Sidgwick’s Kantian Account of Moral Motivation

Sidgwick begins the most important metaethical discussion of the Methods of Ethics (Book 1, Ch. 3) by contrasting an explicitly Humean with an implicitly Kantian view of moral motivation. Kantians endorse what can be called “the conflict claim”: they claim that there is such a thing as conflict between reason and desire; Humeans reject it. Sidgwick goes on apparently to defend the conflict claim by appealing to what can be called “the non-naturalness claim”: they claim that, “the fundamental notion represented by the word ‘ought’ or ‘right’ ... [is] essentially different from all notions representing facts of physical or psychical experience” (1981 [1907], 25). Commentators have disagreed both about the structure and plausibility of the argument and about the character of Sidgwick’s view of moral motivation. This chapter does three things: First, it develops a new interpretation of Sidgwick’s argument, the key to which is the idea that it is the Kantian who needs to accept the non-naturalness claim in order to vindicate the distinctive role of categorical ought-judgments in motivation; second, it argues that Sidgwick’s view of moral motivation is importantly similar to the view recently articulated by T. M. Scanlon; third, it suggests that Sidgwick’s view is plausible and indicates briefly the lines along which it could be further defended

Epistemology · Internalism and externalism · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Sidgwick and the many guises of the good

  Gianfranco Pellegrino•Philosophical Explorations•2021

  Add to list