Kant, Genius and Moral Development (original) (raw)

2013, Akten des XI. Kant-Kongresses 2010

In this paper I would like to approach the relation between art and morality from a slightly different standpoint than is usually done. Commentators usually focus on Kant's claim that beauty is the symbol of the morally good. This approach has generally seen beauty as a sort of auxiliary to morality, a propedeutic in Henry Allison's words, which leaves Kant's moral theory untouched. 1 However, it seems to me that though beauty is not part of the justification project of morality undertaken in the Groundwork, and the second Critique, it can play a role greater than that of merely cultivating our sense of judgment (though this is not doubt of great importance as well). In short, I take it that Kant's theory of artistic production is part of a second explanation of morality through the concept of purposiveness. This point cannot be argued for here. I will argue, however, that art in general and not just beauty, can transform our way of understanding ourselves in the world as a whole in accordance with our fundamental purpose, which is morality. I will be arguing that the problem of becoming moral lies not just in the difficulty of placing the good ahead of our desires but also in the means we choose to implement this maxim. Fine art can help us with the former, and this is Kant's official position, but I will claim that it can also help us with the latter. For example, though burning witches was thought to be a step toward making the world a better place, we now see that it was not. The problem, however, need not have been one of a court having the wrong maxim but of their simply being mistaken about the facts of the world, namely that it is just not the case that old women are sometimes witches. This is a simple epistemological point. Leaving aside the question of the development of natural science all together, I want to argue that the aesthetic domain can help us understand the world as a place in which morality can and does come to pass by improving our shared epistemic schema. Judgments of taste, as