeling. But where it is perhaps most evident is in the role he sees the faculty of feeling playing in the overall structure of the mind. This role has been obscured because most of us are accustomed to thinking in terms of a bipartite structure, where the basic functions of the mind are divided between its cognitive and desiderative capacities. However, Kant has a tripartite theory, where the faculty of feeling is considered to have equal standing with cognition and desire. As a major faculty, feeling will have its own characteristic function. And this function depends in large part on Kant's understanding of the activities and limitations of the other two faculties, and the connection required between them.
In its most general characterization, the faculty of cognition is, for Kant, the faculty responsible for objective or theoretical cognition. This faculty allows us to distinguish objects by means of theoretical predicates, such as shapes and colors, which are properly attributed to the object. The predicates of good and bad, however, must be excluded from this faculty because, as evaluative predicates, they are not properly attributed to the object. If the object itself were pleasing/good, then the subject's agency would be compromised, because any time the object were cognized, the subject would be motivated to pursue it. This response to the object, however, would not really be an action, but instead a mere mechanical reaction to the perception of agreeableness, like the motion of sunflowers in relation to sunlight. So in order for there to be genuine action, the subject's response to the object must be able to take into account his own particular needs and circumstances, because it is only by doing so that he can act with a conception of his own individual happiness or well-being in mind. But, when his subjective condition is taken into account, the predicate good cannot then be attributed to the object itself, but to the object only when considered in relation to the subject. Hence, it cannot be a theoretical predicate.Footnote 17 (We will see, however, that the objective pleasures of reason will prove to be an interesting exception to this.) As a result, the faculty of cognition is restricted to the theoretical judgment that a storm produces cool air and high waves. Any further judgment that it is good (i.e., satisfies a need) lies outside of this faculty's domain.
The faculty of desire, in contrast, is active over the domain of the good and bad, whereby we pursue the former and avoid the latter. The principle of this faculty is the familiar ‘I desire nothing but what pleases [the good], and avoid nothing but what displeases [the bad]’. Of special note here, however, is what Kant immediately goes on to say, ‘But representations cannot be the cause of an object where we have no pleasure or displeasure in it. This is therefore the subjective condition by which alone a representation can become the cause of an object.’Footnote 18 In other words, I cannot simply desire to head outside because I represent stormy weather. Rather, it is only after the cool air and high surf have been judged to be good (pleasing) that I can have such a desire. It follows that the function of the faculty of desire is not to judge an object to be good and thereby pursue it, but to desire/pursue it because it has already been judged to be good. (This distinction between judgments of the good and the faculty of desire is important, because without it, Kant would be unable to account for non-practical pleasures – pleasures that can be understood to promote certain mental activities such as aesthetic contemplation and the assumption of the postulates of pure practical reason (i.e., faith).)Footnote 19 As a result, the activity of the faculty of desire is the actual movement toward the object to be brought about. Something else must initiate that movement.
As Kant describes cognition and desire, there is no overlap between them. The faculty of cognition can tell us that a storm produces cool air and high surf, but not that this weather is good for a stimulating walk. However, I can only desire the good. So without something connecting these two faculties, there is no way that I can come to desire a walk on the lakefront. I am left motivationally inert. Kant makes this point explicitly when he briefly considers this scenario. ‘If we take away the faculty of pleasure and displeasure from all rational beings, and enlarge their faculty of cognition however much, then they would cognize all objects without being moved by them; everything would be the same to them, for they would lack the faculty for being affected by objects (my italics).’Footnote 20 By the phrase ‘to be moved by an object’, Kant means to be moved to activity (i.e., to be motivated). He is thus saying that the faculty of cognition alone cannot move the subject because, as noted earlier, theoretical cognition only registers the properties of the object. This leaves the faculty of cognition disconnected from the faculty of desire. But, as Kant envisions the mind, this connection is essential for motivation to be possible at all. The faculty of feeling fills this gap by being the faculty responsible for practical cognition – i.e., the faculty that judges the object of a representation of cognition to be good in relation to a subject, and so brings the representation under the active scope of the faculty of desire, our source of causality for making the object of that representation actual.Footnote 21 As the faculty responsible for practical cognition, we can now see why Kant elevates feeling to one of the three major faculties of the mind. It is the faculty central to Kant's entire account of motivation, for moral and non-moral action alike.
3. The Lower and Higher Faculties of Feeling
One of Kant's overarching goals in developing his moral theory is to find a non-empirical source of motivation. But where there is motivation, feeling must be involved. So corresponding to the two types of motivation, there must be at least two types of pleasure, one empirical and one non-empirical.Footnote 22 This distinction in pleasure is reflected in the division Kant makes between the lower and higher sub-faculties of feeling. He describes this division immediately after making similar divisions in the faculties of cognition and desire.
Likewise the faculty of pleasure and displeasure is also a higher or lower faculty. The lower faculty of pleasure and displeasure is a power to find satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the objects which affect us. The higher faculty of pleasure and displeasure is a power to sense a pleasure and displeasure in ourselves, independently of objects. All lower faculties constitute sensibility and all higher faculties constitute intellectuality… – But intellectuality is a faculty of representation, of desires, or of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, so far as one is wholly independent of objects.Footnote 23
As described in this passage, the higher sub-faculties constitute intellectuality (i.e., self-activity or spontaneity), and the lower constitute sensibility. The corresponding sub-faculties of cognition are the understanding and sensibility; those of desire, will and choice. However, despite the familiarity of these divisions in cognition and desire, the parallel division in the faculty of feeling has been largely missed. (One reason for this might be that Kant never assigns specific names to the sub-faculties, referring to them instead by the objects and/or products of each – their objects as the good/evil and the agreeable/disagreeable, and their products as moral/intellectual feelings and pathological/sensible feelings, respectively.) But I believe this division is the key to understanding Kant's account of moral motivation. As a form of sensibility, we know that the lower faculty of feeling will be empirical. And as a form of intellectuality, the higher faculty of feeling will be non-empirical or rational. If this distinction holds, then the higher faculty will be well-suited to explain the feeling of respect as a moral motive. But first, Kant must give an account of these two very different types of feeling.
It is at this point that Kant's turn to a functional/judgment account of feeling reveals itself to be one of the crucial moves in developing his theory of motivation. These two radically different types of pleasure are possible because of the underlying functional structure they share. To be a feeling of any type, an object must be judged to fit with a subject in a way that furthers the subject's life or activity. If the object furthers life, then it (as the object of the pleasure) determines the will. Within this basic form, certain variations are possible. The object of pleasure can be anything from fresh air to a purely rational/moral concept such as truthfulness. The principle can be either the empirical principle of self-love, or the a priori principle of morality. Finally, the subject can be one of two principles of life in a finite, rational being – its animal (physical) life or its spiritual (rational) life (corresponding to the lower and higher faculties of desire).Footnote 24 Animal life involves natural causality, or causality in relation to our physical nature. Spiritual life, in contrast, involves freedom, or causality in relation to our rational nature.
With this general outline in hand, we can now turn to the individual sub-faculties, beginning with the lower feelings. Though this faculty has a rather complicated and interesting structure, one that I will not be able to do full justice to here, a quick sketch will nevertheless provide an intuitive framework against which to contrast Kant's (less intuitive) account of the higher faculty.
The Lower Faculty of Feeling
The fascination and excitement felt in watching a storm discussed above is an example of a lower feeling. With these feelings, there is a sensible need, stemming from my animal nature, that drives the judgment – e.g., to clear my mind. Certain objects are considered in relation to these needs, some of which are judged to fit. When there is a positive fit, the principle of self-love is determined to hold between the object and the subject. And since a sensible need is the basis of this judgment, the resulting pleasure will determine choice (the lower faculty of desire) to make the object actual. Finally, when an object is determined to fit in this way, it is judged to be agreeable, the particular predicate Kant assigns to judgments of the lower feelings (along with disagreeable).Footnote 25
The basic structure of the lower pleasures also determines how they motivate. That is, their motivational power stems from the fit they represent. I judge that the approaching storm fits with my needs because the fresh air and mental stimulation it provides will clear my mind and so help promote my writing. Implicit in this representation of fit, then, is the expectation of a need being satisfied by the storm. It is this expectation that ultimately motivates me to head outside. Now, Kant distinguishes the actual satisfaction of my need, i.e., the mental clarity I come to feel, as a second type of pleasure – what he specifically refers to as sensations of gratification/enjoyment and pain.Footnote 26 In the case of the lower faculty, these two types of pleasure (what I will call judgments and sensations of pleasures, respectively) must work together to motivate. That is, the lower judgments of pleasure can motivate only because of the expectation of gratification (satisfaction of a need) they represent. This follows because it is only through the gratification of a need that our animal life is furthered. The ability to gratify is thus the condition of the stormy weather being able to determine the will.Footnote 27 Because of this condition, I am said to watch the storm for the sake of the expected gratification. So when I judge the storm as agreeable, I am judging it to be good for satisfying my needs. However, in doing so, the representation of the expected gratification always mediates between the subject and the object. Hence, the object is judged as mediately good, rather than good in itself.Footnote 28 It is for this reason that Kant calls all lower pleasures forms of self-love – because they are all ultimately directed towards satisfying one's own needs.
Given the description above, it might appear that the possible objects of the lower judgments of feeling would be restricted to physical objects or states of affairs. But this isn't quite the case. The object can still be a representation of reason, even of morality – but with one caveat. The only way that such a representation can be judged to fit with the subject's animal nature is by bringing a state of affairs about in the world to match the concept. This follows because the need governing the fit in the lower feelings between the concept of morality (the object) and the subject (his animal nature) requires sensible gratification. So even in the case of a moral concept, the resulting pleasure is an attitude directed not internally to the form of willing itself, but externally to the state of affairs that will result from the action. In other words, lower judgments of feeling can only provide the matter of the will. Because of this, I distinguish these feelings as material pleasures (as opposed to what will be the formal pleasures of the higher faculty). Material pleasures, then, are the specific pleasures that motivate in terms of expected gratification, whether or not they involve an intellectual representation (such as a moral concept).
Kant's case of the naturally sympathetic man provides an example here.Footnote 29 The object of his pleasure might be the rational concept of beneficence. But for this concept to be an object of a lower pleasure, it must promise gratification in order for it to motivate. That is, the action represented by the concept must be judged to fit with the man's psychological need to spread joy around him, a need which is gratified only when he succeeds in making others happy.Footnote 30 If there were no such need, then the representation of the action would fail to motivate. His goal then is not to will well (by willing beneficence), but to bring about a certain state of affairs in the world by which his psychological need will be satisfied. In this situation, the moral concept would essentially become a means to this gratification, and therefore would be judged as mediately good, rather than good in itself. This is the model of moral motivation (what I call the Epicurean model) that Kant is at pains to reject in the second Critique.Footnote 31 The adherents to this model assume that the rational source of the motivating concept is enough to establish its moral status. But as Kant shows, if a judgment of pleasure, even in a moral concept, motivates only in terms of the gratification presupposed, then it is a form of empirical, material motivation unsuitable for genuine moral action.Footnote 32
Kant's condition for moral motivation is thus clear—no feeling that presupposes gratification (i.e., no material feeling), regardless of the source of its representation, can be a moral motive. So the motivational force of the higher feelings will have to be based on something other than the satisfaction of a sensible need.
The Higher Faculty of Feeling
In the Groundwork, Kant contrasts his characterization of respect as a feeling ‘self-wrought by means of a rational concept’ with a description of feelings that are ‘received by means of influence’ (i.e., result from an object affecting the senses).Footnote 33 He mirrors this contrast in the second Critique, when he states
This feeling (under the name of moral feeling) is therefore produced solely by reason. It does not serve for appraising actions, and certainly not for grounding the objective moral law itself, but only as an incentive to make this law its maxim. But what name could one more suitably apply to this singular feeling which cannot be compared to any pathological feeling? It is of such a peculiar kind that it seems to be at the disposal only of reason, and indeed of practical pure reason.Footnote 34
From these two passages, we see that Kant characterizes respect as an a priori feeling that is necessarily connected to pure practical reason. In other words, he thinks of respect as a higher feeling. But unfortunately, these passages do not tell us much about the nature of respect in virtue of this fact. For this, an account of the structure of the higher feelings is needed.
As a feeling, they will share the same basic functional structure as the lower feelings – an object is judged to fit with the subject in a way that furthers the life or activity of the subject. And in being judged to further this life, the will is determined. But from this point on, their structures diverge in several significant ways.
The primary point of divergence is in how the subject is to be understood.Footnote 35 The lower pleasures were concerned with the subject's animal life – the particular activity of the subject directed towards maintaining or promoting his physical/sensible well-being. Furthering that life was understood as satisfying the sensible needs stemming from his finite nature. The higher feelings, in contrast, are concerned with the subject's spiritual or rational life. This life consists of a very different sort of activity, one that can be variously described as rational, spontaneous, or free. In other words, it is a type of activity whose source of causality is other than (and so independent of) natural causality.Footnote 36 Because of this, Kant also characterizes the subject of these judgments as freedom.Footnote 37 When he does, I believe we move closer to the specific activity he had in mind – universal law-giving.Footnote 38 This law-giving activity, in turn, determines the remaining features of the higher feelings.
Since the activity of the spiritual life does not originate from the being's finite nature, it involves no sensible needs, and so no gratification. To put this another way, we do not have a sensible need to will, or even to will well, so we cannot feel the gratification of a need in the successful activity of our own willing (though we can feel self-contentment, a sensation of pleasure distinct from gratification because it is not based on a need and so is not presupposed as a condition of moral motivation).Footnote 39 Furthering the spiritual life, then, is not to be understood as a promotion of the well-being of the subject, rational or otherwise.
Instead, for the spiritual life to be furthered, an object must be judged to fit with, or promote, its universal law-giving activity. Implicit in the representation of this fit must be the form of this activity. That is, in order for anything to further the activity of the spiritual life, it must itself qualify for, in the sense of having the proper form, a giving of universal law. However, this form is nothing other than the moral law itself (the formal principle of universal law-giving). So any object that is judged to fit with the form represented by the moral law will at the same time be judged to further the universal law-giving activity of the spiritual life, and so to further its freedom. In essence, the moral law is the form of the activity of the spiritual life itself.Footnote 40 Therefore, in the higher feelings, the principle (the moral law) and the subject (the spiritual life) are necessarily linked.
Kant gives a detailed argument for this mutual implication in chapter one of the second Critique. This argument is familiar enough, so I will not further explain the connection here. However, this link is important because it marks a significant change in what ultimately grounds the fit between the subject and the object. That is, with the lower feelings, underlying the fit was the relationship between the object and the subject's needs. Thus, the gratification expected to result from this fit dictated the principle. But with the higher feelings, this order is reversed. The necessary link between the subject and the principle grounds the fit. Thus, the principle dictates the objects, and does so without involving our sensibility. This reversal in concepts, where the moral principle must come before the concept of the good (the object of the higher feeling), is what Kant states is required to keep the moral principle from being based on a sensation of pleasure (gratification), and so from being empirical.Footnote 41 It is in following this point (the order between the principle and the concept of the good) that Kant sometimes refers to the lower pleasures as those which ‘precede’ the moral law, and the higher pleasures as those which can only ‘follow’ from it. With the lower feelings, the expectation of gratification precedes the principle in the order of determination. With the higher feelings, the feeling itself (as a judgment) follows from the principle as its result.Footnote 42
At this point, we have the subject of a higher feeling – the spiritual life, and the principle necessarily associated with it – the moral law. Together these determine which objects will fit with the universal law-giving activity of the spiritual life. But what sort of objects might these be? With the lower feelings, we saw that the objects could take a wide range of forms, from physical objects to concepts of reason. The opposite, as one might expect, holds true for the higher feelings. Clearly, physical objects or states of affairs, i.e., things that are empirically conditioned, are immediately excluded from consideration because these objects require a physical need being satisfied by their existence. Because of this need, the objects would then have to relate to the animal, rather than the spiritual, life of the subject, making it a lower feeling. So any object of pleasure that is external to the will itself will necessarily be an object of the lower faculty.
It follows then that the objects of the higher feelings must be internal to the activity of the will – i.e., they must be general concepts of action. But many of these concepts will not fit either because they do not contain the right form. False promising, e.g., is a concept that, when judged in relation to the freedom of more than one will, gives rise to a contradiction. In other words, it is a concept that hinders the freedom/activity of the will to which one is falsely promising. Therefore, it does not qualify as an instance of universal law-giving.
From the failure of false-promising, we see that the object of a higher feeling must be a concept of action that can potentially fit with, or promote, the spiritual activity of all rational beings. In other words, the concept of action must be judged to fit with the essence of freedom itself, and in doing so, please any being that has a source of freedom within him – whether God, angels, Saturnians, or the like.Footnote 43 The only concepts that can fit this condition are those of pure practical reason (the moral concepts), because they alone can qualify as a universal law (with respect to either the law's form, or its necessary objects).Footnote 44 In the Lectures on Metaphysics, Kant gives two examples of these (moral) concepts – truthfulness and alms-giving.Footnote 45 When truthfulness, e.g., is judged to fit with the universal law-giving activity of freedom, one is, in essence, universalizing the concept of action to see if any contradictions arise. If none do, then truthfulness is judged to contain the proper form, and so would qualify as an instance of universal law. That is, the form of the moral law is recognized to be implicit in the concept itself.Footnote 46 Because of this, when truthfulness determines the will, it increases the will's universal law-giving activity (by being an instance of that activity), and so furthers the subject's spiritual life.Footnote 47 As a result, truthfulness is judged to be morally good, the specific predicate Kant reserves for objects of the higher feelings.Footnote 48 In contrast, the concept of false promising is judged to hinder the spiritual life (by suggesting an action that cannot be universalized), and so is at the same time judged to be evil. Because the objects of these feelings are concepts that are internal to the activity of the will itself, and so independent of any object or state of affairs that might be brought about in the world, I call these formal, as opposed to material, pleasures. That is, they are pleasures in the form of good willing itself (and as such, they are emotions strikingly similar to Stoic eupatheiai).
Now, when the higher pleasures judge a concept to be morally good, they are judging it to be good in itself, rather than good for satisfying a need. As noted earlier with the lower pleasures, the gratification of a need is the condition of an object fitting with the subject. So when I head outside for some fresh air, it is for the sake of gratifying a need. Hence, the fresh air is only mediately good. But a higher feeling, in being independent of any needs, must have a different condition of fit – the moral law. So when I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of some need or further end (such as garnering trust), and so not for the sake of gratification. Instead, it is for the sake of the moral law itself, where the moral law (i.e., qualifying for universal law-giving) is the condition. So in a word, truthfulness pleases the will in itself, and not in terms of what it promises. Therefore, it is good in itself, and so immediately good.Footnote 49
Kant also argues that truthfulness is judged to be good in itself, or objectively good, because this judgment has a certain type of validity. Because truthfulness is judged purely in relation to the subject's rational nature, and so independently of his sensibility, this judgment represents a relationship to an object necessarily shared by all rational beings – i.e., it is a ‘universal judgment that has universal validity and is valid for everyone independent of the particular conditions of the subject’,Footnote 50 where being independent of subjective conditions (sensibility) is a criterion for practical objective validity.Footnote 51 Because they are based on universally valid grounds, Kant calls these feelings objective. This is in contrast to the lower feelings, which he describes as merely subjective because they are based on the privately valid grounds of the senses, and thus hold only for the subject making the judgment.Footnote 52 Because the higher feelings are objectively valid judgments that determine the will, they have the full status of a practical cognition.
Finally, because these feelings are judgments that hold universally and necessarily for all rational beings, a moral concept such as truthfulness can be the ‘very same determining ground of the will in all cases and for all rational beings.’Footnote 53 In other words, these judgments generate the basis for morality, because they provide a universal standpoint (freedom in general) from which to view our actions. When we all judge our actions from this same standpoint, we share the same determining ground. As a consequence, our higher volitions will necessarily be in harmony with each other. And this harmony is the essence of Kantian morality.Footnote 54
At this point, we can now put Kant's definition of the higher faculty of feeling into context. He states that
Objective satisfaction or dissatisfaction [higher feelings of pleasure or displeasure], or judging objects according to universally valid grounds of the power of cognition, is the higher faculty of pleasure and displeasure. This is the faculty for judging of an object whether it pleases or displeases from cognition of the understanding according to universally valid principles. If something is an object of intellectual satisfaction, then it is good; if it is an object of intellectual dissatisfaction, then it is evil. – Good is what must please everyone necessarily.Footnote 55
A higher feeling is thus an a priori judgment representing a fit between truthfulness and freedom (two a priori concepts of reason) according to the principle of morality (an a priori law). From this representation of fit, truthfulness is judged to be good in itself, and so morally good. It is thus considered to contain the form of the moral law, and so when it determines the will, so, too, does the moral law itself.
We can now come full circle and return to Kant's discussion of the higher faculties of the mind. Kant identified the higher faculties as forms of intellectuality, spontaneity or self-activity, which are the marks of our rational capacities. The higher faculty of cognition is thus reason itself. The pure will, as the higher faculty of desire, is identified with reason in its practical function. Now we can make the final identification. Since the higher feelings are universally and objectively valid, a priori judgments, they must be a product of reason. So the higher faculty of feeling, as their source, must be identical to a form of reason as well. But rather than specify a third function of reason, I believe Kant includes it, along with desire, under the general heading of practical reason, because it borrows its principle of judgment from the higher faculty of desire. To put this another way, both are forms of practical reason because both are ultimately needed in order to will at all (feeling being the means for bringing certain representations under the purview of desire). This identification of the higher faculty with a form practical reason thus makes sense of the seemingly inconsistent ways that Kant refers to the determining ground of the will – as reason itself, as the moral law, and as respect. Because respect is a higher feeling, and so is identical to an activity of reason based on the moral law, these three references are roughly equivalent.
4. Respect
With this new account of feeling, the problem we began with has been resolved. It was previously assumed that all feelings were empirical, and so as a feeling, respect was incompatible with being a moral motive. But when respect is properly understood as a purely rational higher feeling, no such problem arises. As an action-initiating evaluative judgment, respect qualifies as both a feeling and a moral motive without violating the metaphysical constraints of Kant's theory. However, this cannot yet be the full story. Respect is the moral feeling found in sensibly affected creatures – creatures with both rational and animal natures. This is in contrast to love for the moral law found in holy wills and God, a feeling distinct from respect in that these beings do not have potentially wayward inclinations to control.Footnote 56 It thus follows that the intersection of two distinct natures in some creatures poses an additional challenge for Kant, a challenge that I believe his specific account of respect in the second Critique was developed to answer.
So far, the higher and lower faculties of feeling have been described as two discrete sources of motivation. Given that animals have no spiritual nature, and God has no animal nature, this would make sense. The actions of animals must be determined by the lower feelings alone, and those of God solely by the higher. Human beings, however, as finite rational creatures, possess both of these natures. As a consequence, two potentially independent sources of motivation are contained within a single being, and this creates a problem. If these sources function independently (i.e., as fully determining or sufficient motives), they could conflict – e.g., our lower nature might motivate us to lie to achieve some end, while our higher nature motivates us to avoid lying, regardless of the end to be achieved. In such a case, either our agency would fragment, or our faculty of desire would contain a contradiction, both of which are deeply problematic. So in order to maintain the unity of our psychology, one or the other must emerge as the dominant, or sufficient, motive.Footnote 57
Intellectualist accounts of morality, most notably the Stoics, often suggest that we should operate exclusively from our rational nature by simply suppressing our lower nature. Though Kant is often portrayed as holding this view, it is actually not an option for him. As finite creatures, we must be able to maintain our physical existence by satisfying our basic needs. So if the lower feelings were to be suppressed, then the higher feelings would have to step up and subsume this role within their general function. As it turns out, however, they are not suitable for this task. In order to satisfy a physical need, we must be able to engage in a particular action in the world – i.e., I must actually go outside for a walk in order to clear my head. But this sort of action requires the adoption of an empirical object or state of affairs as the matter of my will. The problem is, because the higher feelings are formal, they cannot provide this type of matter. Instead, they can only motivate me to adopt general principles of good-willing, such as honesty, and this activity is confined to the will itself. It thus follows that the higher feelings alone cannot promote my physical well-being. Somehow the lower feelings, as material feelings, must be involved. It is because of this that Kant describes them as ‘an unavoidable determining ground of [our] faculty of desire’.Footnote 58
This is where the particular problem for respect surfaces. How can a feeling of one type emerge as the sufficient motive, without also necessarily suppressing the feelings of the other type? The default answer points to the relative strength of the two feelings. The strongest feeling dominates by inhibiting only those weaker feelings in conflict with it. But Kant cannot adopt this solution for two related reasons. First, it is a purely passive, weight model of motivation whereby the strongest feeling essentially moves us to act. Morality, however, requires active motivation – i.e., we must freely determine ourselves to act.Footnote 59 More importantly, however, it would fail to explain how the two feelings can be properly or objectively ordered. When a concept such as honesty, as the object of a higher feeling, determines the will (the higher faculty), it has the superior status of an unconditional law governing the faculty of desire. Because of this, respect cannot simply mingle with the lower feelings, as if it were merely one among many to be compared and weighed. Instead, when it motivates moral action, it must do so in part by governing – i.e., by constraining and ordering our lower nature according to the moral law, thus bringing the manifold of our desires into harmony. More specifically, it must impose its objects, the moral concepts (the laws of the rational order), onto the lower feelings (sensibility) in a way that allows the morally permissible inclinations (the lower feelings and their associated desires), while excluding the wayward/antithetical ones.Footnote 60 As a result, respect cannot simply determine the will. It must also cross over into the natural order and influence choice, the lower faculty of desire.Footnote 61
The question still remaining, however, is how. It cannot directly bring the lower feelings under its sphere of control, because the lower feelings are not concepts of reason, and thus cannot be objects of respect. So there must be some intermediary linking the two feelings. The most likely candidate is a maxim, or subjective principle of action (generated by choice in relation to an object of the lower feelings), because it is on this subjective principle that one actually comes to act. Put more simply, if respect cannot govern the lower feelings directly, the next best option is for it to guide or constrain on the basis of the principles of action they generate. So if the maxim, rather than the feeling giving rise to it, can somehow be the object of respect, then Kant has solved his problem.
To see how this might work, consider the example of my father, Dennis, a heating and air conditioning business owner. Because he has a family, he has a need to provide for them (a form of love). In response, his lower feelings judge that increasing his income will help to satisfy this need. When it does, he sets it as an end to be brought about. Moreover, the best way to do this, in his opinion, is to be honest with his customers. When these are taken together, they generate the maxim on which he acts, ‘to increase income by honest business practices.’ Now, according to Kant, this maxim contains two elements – form and matter. The matter is the end to be brought about through his action – a state of affairs in which his business has increased. The form, in contrast, is an abstraction from all the particulars of my father and his circumstances contained in the maxim. The result of this abstraction is honesty, a general concept of action. The distinction made here between form and matter is important because each element reflects a very different way my father can value his action. The matter is valued, and so incorporated into his maxim, because it is judged to promote his well-being. This makes the lower, material feeling the empirical determining ground of choice. The form, in contrast, is valued because it is a concept of action that will promote his universal law-giving nature – i.e., it is an object of respect. So when the form is judged to be morally good, respect is incorporated into the maxim as the a priori determining ground of choice. Put another way, this judgment of respect is, in essence, an act of reason holding up the subjective maxim to the dictates of the objective moral law for approval.Footnote 62 Thus, it is the very point at which pure reason becomes practical. Because of this, Kant describes respect as ‘the consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law.’Footnote 63
We now see that both feelings are incorporated into the maxim, and so both become determining grounds of choice, because both provide reasons for willing that action. As a result, my father can act from both self-love and respect. However, these two motives do not have the same status within the maxim. When both are incorporated into a single maxim, an order of subordination is forced upon them. That is, because respect is recognized as the unconditional determining ground, it emerges as the dominant or sufficient motive, and the lower feeling is subordinated to it. So when my father acts from respect, he is, in a sense, acting from a recognition that his own pursuit of happiness is conditional upon his maxim qualifying as a universal law. This makes it possible for him to pursue his morally permissible material ends while still recognizing the unconditional demand of conformity with the objective moral law. And when he does, his higher and lower natures are unified into a single principle of action, thereby preserving the integrity of his agency.Footnote 64
But what happens, then, when these two feelings conflict and so cannot be incorporated into the same maxim? This is where the constraining power of respect's governance, colorfully described in the second Critique, becomes most evident. Consider the case of my father's competitor, Jack. He also has a family, and so has a need to provide for them. But because he likes to avoid hard work, he prefers to increase his income by overbilling his customers when he will not get caught. Taken together, these generate the maxim on which he would act, ‘to increase income by dishonestly overbilling when possible.’ As with the earlier maxim, the matter here is judged to be agreeable and so to promote his well-being. But the form of the maxim – dishonesty – turns out instead to be a concept that will hinder his universal law-giving nature. As a consequence, it is judged to be evil and so to be unconditionally avoided. This puts Jack in an interesting position. As with my father, he has both an empirical and an a priori determining ground of choice available. But since these two feelings now oppose each other, he can act on only one. If he recognizes the unconditional status of respect, then it will be the dominant motive and he will reject the dishonest maxim. However, when the maxim is rejected, the matter – the object of the lower feeling – is rejected with it. This then leaves his original need unsatisfied, which results in the sensation of pain rather than gratification. Kant describes this pain as the sensible feeling of humiliation that follows from respect's thwarting of inclination.Footnote 65 It is how we come to feel (affectively) the constraint respect puts on the power of choice. Kant makes one last point here. Whether respect positively promotes our higher nature (as with my father) or negatively constrains the wayward tendencies of our lower nature (as with Jack), it still meets Kant's definition of a feeling. ‘For, whatever diminishes the hindrances to an activity is a furthering of this activity itself.’Footnote 66
Then again, Jack could also just ignore the demands of respect and act on his dishonest maxim anyway. However, the only way for this to be possible is if Jack's judgment were somehow impaired, making respect appear to have equal status with the lower feelings when it in fact does not. There are two types of error in judgment that can cause this to happen. The first is to some extent inevitable because Jack, as a human being, is a finite creature with a limited rational capacity. Because of this, his representation of a moral concept will always be, to some extent, inaccurate.Footnote 67 The less accurate it is, the less forceful respect's authority will appear to be. This is why Kant frequently mentions that we should strive for purity in our representation of the moral law, because this is how we cultivate the moral feeling of respect.Footnote 68
But the more serious challenge to the authority of respect can be found with the error prone lower feelings. Kant frequently notes their tendency to charm, to distort our deliberative field, to alter our attention, and other nefarious activities. They have this power because their motivational force is due, in part, to their influence on attention and deliberation. As judgments about the agreeable, they confer value onto objects on the basis of our needs. Our attention is then directed to those objects so that the underlying need can be satisfied. The stronger the need, or the stronger the anticipation of pleasure in its satisfaction, the more valuable we judge the object to be, and so the more the object will dominate our attention or deliberative field. So when Jack faces a crisis, such as losing his home, his need to provide for his family intensifies, which in turn gives a sense of elevated importance or urgency to the end of increasing his income. When its importance begins to rival that of respect, Jack will then be tempted to make an exception to the rule ‘just this one time’. He still recognizes the authority of respect, but his intense fear for his family temporarily clouds or overrides this authority because all he can focus on is their well-being. When this happens, Kant calls it a mere failure of virtue.Footnote 69 The act is immoral, but Jack himself is not yet evil.
However, if Jack's lower feelings are left unchecked by reason, they will eventually come to assert their own unconditional status, albeit illegitimately – i.e., they will change from a form of self-love to self-conceit.Footnote 70 Because the function of a lower feeling is both to confer value and to redirect attention in relation to that value, the lower feelings must compete with each other for Jack's attention. This competition, in turn, encourages an inflation of value, because the more attention a feeling can draw, the more likely its need will be satisfied. So in order to keep the lower feelings in check, they must be coupled with reflection – i.e., comparison with each other and with the demands of respect. This reflection is important, because without it, Jack will be incapable of either happiness or worthiness to be happy (morality). More specifically, he will not be able to bring the satisfaction of his needs into harmony with each other or with the moral law. However, if the strength of a particular lower feeling succeeds in becoming excessive, it will cause Jack's attention to fixate on the particular object. And the more he fixates on the object, the more importance it appears to have. As this interplay builds, it prevents reason, even in the form of respect, from any type of reflection. This vicious cycle continues until the lower feeling sets the satisfaction of the need (or happiness in general) as the unconditional end of his action, displacing conformity with the moral law. In doing so, he elevates the status of his lower feelings above that of respect, thus reversing their proper order of subordination. Jack now does what morality requires only when it promotes his own self-interest. When this happens, Kant considers him to be in the throes of a passion, the specific type of lower feeling responsible for vice.Footnote 71 In other words, Jack himself is now evil. So when reason is overtaken by passion, it is not overwhelmed by a blind impulse, but rather by a competing form of value judgment provided by the lower feelings – i.e., evil has a ‘rational origin’.Footnote 72
Once we understand the natural tendency of the lower feelings to overestimate their own status, it becomes clear why Kant promotes a sort of moral apathy – a moderation of the lower feelings that prevent them from rising to the level of a passion.Footnote 73 In other words, he does not promote the suppression of all emotion stemming from our lower nature, as the Stoics do. Instead, he follows Augustine in focusing on only those emotions of our lower nature that ‘shut out the sovereignty of reason’.Footnote 74 The end of moral apathy, then, is to keep the influence of the lower feelings in check so that respect always remains in control. And keeping respect in control is, I believe, the basis of Kantian virtue.Footnote 75
In the end, we clearly see that respect is indeed one of the linchpins of Kant's moral theory. It is the point at which pure reason becomes practical, and so the point at which morality becomes possible at all. Kant emphatically describes this importance when he states that respect is ‘an estimation of a worth that far outweighs any worth of what is recommended by inclination, and that the necessity of my action from pure respect for the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other motive must give way because it is the condition of a will good in itself, the worth of which surpasses all else.’Footnote 76
