Kant located moral worth in reason’s autonomy from habit and inclination

Evidence

By his bold identification of doing one’s duty with freedom, Kant ruled this character of duty out of court, but thereby confused the negative side of freedom with its positive side. We are apparently free to do or not to do the duty we feel above us as an ideal; but, actually, complete freedom exists only in regard to not doing it, since to do it follows from a psychic imperative, from a coercion which is the inner equivalent of the legal coercion of society. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9374 (#complicates, via linked claim)

I want to highlight the strikingly dif.. ferent ways in which these two women dealt with the pressures of being single in a society where heterosexual marriage is regarded as a compulsory norm. Even though it would be customary to consider one of these strategies “more agentival” than the other, I wish to show that such a reading is in fact reduc.. tive of the eff entailed in the learning and practicing of virtues-virtues that might not be palatable to humanist sensibilities but are nonetheless con.. stitutive of agency in important ways. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1133 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s Kant studies taught him individuality’s value and the unity of knowledge and ethics — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 198; Reason serves humanity best when it attacks currently accepted notions of reason — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 763; Classical philosophy founded reason on harmony with a totality — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1457 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Kant conflated negative freedom with its positive side in duty #complicates (0.82) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9374
• Virtues that militate against autonomy can still constitute agency #complicates (0.80) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1133