Justifying morality

James P. Sterba

pp. 17-51

in: Mark T. Walker, Kant, Schopenhauer and morality, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

We started by asking how, in general terms, Kant conceived of the project of justifying morality. But why assume morality stands in need of any justification? And if it does, why should we grant Kant's notion of what an acceptable justification would have to achieve? Is it really so clear that a justification which showed the moral life to be in the agent's own best interest might not be both successful and relevant? After all, if that kind of justification is to be dismissed as inherently deficient because unacceptably egoistic, then we may reasonably wonder how any other kind of approach could possibly have a chance of succeeding. For if, as I claimed in the Introduction, the need for a justification of morality derives from the challenge posed by what I there described as "total egoism" ("TE") then how could a non-egoistic justification be expected to get any purchase on a total egoist ("T-Egoist")? Finally, even supposing that it might be possible to mount a successful justification that is neither question-begging nor appeals to the T-Egoist's own well-being, do we really need to look to Kant for such justification? Might there not be a simpler, more direct way of rebutting TE without appearing to compromise the purity of the moral motive?