Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Huang Hsu-chung, “Friendship in Kant's Moral Philosophy”

Kant's moral philosophy has often been characterized as a formal ethics because of the requirement of universality. However, Kant's idea of moral philosophy is a genuine substantive ethics since he defined that the maximum reciprocity of love is friendship, the union of two persons through equal and mutual love and respect. The greatest love I can have for another is to love him as myself, and I must be sure that he will love me as he loves himself, in which case he restores to me that with which I part and I come back to myself again. Based on the complete confidence of two persons, they could change their secrets, ideas, feelings, and encourage another to success as well. That is to say, friends practice their practical identity to take their reciprocal responsibility in friendship. According to this, I argue that friendship can be the basic moral relationship of human beings and the source of personal responsibility. Moreover, the idea of moral friendship can be the norms of our action of moral laws and the formation of human personhood.

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