Donald Wilson (Kansas State University), "Practical Kantian Ethics: A Commonsense Account of Moral Life"

Bloomsbury, 2025

Practical Kantian Ethics: A Commonsense Account of Moral Life

By Donald Wilson

There is a striking contrast between the profound, pervasive, and enduring significance of Kant’s moral philosophy and the frequent poverty, implausibility, and sometimes outright ugliness of the accounts of moral duty and moral life often attributed to him. Kant clearly bears some of the blame for this. For many people, myself included, he seems to get something deeply right about morality in the general idea that moral requirements make unconditional demands on our choices, transcending self-interest and requiring a respect that binds us without regard for advantage. At the same time, however, the idea of dutiful observance of immutable moral rules raises the troubling specter of a moral life of cold-hearted and absolute obedience to narrow and rigid moral rules.

A superficial reading of Kant does little to assuage these concerns. Critics routinely cite his infamous assertion that it would be a “crime” to lie to the murderer seeking the whereabouts of his intended victim, and, sadly, there is no shortage of ammunition of this sort. Perhaps worse, even his most sympathetic interpreters are prone to offering accounts that leave much to be desired, often struggling to produce sensible practical analyses of norms of non-deception and even basic obligations of non-violence we take for granted.

Practical Kantian Ethics reverses the usual order of interpretation in commentaries like these, beginning with his applied moral philosophy, without preconceptions about his view, and using this later work to offer a radically new account.

Historically, systematic commentaries have tended to focus narrowly on Kant’s Groundwork and a limited set of formal questions, canonical examples, and problematic themes associated with readings of this foundational work. This orientation and continuing controversy about the Categorical Imperative and the Groundwork’s basic duties have combined to leave Kantians with remarkably little to offer by way of an attractive and comprehensive vision of everyday moral life that is meaningfully capable of guiding ordinary conduct.

Recent work has begun to move away from this narrower focus towards more inclusive readings encompassing aspects of his explicitly practical works – notably The Metaphysics of Morals. This has led to welcome new discussions of numerous neglected aspects of his view but there is still a tendency to read this later work in the shadow of the Groundwork. Commentators typically come to it with a substantive account of Kant’s theory already in hand, using this later work to bolster a favored model or to advance discussion of canonical problematic themes inherited from a reading of the Groundwork and its stark emphasis on Duty and the Moral Law. Others find new insight into outstanding concerns and particular issues in the “non-ideal” circumstances of our lives without trying to integrate these into a systematic account of Kant’s view.

I argue that persistent controversy surrounding basic elements of the Groundwork and problems associated with standard accounts suggest we should go further than this. Reversing the usual order of interpretation, I propose we suspend judgment about key formal but ambiguous ideas in the Groundwork and look first, without preconceptions, to the application of these ideas in his later practical works for fresh insight. I argue that this approach yields a very different picture of Kant’s moral philosophy illuminating both key formal elements of his theory and, just as importantly, its everyday practical implications.

At the heart of this alternative model is a new account of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant classifies ethical duties as duties concerned with “inner freedom,” distinguishing between perfect and imperfect duties of virtue owed to ourselves concerned with different aspects of this freedom. The former require respect for necessary conditions of the possibility of rational self-constraint in human agents and encompass concerns with the integrity and functioning of our physical organism, our mental health, and our general capacity to be responsive to conscience (the “voice of reason” in us). These perfect duties are associated with concerns with conditions of “moral health” and are contrasted with imperfect duties of virtue owed to ourselves concerned with the effective realization of this freedom or “moral prosperity.” I argue that when we allow for the necessarily indirect form of respect for conditions of others’ inner freedom, the various duties of respect and love Kant classifies as duties of virtue owed to others and perfect ethical duties of Right inherited from a civil condition can both naturally be seen to share the same orientation.

Generalizing this account, I claim that we should think of perfect and imperfect duties as a whole as duties requiring respect for necessary conditions of the possibility and effective exercise of rational nature in human beings. I argue that this affords us a unified account capable of informing our understanding of the Categorical Imperative and explaining and integrating the various formulations of this principle and the different classes of duty and specific obligations Kant describes in the Groundwork and later Metaphysics of Morals. I claim that this inner freedom account preserves an important casuistical distinction between the basic classes of perfect and imperfect duties and affords us a nuanced and plausible understanding of some key formal elements of Kant’s theory and the details of a range of basic obligations.

Developing this model, I argue that given our natural limits, collective and individual judgment play essential roles in giving practical voice to ideals of respect and that this leaves room for reasonable disagreement and moral growth and shifts the focus of evaluation away from discussions of maxims and individual duties towards an emphasis on organizing commitments and moral life. Drawing on elements of a new reading of Kant’s political philosophy and on the idea of necessary conditions of agency, I argue that the ineliminable role civil communities play in articulating basic rights and the broad role informal associations and relationships play in anchoring agency and facilitating moral growth embed morality vitally in community. Expanding on the idea of moral health, I claim that our inner freedom is realized only in a distinctive and enduring state of being with reason, self-love, and feeling in broad accord and argue that the required respect for conditions of our own and other’s moral health encompasses robust concerns with the affective side of our nature. The net result, I claim, is an integrated account connecting and explaining diverse threads in Kant’s moral theory, embedding morality in our humanity, and prioritizing the conduct of a life and questions of moral character over the moment-by-moment assessment of action: An account that promises a nuanced understanding of obligation responsive to the details of our nature, lives, and circumstances, capable of guiding everyday moral life and meaningfully informing deliberation in harder cases.

Table of Contents:

Part 1

Chapter 1: Reading Kant

Chapter 2: The Doctrine of Right

Chapter 3: The Doctrine of Virtue

Chapter 4: Re-reading Kant

Part 2

Chapter 5: Veracity and Good Faith

Chapter 6: Kindness

Chapter 7: Non-violence, Rescue and Care

Chapter 8: Toward a Common-sense Kantian Ethics

I have a very limited number of review copies available, email me for more information if you’re interested.