Autonomy and Immorality

Metaethical constitutivism claims to answer doubts about the authority of moral norms over our conduct by deriving them from the conditions of intentional agency, which it explains to be inescapable for us. According to a growing number of readers, Hegel’s practical philosophy, too, is best interpreted as constitutivist. And indeed, Hegel shares constitutivism’s aim of making intelligible, in one move, the unconditioned, objective authority of moral norms as well as their practical significance and our autonomy with respect to them, and he appears to be in agreement with the general constitutivist strategy for achieving this aim, - which is particularly salient in his criticism of Kant. But Hegel also praises, adopts, and deepens the Kantian doctrine of radical evil, according to which immorality, conceived as culpable motivational egoism, belongs to our very nature as intentional agents. And prima facie, this doctrine contradicts the constitutivist program, which looks to entail that, while the violation of moral norms is certainly possible and manifestly actual, immorality cannot belong to our nature as intentional agents. This discrepancy, which poses a challenge to the constitutivist reading of Hegel - and perhaps even to moral constitutivism itself -, has not been properly discussed in the philosophical literature. The proposed research project aims to fill this lacuna by addressing the following four central and interconnected questions. On what grounds does Hegel adopt and deepen the doctrine of radical evil? Is his argument convincing, and could a contemporary metaethicist appreciate it as such? Does the discrepancy outlined above pose a threat to the constitutivist reading of Hegel? And does the discrepancy pose a threat to metaethical constitutivism itself? In addressing these questions, the project aims to utilize said discrepancy between the constitutivist aspects of Hegel’s ethics and his adherence to the doctrine of radical evil as a lens to bring into focus this important intersection of Hegel scholarship and contemporary metaethics, for the benefit of both. According to conventional metaethical constitutivism, the autonomous character of our being subject to moral norms cannot reside in acts of self-legislation in a literal sense, it is, instead, to be conceived as consisting in a type of self-knowledge: knowledge of our nature as intentional agents. Otherwise, conventional constitutivists argue, the “paradox of autonomy” would be unavoidable: the unconditional authority of moral norms and our autonomy with respect to them would be irreconcilable. However, this conception of autonomy has recently come under pressure in a series of objections concerning the prima facie implausibility of the constitutivist account of immorality and the sense of alienation that seems to accompany the constitutivist explanation of the inescapability of intentional agency. With a view to the current state of this debate, the proposed project will specifically pursue the following hypotheses. Hegel’s conception of autonomy is unconventional in that it is informed by the doctrine of radical evil: autonomy in the Hegelian sense requires a kind of rebellion, namely culpable acts of motivational egoism, and the return from it. And it is precisely this conception of autonomy that makes it possible to evade the objections conventional constituitivism is faced with - without committing the “paradox of autonomy”. Thus, despite its substantial diversion from conventionality, Hegelian constitutivism may serve as a model for contemporary constitutivists. We expect that developing these hypotheses will invigorate the metaethical debates concerning the constitutivist program by presenting, in one, a novel challenge to its conventional variety and an innovative strategy for meeting the challenges currently facing this program. And we expect that doing so will provide a fresh perspective on the complex relationship of Hegel’s ethics to Kant’s. By re-introducing the doctrine of radical evil, a core element of the cultural heritage of Western civilization, into one of the most vibrant debates in contemporary metaethics, the project promises to open new perspectives on some of the key topics of practical philosophy: immorality, autonomy, and the imputability of action.
 
Key words:
radical evil, constitutivism, Hegel, immorality, metaethics, autonomy, paradox of autonomy, Kant, imputability, alienation

Project leader: Prof. Dr. Christoph Halbig
Accademic associates: Dr. Wolfram Gobsch