Abstract: Immanuel Kant’s practical works do not contain a well-developed theory of prudence. His most extensive treatment of prudence occurs in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, where he presents prudence as giving rise to a distinct system of hypothetical imperatives, namely those contingent on the willing of happiness as one’s end. The discussion of prudence in the Groundwork at the same time explains Kant’s relative disinterest in the topic: given that happiness as he understands it there amounts to a merely empirical concept, its pursuit, while a matter of using one's faculty of practical reason, does not on that account bear on his practical philosophy proper but instead falls under what he calls “practical anthropology.” In my presentation I will argue that, (1) contrary to Kant’s own explicit treatment of prudence in the Groundwork, his practical philosophy, and more specifically his ethics, does provide for a distinctly practical concept of prudence, that (2) the discussion of prudence in the Groundwork therefore has to be viewed as defective from the point of view of his own practical philosophy, and that (3) to obtain the resources for a more adequate Kantian understanding of prudence we need to instead turn to the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. I will then argue that Kant’s philosophy of right provides for a practical concept of politics analogous to the practical concept of prudence I argue falls out of his ethics.
LOCATION:Robbins Library, Emerson 211 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20240402T190000Z DTEND:20240402T210000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR