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Self-Cultivation and Moral Choice
In: Journal of Moral PhilosophyPhilosophical luminaries including Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill have all theorized that our human capacity of reason calls us to become the best that we can be by developing our “natural abilities.” This article explores the thesis that the development of our talents is not a moral duty to oneself and suggests that it may be avoided for other reasons than failures of rationality. In the face of the opportunity-costs associated with different life-goals, resistance to developing our powers may spring from an informed and perfectly rational choice in favor of an equally valuable alternative to talent development as a way of life. Thus, the arguments in this essay suggest that the predominant, rationalistic view in defense of a duty to develop one’s talents ignores a distinctively human capacity, namely, the capacity for reasoned moral choice. The paper argues, however, that we do well in viewing the development of one’s talents as worthwhile. In other words, it is correct to sustain that the individual would be acting in a morally deficient manner if she declined to develop her abilities for the wrong reasons even if no duty to self to avoid that course of action exists.
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Johnson, “Self-Development”, p. 4. Kant’s discussion of this “paradox” is at The Metaphysics of Morals 6: 417–18. There, he states: “Man regards himself, when conscious of a duty to himself, in a twofold capacity: first, as a sensible being, where he ranks only as one among other sorts of animals; but second, he regards himself not only as an intelligent being, but as a VERY REASON (for the theoretic function of reason may perhaps be a property of animated matter), resident in a region inscrutable to sense, and manifesting itself only in morally practical relations where that amazing quality of man’s nature—FREEDOM—is revealed by the influence reason exerts upon the determination of the will. Mankind, then, as an intelligent physical being […] is susceptible of voluntary determination to active conduct by the suggestions of his reason. […] The very same being, however […] is a being capable of having obligation imposed upon him, and in particular, of becoming obligated and beholden to himself, i.e., to the humanity subsisting in his person.[…] without incurring any contradiction.”
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See G. Hochberg, “The Concept of ‘Possible Worlds’ and Kant’s Distinction Between Perfect and Imperfect Duties”, Philosophical Studies, 26, 1974, for an explanation of the difference between perfect and imperfect duties in Kant. Basically, as Kant himself puts it, “some actions are of such a nature that their maxim cannot even be thought as a universal law without contradiction” [perfect duties]. “In others, this internal impossibility is not found though it is still impossible to will that their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law because such a will would contradict itself” (quoted in Hochberg, footnote 4). The idea is that although the action may not be immoral it contradicts a human basic inclination; so it is inconceivable.
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Karen Stohr, “Kantian Beneficence and the Problem of Obligatory Aid.” The Journal of Moral Philosophy 7, 4, 2010: 47.
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See H. Ross, “Social Power and the Hohfeldian Relation” Nottingham Law Journal, 10, 2001. L. H. LaRue, “Hohfeldian Rights and Fundamental Rights” The University of Toronto Law Journal 35, 1985.
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Hills, “Duties and Duties to the Self,”: 133. For a fervent (and classical) defense of this position, see Marcus Singer, “On Duties to Oneself” Ethics, 69, 3, 1959.
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Daniel Statman, “Who Needs Imperfect Duties?” American Philosophical Quarterly, 33, 2, 1996: 214.
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Philosophical luminaries including Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill have all theorized that our human capacity of reason calls us to become the best that we can be by developing our “natural abilities.” This article explores the thesis that the development of our talents is not a moral duty to oneself and suggests that it may be avoided for other reasons than failures of rationality. In the face of the opportunity-costs associated with different life-goals, resistance to developing our powers may spring from an informed and perfectly rational choice in favor of an equally valuable alternative to talent development as a way of life. Thus, the arguments in this essay suggest that the predominant, rationalistic view in defense of a duty to develop one’s talents ignores a distinctively human capacity, namely, the capacity for reasoned moral choice. The paper argues, however, that we do well in viewing the development of one’s talents as worthwhile. In other words, it is correct to sustain that the individual would be acting in a morally deficient manner if she declined to develop her abilities for the wrong reasons even if no duty to self to avoid that course of action exists.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 303 | 71 | 1 |
| Full Text Views | 192 | 3 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 34 | 8 | 0 |