Table of Contents
A Note to the Reader 11
Sources 14
Part 1
I Kant, Harris and the Absolute Value 17
1 "Absolute Worth" 22
2 The Importance of the Enquiry: Good Will's End and the Worth of Persons 23
3 Parallel or Influence? 24
4 David Hume: Stoicism without Rationalism 26
II Kant, Harris and the Absolute or Sovereign Good 32
A The Pre-Conceptions of the Sovereign Good
1 The Problem out of which it all Arises 34
2 The Dialectic of Eudaemonism and Stoicism 36
3 The Induction of the Pre-conceptions 37
4 Attempts to Satisfy the Pre-conceptions of the Sovereign Good 41
5 Teleology … "to what purpose Powers?" 42
6 "This is to Live According to Nature, to follow Nature and to own and obey Deity" 44
7 Why Happiness is not the Sovereign Good 49
B The Pre-Conceptions of the Sovereign Good Satisfied I. Conduct and Praise 56
III The Argument in Kant : I 59
A The Importance of the Doctrine of the End of Willing
B The Doctrine of the End of Reason
1 The Function of Reason 63
2 Good Will and, or as, the Ineluctable Good 65
3 Happiness and the Ineluctable 67
C The Two Notions of Good Will
1 The Primitive Notion of Good Will 74
2 Good Will 1: 'Sense' and the Harmonizing of Ends-Good Will 1 as the Qualifier of Other Goods 80
3 Good Will as itself Good without Qualification 82
4 Good Will 1: the Goodness of the Needful Will 84
5 Good Will 1.1: Moral Reason Implies Moral Disposition 84
6 Good Will and Unconditioned Worth 86
IV The Argument in Kant : II 87
A Unconditioned, Absolute Value
1 Good Will 2: Inner Unconditioned Worth: the Absolutely Good 87
2 "The Good Will and its Results" 91
3 "Unconditioned" 91
4 The Background to the Axiology of Absolute Worth 93
5 "Conduct" and "Good Will" 97
6 "The Absolute Worth of Mere Will" 100
7 Good Will, a Divided Concept 100
8 The Axiology of Absolute Worth 101
9 The Function of Reason: the Ultimate Roots of the Axiology 108
10 The Absolute Value of Mere Will as the End of Reason 109
11 Duty and the End of Reason 113
12 "Nature's Purposes" 114
B The Unconditioned as an Aesthetic Idea
1 Recapitulation: The Idea of the Unconditioned 117
2 The Idea of the Unconditioned; Analysis by "Subjects" 118
3 Harris and Kant: a Difference in Emphasis 126
Table 1 "Unconditioned, unconditional"
V The New Strange Doctrine 132
A The Burden of the Doctrine
1 The "Noble Prerogative of Moral Artists" 137
2 "The Very Conduct is the End" 139
3 Moral Good and the Perpetually Complete, Absolute Good 143
4 A Variety of Absolutes 148
5 The Sovereign Good as Happiness 150
B The Doctrine Recommended
1 Two Goods: Rectitude of Conduct and Success 156
Appendix to Part One 158
Part 2
I The Ends of Reason, of Life and of 165
A Happiness as 'Conditioned'
1 Duty Conditions Happiness 170
2 The End of Duty 174
3 Duty, but not Happiness, Can Guide Action 175
4 Eudaemonic Theories and the Conditionalities of Happiness 178
5 Eudaimonia, and the Claims of Duty over Happiness 181
B Moral Goodness an Illusion?
1 The Roots of an Illusion 184
2 An Illusion Dispelled 187
C The Ideal as Perfection: The Agent as Stoic
1 Eudaimonia as a Stoic Problem 192
D The Life of Consistency
I The Paradox of Happiness 199
II Virtue and Rewards 202
A 'The Unending Development of the Possibilities of the Soul'
B The Problem of Eudaimonia as a Moral Problem
C Esckatology, Eudaimonia and Morality
1 The Idea of a Future Life 211
2 An Ambiguous Finalism; and Ambiguous Axiology 214
D 'Man's Final Happiness does not consist in Moral Activity'
1 'Moral Good' and 'Eternal Interests' 220
2 The Two Ends of Reason 224
3 Kant: the Pure Notion of Personal Value 225
III Interest or Disinterestedness at the Root of Moral Conduct? 226
A "Honour and Justice are my Interest": Harris
1 Self-Denial 229
2 Interest 231
B The Categorical Imperative: Kant
1 How 'Formal'? 241
2 What is 'Essentially Good' in an Action? 246
C "But what kind of Law can this be?" or The Right and the Good Conflated?
1 The First Proposition 249
2 The Second Proposition 265
3 The Third Proposition 268
4 Results: Production and the Will 274
5 Conclusion 277
6 Summary and Final Analysis 280
7 Interest or Disinterest? Our own Question Answered 283
Concluding Note to Part Two 285
Part 3
I Rant's Ontology of Personal Value: A False Absolute 287
A The Language of "Ends": Ends and Ends
1 The Idea of an End: Ends and END 291
2 Self-subsistent Ends 293
B Analysis of Kant's Text
1 Ends and ENDS 299
2 The End-in-himself and Self-existence 304
II Rationality as Value : Towards a Humanistic Ontology 308
A Rationality as Value
1 Rational Nature and Good Will 313
2 Rational Nature What Is It? 316
3 Kant's Rationalism, a Threat to the Worth of End-ship 319
4 Mental Attitude or Moral Competence? 322
5 The Transcendental Deduction that We Might Have Had, and May Still Need 328
6 Rational Nature, Communication and Morality 338
B Coda: The Person as a Limit
Index 343
