Special Workshop Abstract

Kant's concept of Practical Reason is still a main reference point for Moral and Legal Philosophy today. The paper will investigate in which if any relation Kant’s practical philosophy stands to the prospering new research paradigm of mentalism in ethics and law.

The paper will first set out the core content of Kant’s practical philosophy and embed it in its context in the history of thought. A special focus will be a neglected aspect of Kant’s theory: his moral psychology. There are two sources for such psychological content in Kant’s work: First, his explicit remarks about the subjective precondition of moral reasoning in human beings. Second, a rational reconstruction of some core doctrines that on the surface are devoid of any psychological content but are perhaps best interpreted as propositions about moral cognition like the “fact of reason” doctrine. 

Second, the paper will explore some core ideas about mentalism in ethics and law and its leading idea: Moral and legal philosophy might profit considerable by drawing from modern theories of the mind that have initiated the (second) cognitive revolution. It will try to determine which relation Kant’s theory has to a mentalist theory of practical reason. It will especially consider the question whether only a concept of practical reason as Kant’s can serve as a source for a normative order. It hopes to show in which sense mentalism and the modern study of human nature can profit considerably from the great legacy of Kant’s humanism of reason.