Title: "Lose Your Illusion: Kant on Practical Error"

Abstract:

Why do we do wrong?  According to what I call “the standard account,” we do wrong because we think too much of ourselves; we act from or with an excess of self-concern or self-regard.  This seems plausible, reflecting both common sense and the familiar philosophical framing of human life as a competition between self-interest and morality.  But it is not, I think, true—or, at least, it is not the whole truth.  Sometimes we do wrong because we think too little of ourselves; we act from or with a deficiency of self-concern or self-regard.  I make the case for this conclusion by developing under-appreciated elements of Kant’s moral psychology, especially his account of the specifically social conditions of human judgment and volition.  With this psychology in hand, we can see that wrongdoing is and must be more complicated than the standard account allows.