Understanding Hegel's Mature Critique of Kant by McCumber John

Author:McCumber, John [McCumber, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

HEGEL’S CRITIQUE OF KANT’S MORAL THEORY

IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE that even in the domain of moral philosophy, where its importance is highest, Hegel’s critique of Kant probably matters more to us than to him. Hegel’s higher praise of other philosophers and the impressionistic character of his reading of Kant have indicated this all along, as has the fact that when he targets Kant, he often takes him as an example of something more generic. This is especially true in the Philosophy of Right, where Kant is assigned to a philosophical approach variously described as “formal” thinking (PhR § 2 Anm.), the “philosophy of reflection” (PhR § 15 Anm.), the practice of “abstract reflection” (PhR § 124 Anm.), and, of course, “morality” (PhR § 33 Anm.). In Chapter 3 we saw this approach slide from Kant through Fichte to its nadir in the “bad idealism” of Bouterwerk, Fries, and Krug. Since Hegel’s most vigorous condemnation of them all is on moral grounds, it is not surprising that their approach should show up again in Hegel’s ethical theory. Kant is thus interesting to Hegel in the Philosophy of Right not primarily in his own right but for the abstract, formalistic approach to ethics that he exemplifies.

This, plus the fact that Hegel’s own distinctive philosophical project furnishes the basis for his criticisms of Kant, means that those criticisms are presented in three different ways. There are, certainly, the criticisms in which Kant is explicitly identified as the target; but our account cannot be limited to these. They are complemented by criticisms which, as just noted, apply to Kant indirectly, in virtue of the philosophical genus of which he is (or is asserted to be, or probably is) a member. Other criticisms, finally, are “presented” as buried, in the sense that they are not explicitly stated but are presupposed either by criticisms Hegel does make explicitly or simply by the contrasts—present on virtually every page of Hegel—between what he says and what Kant says. If Hegel’s treatment of an issue differs from Kant’s, then Kant—at least in Hegel’s view—got it wrong.

One of these buried criticisms is particularly important. As I argued in Chapter 1, Hegel’s own way of doing philosophy provides more than the standpoint from which he identifies problems with Kant and undertakes to correct them. It provides as well the standard by which he judges Kant.1 Chapter 4 showed this standard at work in the Philosophy of Right, for when Hegel criticizes Kant for his inability to provide an “immanent theory of duties” (PhR § 135 Anm.), he has in mind the kind of “theory” he himself intends to produce. Hegel’s most general criticism of Kant is thus that he is not doing philosophy Hegel’s way. Instead, Kant proceeds in what Hegel, in the Science of Logic, calls a lemmatisch fashion—presupposing his starting points rather than validating them philosophically (5:40/47). Nor, having begun where he should not, does he go on from his abstract moral theory to define correctly the determinations of ethical life.

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