Sentiment moral et contrainte légale Kant lecteur de Hutcheson
In this article, I would like to examine the evolution of the role of moral feeling in Kant’s philosophy from the Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness (1762) to the Doctrine of Virtue (1797). In 1762, moral obligation (Verbindlichkeit) is grounded both on a purely formal-rational component, inspired by Baumgarten and Crusius, and on a material component based on a moral feeling explicitly borrowed from Hutcheson. But by later adopting the legal model (Crusius) of a moral law conceived as a rational principle on which, from then on, the moral obligation is exclusively grounded, Kant is led to downplay the status of moral feeling by seeing in it a simple effect of the law on sensibility. Through this feeling the necessitation (Nötigung) implicit in moral obligation is literally felt. Accordingly, the feeling of respect will not be considered as the criterion of the good, but rather as the incentive (Triebfeder) of the moral action.
Kant Hutcheson Baumgarten Crusius Obligation Moral feeling