Reason’s End

Abstract

This essay, previously unpublished, develops a kind of “Kantian naturalism” in a conversation with some of the work of the late Jean Hampton. It begins with a quotation from Kant expressing admiration and awe for the moral law within us. Kant’s conception of reason is captured in the felicitous phrasing of Jean Hampton, who claims that the deliverances of reason possess “objective normative authority”, and “motivational force” in virtue of their authority. The author seeks to find a place for both assertoric and categorical imperatives within an account of practical or deliberative rationality that assumes throughout the first-person stance. Each person achieves a dignity through her capacity to act on the assertoric imperatives of fulfilment, constructing for herself a conception of good, so each achieves a further dignity through her capacity to govern herself by the categorical imperatives of agreement, committing herself to cooperate with others whom she respects as she respects herself. These are the gifts of reason. Hampton wanted to explain “what it means to say that reason is the hallmark of our humanity”. The meaning is in the gifts.