La place du bonheur dans la doctrine de la vertu
The reader of the Critique of Practical Reason is often puzzled by Kant’s claim in the Analytic that happiness must not play any role in the motivation to act according to the moral law, whereas the Dialectic unexpectedly reintroduces the topic of happiness as a reasonable expectation from the part of the virtuous moral subject. In fact, both Fichte and Schopenhauer had reservations about this move. In this paper I argue that the three explanations usually provided in order to make sense of the hope for happiness are questionable: 1) the ontological dualism (intelligible/sensible), 2) Kant’s religious prejudice (F. Schroeter), and 3) a concession made by Kant to the weakness of human nature (L. W. Beck). I give another explanation, based on Kant’s conception of practical reason.
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