[SydPhil] Melissa Merritt on Epictetus and Kant on Self-Respect. UNSW Philosophy Seminar, August 24, 12.30-2pm, online

Fri Aug 13 11:33:31 AEST 2021

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[UNSW]

PHILOSOPHY

SEMINAR SERIES 2021

“Everyone has a price at which he sells himself”: Epictetus and Kant on Self-Respect

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Speaker: Melissa Merritt (UNSW Sydney)

Abstract:

 “Everyone has a price at which he sells himself”: Kant quotes this remark in the Religion, ostensibly attributing it to Horace Walpole. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that he is invoking the pedagogical practices of the Epictetus. Taking up this clue, I argue that Kant develops a conception of self-respect in his later practical works (i.e. Religion, Metaphysics of Morals, and Anthropology) that draws heavily on Epictetus, and his distinctive version of the traditional Stoic account of rational agency. Crucially, Stoic tradition understands the nature of agency in developmental and teleological terms: in this context, Epictetus argues that we “preserve” ourselves (rather than “sell ourselves”) only by progressing towards virtue, and that this progress is possible only through a certain way of exercising choice — namely, from a well-developed sense of what is appropriate to one as rational.

I explain how this background informs Kant’s own pedagogical aims in the Religion and helps us work through puzzles in his account of character in the Anthropology. Yet the establishment of common ground should leave us wondering about the significance of obvious systematic differences: above all, Kant’s commitment to a metaphysical dualism that does not figure in Stoic thought and underwrites his distinctively modern conception of moral disposition. Although the difference is genuine, it remains unclear whether Kant can fully distinguish how own conception of moral disposition from what Epictetus holds up as self-respecting character.

About the Presenter: Melissa Merritt is Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2019-2022). She is the author of Kant on Reflection and Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2018), which won the 2019 North American Kant Society Book Prize, and The Sublime (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Her work on Kant focuses mostly on his ethics and moral psychology, and his understanding of the essentially reflective nature of the rational mind. She is currently working on a long-term project on the significance of Stoicism for Kant and contemporary ethics.

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24th August 2021

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12:30pm to 2pm

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Zoom

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