When the Reflective Watch-Dog Barks: Conscience and Self-Deception in Kant

For older pieces on conscience see Gerhard Funke, “Gutes Gewissen, falsches Bewußtsein, richtende Vernunft,” Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 25(1971): 226–51, H. J. Paton, “Conscience and Kant,” Kant-Studien 70 (1979): 239–51, Willem Heubült, “Gewissen bei Kant,” Kant-Studien 71 (1980): 445–54 and Hill’s essays reprinted in Thomas Hill JR., Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). For recent literature see David Velleman, “The Voice of Conscience,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99 (1999): 57–76, Thomas S. Hoffmann, “Gewissen als praktische Apperzeption. Zur Lehre vom Gewissen in Kants Ethik-Vorlesungen,” Kant-Studien 93 (2002): 424–43, Jens Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience, ‘Indirect’ Duty, and Moral Error,” International Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2006): 293–308, Dean Moyar, “Unstable Autonomy: Conscience and Judgment in Kant’s Moral Philosophy,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 (2008): 327–60, Allen Wood, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), ch.10, Owen Ware, “The Duty of Self-Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (2009): 671–98, Paul Guyer, “Moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130–52, Andrea Esser, “The Inner Court of Conscience, Moral Self-Knowledge, and the roper Object of Duty (TL 6:437–444),” in: Andreas Trampota, Oliver Sensen, Jens Timmermann (eds.), Kant’s “Tugendlehre”. A Comprehensive Commentary (Berlin/Boston; de Gruyter, 2013), 269–93, Marijana Vujošević, “The Judge in the Mirror: Kant on Conscience,” Kantian Review 19 (2014): 449–74, Elke Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, “Kants Philosophie des Gewissens. Skizze für eine kommentarische Interpretation,” in Mario Egger (ed.), Philosophie nach Kant. Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 279–312, Elke Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, “Vernunft, Herz und Gewissen. Kants Theorie der Urteilskraft zweiter Stufe als Modell für die Medizinische Ethik,” in Franz-Josef Bormann, Vera Wetzstein (eds.), Gewissen. Dimensionen eines Grundbegriffs medizinischer Ethik (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 229–50, Oliver Sensen “Kants Begriff des Gewissens,” in Simon Bunke, Katerina Mihaylova (eds.), Gewissen zwischen Gefühl und Vernunft (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2015), 126–38, Samuel Kahn, “Kant’s Theory of Conscience,” in Pablo Muchnik, Oliver Thorndike (eds.), Rethinking Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming).

See Moyar, op. cit.

See Ware, op. cit.

See Paul Guyer, “Moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130–152.

I quote Kant according to Kant’s geammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer). The First Critique is quoted according to the A/B edition. The Kaehler Lecture Notes (LK) are quoted from Werner Stark (ed.), Immanuel Kant. Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004). Translations from the Groundwork are from Jens Timmermann, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Translated by Jens Timmermann and Mary Gregor) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Other works by Kant are quoted, with occasional modifications, from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant edited by Paul Guyer and Allan Wood. Translations of untranslated texts are my own.

There is consensus in the Kant literature that conscience is not primarily concerned with first-order matters. A notable exception is Paul Guyer, “Moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130–52, pp. 145–6 who sees conscience as a capacity “to seek and listen to the kind of moral law that applies to particular cases, namely, particular maxims”, i.e., to apply general moral rules to particular cases (seeking) and being motivated to obey these rules (listening). Esser, op. cit., p. 277fn.16 convincingly argues that the idea that conscience is a form of power of judgment, which applies general rules to particular cases, rests on a misinterpretation of a passage in the Religion (VI:186.10–1).

“I ask myself” (IV:403.3–6), “I just ask myself” (IV:403.21), “he still has enough conscience to ask himself” (IV:422.19), “[y]et he still asks himself” (IV:423.2–5).

See also IV:421.24–423.35, V:27.22, 36.4–6, 44.2–3, 69.20–70.9.

For exemplary cases of rationalizing see for instance VI:70.fn., 77.26–78.2, 168.8–170.11, 192.1–202.5, 430.19–26, VIII:265.28–266.5, LK:154–7, 192–3. There is a growing interest in rationalizing in the Kant literature. See Dieter Schönecker, “Gemeine sittliche und philosophische Vernunfterkenntnis. Zum ersten Übergang in Kants Grundlegung,” Kant-Studien 88 (1997): 311–33, Paul Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Adrian Piper, Rationality and the Structure of the Self. Volume II: A Kantian Conception (2008) online: http://​www.​adrianpiper.​com/​rss/​index.​shtml, Martin Sticker, “Educating the Common Agent. Kant on the Varieties of Moral Education,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97 (2015): 358–87, sec. 3, Marcel van Ackeren, Martin Sticker, “Kant and Moral Demandingness,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (2015): 75–89, sec. 3.

Kant uses the strong “i.e.” [d.i.] [5] “this is” to characterize the relation between the natural dialectic and the propensity to rationalize.

Again Kant uses the strong “i.e.” [9]. Adapting one’s conception of morality and corruption is identical.

See also VI:36.1–33, 321.38–9, XXIX:609.34–6, 629.2–5.

See XVIII:579.4–5, XXVII:613.37–614.9, Moyar, op. cit., p. 350, Vujošević, op. cit.

See VI:400.30 and Paul Guyer’s, “Moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 130–52, pp. 145–6 reading of conscience as part of an empirically informed theory of moral motivation. Moyar, op. cit., sec. 6, like Guyer, stresses the authority and motivational role of conscience. He, however, adds the caveat that this stress is a Fichte inspired reading of Kant. Vujošević, op. cit., p. 450 argues that “conscience itself is not a moral motive”, but it “has an inescapable role to play in the process of our motivation to act morally”.

See for instance Hill, op. cit., p. 280–1. Moyar, op. cit., p. 338 believes that conscience is a reflective capacity “directed at my process of judgment and my grounds for thinking that I have done the best that I possibly can in arriving at my judgment”. Moyar (ibid., p. 345) also argues that Kant “invests conscience with so much authority that the first-order/second-order distinction becomes completely untenable”, or that the question: “Is this the right maxim?” is indistinguishable from: “Do I believe that this is the right action?” (see ibid., p. 346). I do not share this criticism: The two orders only collapse if conscience judges about the certainty of beliefs. Conscience, however, judges about an agent’s way of reasoning (see below). The question conscience asks is rather: “Did I reason about a situation with due caution?”. This is different from the question what maxim or action is right. First- and second-order judgements are about different objects (actions/maxims vs. reasoning) and they employ different methods (universalization tests vs. critical self-examination). See also Jeanine Grenberg, Kant's Defense of Common Moral Experience. A Phenomenological Account (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 180fn.10 who argues convincingly that Kant does not collapse the two questions.

Moyar, op. cit., has sympathy for this reading. Textual support for such a much more fundamental role of conscience than what the other passages on conscience support is in VI:399.1–403.6.

Jens Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience, ‘Indirect’ Duty, and Moral Error,” International Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2006): 293–308, p. 295 notes that this reflective function of conscience is coherent with the standard Protestant conception of conscience at the time as something more narrow than an agent’s sense of right and wrong. He (ibid., p. 295) argues that conscience is “the power […] – within every human agent – that acknowledges the need to conform to moral standards”. The moral standards themselves are provided by reason, not conscience.

Jens Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience, ‘Indirect’ Duty, and Moral Error,” International Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2006): 293–308, p. 306 believes that the “possibility of objective errors [about my duty in concrete cases] […] seems to undermine the very foundation of Kantian ethics”, namely, the idea that every rational human agent has insight into what she is morally required to do. On Timmermann’s conception agents can fail to act on what they are aware of as obligatory, but they cannot have false beliefs about what their duty is in a concrete situation. My interpretation of conscience, in contrast to Timmermann’s, accommodates mistakes in objective judgements without undermining the foundation of Kant’s ethics. Rational agents always have what it takes to reach the correct judgment in moral matters, namely, the ability to make use of the standard of universality (see sec. 1.1). If they reason incorrectly they can be held morally accountable for it, since it would have been possible and sufficiently easy for them to judge correctly.

See also VIII:268.7–8. Allen Wood, George Di Giovanni, Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 203 translate “Behutsamkeit” as “diligence”. “Caution” better preserves the original meaning of the word: to be aware of or to protect oneself of danger (see Johann Christoph Adelung, Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart (1811), online: http://​lexika.​digitale-sammlungen.​de/​adelung/​online/​angebot vol. 1, col. 817–8). I am grateful to Jens Timmermann for suggesting the term “caution”.

In the Vigilantius lecture notes from 1793/4 conscientiousness appears as a matter of a “sincere examination” [aufrichtige Prüfung] of what we take to be certain (XXVII:615.19). It is the role of conscience “to obtain consciousness that one has performed the examination with great thought” (XXVII:619.27–8). See also Vujošević, op. cit., p. 465) who believes that conscience assesses “our way of judging whether an action is right or wrong”. Vujošević, however, is not always clear about the object of assessment. She claims that conscience judges our “maxim-formation and adoption” (ibid.) or incentives (ibid., p. 470). The latter seems very different from our way of reasoning.

Esser, op. cit., p. 283–4 thinks that conscience is not supposed to scrutinize the use of rational capacities, but the motives of actions (see also Vujošević, op. cit., p. 461). This interpretation is contradicted by the inquisitor case. The inquisitor got wrong the question what his duty is. He does not merely lack the right motivation. Elke Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, “Kants Philosophie des Gewissens. Skizze für eine kommentarische Interpretation,” in Mario Egger (ed.), Philosophie nach Kant. Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 279–312, p. 283 make a very convincing case against the idea that the scrutiny of conscience extends to motivation: If conscience pronounced a verdict about the motives of actions, it should be possible to know whether our actions are morally worthy, something Kant strenuously denies (A/B:278/334, 551/579, VI: 25.5–6, 38.7–12, 51.7–21, 70.1–71.20, 75.8–76.1, VI.451.21–36).

Ware, op. cit., p. 693.

The standard conception of conscience at the time was that conscience can err. See Baumgarten reprinted in Kant’s Academy Edition (XXVII:781) and Christian August Crusius, Anweisung vernünftig zu leben, Darinen nach Erklärung der Natur des Menschlichen Willens die natürlichen Pflichten und allgemeinen Klugheitslehren im richtigen Zusammenhang vorgetragen werden (Leipzig, ³1767), §138–41. In pre-critical lectures Kant himself thought of conscience as fallible (XXVII:42.32–7, 197.36–198.9, 354.39–355.27).

Paton, op. cit., is very skeptical of Kant’s infallibility claim and argues, correctly I believe, that we can only make sense of it, if we understand conscience as being about second-order matters.

Hill, op. cit., p. 302–3.fn.50 suggests that conscience judges always correctly, but we might fail to submit an action to the scrutiny of conscience. The claim that conscience cannot err is therefore somewhat “exaggerated” (Hill ibid., p. 241, see also ibid., p. 348). I agree that the claim is exaggerated, but for almost the opposite reason as Hill: The verdict of conscience can err, but an agent cannot be mistaken as to whether she submitted her moral judgement to the scrutiny of conscience.

Other deflationary readings who rather aim to explain the claim away are Wood, op. cit., pp. 190–1, Ware, op. cit., pp. 692–5. Wood, op. cit., explicitly acknowledges the difficulty of understanding the infallibility claim in the context of self-deception.

Wanting to serve and praise God without moral sincerity is an “opiate for conscience” and “a cushion” on which conscience is meant to “sleep quietly” (IX:495.13–5). In pre-critical lecture notes, Kant speaks of “numbing” [übertäuben] and “giving leave” [Ferien geben] to our internal judge (LK:135, see also XXVII:357.4–5).

See VI:400.31–33, 401.10–11, 438.13–23.

See also V:98.13–28, XXVII:197.19–36, 295.12–36, 351.22–357.5, 572.13–573.24.

See Sofie Møller, “The Court of Reason in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant-Studien 104 (2013): 301–20 for a recent discussion of judicial metaphors in the First Critique.

See XIX:83.11–35. Baumgarten’s Initia is reprinted in volume XIX of the Academy Edition.

See Manfred Kuehn, “Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: the history and significance of its deferral,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9–28, sec. 3 for more on Baumgarten’s influence on Kant.

Kant elaborates on his distinction between the homines elsewhere in the Metaphysics of Morals and in his lectures of the 1790s. See VI:239.21–30, 335.17–22, 418.18, 423.5, 434.22–435.5, 439.30–1, XXIII:398.11–2, XXVII:579.29–30, 593.6–22. Sharon Byrd, Joachim Hruschka, Kant’s Doctrine of Right. A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), ch. 14 point to Linné’s Systema Naturae as an important scientific influence on Kant for this distinction, as well as to the traditional Roman law distinction between a thing and a person.

See VI:239.26, 418.5, 434.32, XXVII:504.29, 505.5, 39, 510.5, 579.17–8. Oliver Sensen, “The moral importance of autonomy,” in Oliver Sensen (ed.), Kant on Moral Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 262–282, p. 269 argues with reference to IV:440, VI:418, XXVII:593, 610, 626 that the homo noumenon “is not an obscure metaphysical being, but what a human being conceives himself to be according to the Categorical Imperative”.

See Byrd, Hruschka, op. cit., pp. 281–2: “As a thing, the homo phaenomenon has no duties, which in turn means that he has no rights or moral faculties” (ibid., p. 281). However, in the Vigilantius lecture notes, the human being in appearance or homo phaenomenon seems to be able to be morally obligated by one’s rational self (XXVII:579.8–580.22, 593.1–16, 601.30–5). It certainly is an intricate issue to discern how to understand Kant's distinctions between the homines in various places. I will focus on Kant’s official account in the Metaphysics of Morals. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing me on this issue.

Oliver Sensen, Kant on Human Dignity (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2011), p. 130 emphasizes that the homo phaenomenon is “the human being as observable in experience” and as such entirely a creature of the phenomenal world. The homo noumenon, by contrast, is “a moral ideal that might not be observed in experience, but that is prescribed by reason”. For the difficult (causal) relation between the homini when it comes to moral actions see Byrd, Hruschka, op. cit., p. 288–9.

Elke Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, “Kants Philosophie des Gewissens. Skizze für eine kommentarische Interpretation,” in Mario Egger (ed.), Philosophie nach Kant. Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 279–312, pp. 290–1, 301–11, Elke Schmidt, Dieter Schönecker, “Vernunft, Herz und Gewissen. Kants Theorie der Urteilskraft zweiter Stufe als Modell für die Medizinische Ethik,” in Franz-Josef Bormann, Vera Wetzstein (eds.), Gewissen. Dimensionen eines Grundbegriffs medizinischer Ethik (Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 229–250, p. 243 criticise the obscurity of Kant’s judicial metaphors for the functioning of conscience. I am more optimistic than they are that something can be made of Kant’s descriptions if we rationally reconstruct them.

Self-deception is in any case a violation of the “First Command of all Duties to oneself […] know (scrutinize, fathom) yourself” (VI:441.2–4). See Ware, op. cit., for more on the duty to know oneself and the danger of self-deception.

See Thorpe, op. cit., p. 469–70.

According to pre-critical lectures, the judgements of conscience are infallible, unless conscience uses a false standard of judgement (LK:193–4, XXVII:354.26–8).