Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T07:04:07.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kantian Remorse with and without Self-Retribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2022

Benjamin Vilhauer
Benjamin Vilhauer*
Affiliation:
City College and Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA
*
Email: bvilhauer@ccny.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kant’s account of the pain of remorse involves a hybrid justification based on self-retribution, but constrained by forward-looking principles which say we must channel remorse into improvement and moderate its pain to avoid damaging our rational agency. Kant’s corpus also offers material for a revisionist but textually grounded alternative account based on wrongdoers’ sympathy for the pain they cause. This account is based on the value of care, and has forward-looking constraints much like Kant’s own account. Drawing on Kant’s texts and recent work in empirical psychology, I argue that sympathetic remorse may fulfil Kant’s forward-looking goals better than self-retributive remorse.

Keywords

remorseretributivismconsciencecaresympathytranscendental freedom
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 421 - 441
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association Publishing.Google Scholar
Baron, Marcia (1995) Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Baron, Marcia and Seymour Fahmy, Melissa (2009) ‘Beneficence and Other Duties of Love’. In Hill, Thomas E. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell), 211–28.Google Scholar
Batson, C. Daniel, Early, Shannon and Salvarani, Giovanni (1997) ‘Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels Versus Imagining How You Would Feel’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(7), 751–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blöser, Claudia (2015) ‘Degrees of Responsibility in Kant’s Practical Philosophy’. Kantian Review, 20(2), 183–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blöser, Claudia (2019) ‘Human Fallibility and the Need for Forgiveness’. Philosophia, 47(1), 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decety, Jean, Jackson, Philip L. and Brunet, Eric (2007) ‘The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Empathy’. In Farrow, Tom F. D. and Woodruff, Peter W. R. (eds), Empathy and Mental Illness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 240–60.Google Scholar
Denis, Lara (2000) ‘Kant’s Cold Sage and the Sublimity of Apathy’. Kantian Review, 4(1), 48–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fahmy, Melissa Seymour (2010) ‘Kantian Practical Love’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 91(3), 313–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, Sigmund (1989) Civilization and its Discontents. Ed. Moyn, Samuel, trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Gamberini, Paola (2013) ‘Guilt and Repentance: Kant on the Experience of Moral Responsibility in the Retrospective Evaluation of Actions’. In Margit Ruffing, Claudio La Rocca, Ferrarin, Alfredo and Bacin, Stefano (eds), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter), 233–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghorbani, Nima, Bing, Mark N., Watson, P. J., Kristl Davison, H. and LeBreton, Daniel L. (2003) ‘Individualist and Collectivist Values: Evidence of Compatibility in Iran and the United States’. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(2), 431–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hay, Carol (2013) Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism: Resisting Oppression. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. (2002) Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodges, Sara D. and Biswas-Diener, Robert (2007) ‘Balancing the Empathy Expense Account: Strategies for Regulating Empathic Response’. In Farrow, Tom F. D. and Woodruff, Peter W. R. (eds), Empathy and Mental Illness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 390–407.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1934) Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 19: Moralphilosophie, Rechtsphilosophie und Religionsphilosophie. Ed. Erich Adickes and Friedrich Berger, Prussian Academy of Sciences. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1968) Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, vol. 28.1: Vorlesungen über Metaphysik. Ed. Gerhard Lehmann, Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996a) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary, J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996b) Religion and Rational Theology. Trans. and ed. Allen, W. Wood and di Giovanni, George. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997a) Lectures on Ethics. Trans. Heath, Peter, ed. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997b) Lectures on Metaphysics. Trans. and ed. Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1999) Correspondence. Trans. and ed. Zweig, Arnulf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2000) Critique of the Power of Judgment. Trans. Guyer, Paul and Matthews, Eric, ed. Guyer, Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2007) Anthropology, History and Education. Ed. Zöller, Günther and Robert, B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2012) Lectures on Anthropology. Ed. Allen, W. Wood and Robert, B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (2001) Utilitarianism. Ed. Sher, George. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Miller, Sarah Clark (2012) The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Murphy, Jeffrie G. (2012) Punishment and the Moral Emotions: Essays in Law, Morality, and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, Lynn, Berry, Jack W., Lewis, Thomas, Mulherin, Kathleen and Cristosomo, Patrice S. (2007) ‘Empathy and Depression: The Moral System on Overdrive’. In Farrow, Tom F. D. and Woodruff, Peter W. R. (eds), Empathy and Mental Illness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 49–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereboom, Derk (2006) ‘Kant on Transcendental Freedom’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(3), 537–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereboom, Derk (2021) Wrongdoing and the Moral Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proeve, Michael and Tudor, Steven (2016) Remorse: Psychological and Jurisprudential Perspectives. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satne, Paula (2021) ‘Kantian Guilt’. In Himmelmann, Beatrix and Serck-Hanssen, Camilla (eds), The Court of Reason (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter), 1511–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Nick (2016) ‘Dialectical Retributivism: Why Apologetic Offenders Deserve Reductions in Punishment Even Under Retributive Theories’. Philosophia, 44(2), 343–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tangney, J. P. (1991) ‘Moral Affect: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(4), 598–607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Timmermann, Jens (n.d.) ‘Kant’s Theory of Sympathy’. Unpublished book manuscript.Google Scholar
Varden, Helga (2020) Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2004) ‘Hard Determinism, Remorse, and Virtue Ethics’. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 42(4), 547–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2010) ‘The Scope of Responsibility in Kant’s Theory of Free Will’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 18(1), 45–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2015) ‘Free Will and the Asymmetrical Justifiability of Holding Morally Responsible’. Philosophical Quarterly, 65(261), 772–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin(2017) ‘Kant’s Mature Theory of Punishment and a First Critique Ideal Abolitionist Alternative’. In Altman, Matthew C. (ed.), The Palgrave Kant Handbook (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 617–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2021a) ‘“Reason’s Sympathy” and its Foundations in Productive Imagination’. Kantian Review, 26(3), 455–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2021b) ‘Sages, Sympathy, and Suffering in Kant’s Theory of Friendship’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 51(6), 452–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (2022) “‘Reason’s Sympathy” and Others’ Ends in Kant’. European Journal of Philosophy, 30(1), 96–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (Forthcoming a) ‘Free Will Skepticism and Criminals as Ends in Themselves’. In Altman, Matthew C. (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Punishment. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Vilhauer, Benjamin (Forthcoming b) ‘An Asymmetrical Approach to Kant’s Theory of Freedom’. In Heide, Dai and Tiffany, Evan (eds), The Idea of Freedom: New Essays on the Interpretation and Significance of Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Nigel (1980) Punishment, Danger, and Stigma: The Morality of Criminal Justice. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. (2008) Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zupančič, Alenka (2000) Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan. London and New York: Verso.Google Scholar