Kant’s ethics have been misunderstood both by critics and by many self-appointed adherents. We miss its point if we think it is about conforming to a strict set of do’s and don’ts or formulating maxims for our actions and deciding whether they are universalizable. Kant offers no calculative procedure for deciding which actions are right or wrong. Kant’s formula of universal law is neither the ground of duties nor a permissibility test for all maxims; it merely expresses abstractly what a person of uncorrupted judgment will do unreflectively. What Kant’s ethics is really about is: respect and caring for persons. Duties and virtues are grounded on treating freedom and rationality in persons as an end in itself. The moral law requires us to set certain ends, and therefore to care about our relation to others and also about the consequences of our actions. Duties carry with them obligating reasons, which may conflict, and the stronger reason should prevail. All duties are toward rational beings as moral co-legislators. But we also have duties in regard to non-rational animals, whose desires, feelings and caring make them analogues of humanity. For Kant the moral law is a priori because it is grounded in our freedom and rationality, but it must be applied to the empirical conditions of human life through good judgment. Kant’s own principles therefore require that we continue to rethink moral duties and virtues in light of new knowledge about our own rationality and the changing conditions of human life.
Allen Wood's interests are in the history of modern philosophy, especially Kant and German idealism, and in ethics and social philosophy. He was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington. His B.A. is from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, his Ph.D. at Yale University. Wood has held regular professorships at Cornell University, Yale University, and Stanford University, where he is Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor emeritus. He has also held visiting appointments at the University of Michigan, University of California at San Diego and Oxford University, where he was Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in 2005. During year-long periods of research, he has been affiliated with the Freie Universität Berlin in 1983-84 and the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1991-1992. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Indiana University Allen Wood has taught courses on the history of modern philosophy, modern political philosophy, Kant, Fichte and existentialism. Books by Wood have appeared in Hebrew, Turkish, Portuguese, Iranian and Chinese translation. With Paul Guyer, Wood is co-general editor of the Cambridge Edition of Kant's Writings, for which he has edited, translated or otherwise contributed to six volumes. He is on the editorial board of twelve philosophy journals, seven book series and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Dr. Allen wood will be appearing virtually, but the audience is in person.
Co-sponsored by the Department of OPhilosophy and the Humanities Center
