“Positve Duties, Maxim Realism and the Deliberative Field"

Professor Samuel Kahn 

Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis

WHU PHILOSOPHY SEMINAR SERIES

Wednesday April 23

Abstract 

My goal in this paper is to show that it is not the case that positive duties can be derived from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests. I begin by explaining in detail what I mean by this and distinguishing it from a few things that I am not doing in this paper. After that, I confront the idea of a maxim contradictory, a concept that is advanced by many commentators in the attempt to derive positive duties from the universalizability tests. I explain what a maxim contradictory is and how the concept is used to derive positive duties. Then I argue that the notion of a maxim contradictory presupposes an objectionable form of maxim realism. I move from there to the idea of a maxim contrary and the deliberative field. These two ideas are used in tandem by commentators who do not appeal to maxim contradictories. I explain how these concepts are used to derive positive duties and then I argue that there is a systematic error in the derivations that enables one to see that they cannot work.

Suggested Background Reading

Samuel Kahn,Positive Duties, Maxim Realism and the Deliberative Field 1.13.pdf

When and Where

· When: 19:00

· Where: B214, School of Philosophy