Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Stijn Van Impe, ¡§Kant's Realm of Ends: A Communal Moral Practice as Locus for the Unity of Moral Personhood¡¨

In this paper I examine Kant's 'realm of ends' from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion. First, I will analyse what Kant exactly means by relating the realm of ends to the 'complete determination' of the categorical imperative, i.e. 'totality' combining 'unity' and 'plurality' of form and matter of the will respectively. Secondly, I will discuss how the realm of ends functions as an 'ideal' of practical reason or as a normative 'archetype' grounding a communal moral practice. Finally, I will argue that the realm of ends not only entails an intersubjective stance in evaluating moral ends and (inter)actions, but moreover, functions as the locus for establishing in communality the unity of moral personhood in its twofold sense of both the union of 'persons' as objective ends-in-themselves, and the unification of their guiding maxims and their morally legitimate subjective ends.

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