Acting on Principle

Abstract Examines an alternative understanding of doing things for reasons, Kant's conception of acting on a maxim. Having explained the Kantian idea of maxims and having defended the claim that this is indeed Kant's conception of agency, the chapter tries to find viable accounts of, first, holding a maxim and, second, acting on a maxim, in either case without success. How the agent who holds a maxim differs from an agent who does not cannot be made out. As for acting on a maxim, Kant's texts support two accounts, the one relying on the practical syllogism, the other on the faculty of judgment. Notoriously, however, the practical syllogism does not yield action; and a faculty of judgment, it is argued here, does not in fact exist.