Publications
"Kant and Rehberg on Political Theory and Practice" (forthcoming) The British Journal of the History of Philosophy
A.W. Rehberg was an important, but often overlooked contemporary critic of Kant's philosophy. This paper examines an exchange between Rehberg and Kant in 1790's over the relationship between political theory and practice. In the shadow of the French Revolution, Rehberg criticizes Kant for unjustifiably applying a priori rational criterion to the material world, insisting instead that we maintain a strict separation between rational laws and sensible circumstances. Rehberg takes Kant's system to suffer from two versions of what I call "the problem of political matter": first, the inability of formal a priori laws to gives us positive as opposed to merely negative prescriptions, and second, the inability of rational a priori laws to be anything but antagonistic toward sensible nature. I argue that Kant answers both of these concerns through implicit responses to Rehberg in his later work. In the second problem of political matter, Kant perhaps even comes into agreement with Rehberg that a priori political ideals cannot be antagonistic toward sensible nature and historical states, but must, in some sense, harmonize with it.
"Kant's Hylomorphic Formulation of Right and the Necessity of the State" (forthcoming) Kant-Studien
The standard interpretations of Kant's argument for the necessity of the state understand Kant to argue from the problematic status of private property rights. In this paper, I apply Kant's hylomorphic terminology, common in his early work in theoretical and moral philosophy, in order to argue for a new interpretation of the Doctrine of Right whereby the concept of right has both a formal and material aspect. This leads to a new interpretation of the Rechtslehre which argues that the concept of right is deduced through a syllogism. Private right (the material aspect of right) is subsumed under Innate right (the formal aspect of right) in order to yield the conclusion in Public Right (the civil condition). Thus, the necessity of the state is not a necessity that flows from the antinomy in private right, but is internally implied by the concept of right itself and is the conclusion of the deduction of the possibility of rights in the Rechtslehre.
"Kant's Duty to Make Virtue Widely Loved" (forthcoming) Kantian Review
A popular objection to Kant moral philosophy, made most famously by Schiller, is that Kant's system of duties results in a strict asceticism which "chases the Graces away". In this paper, in order to answer this common worry, I turn to a little researched appendix to Kant's Doctrine of Virtue where he proposes that we have a duty to bring together virtue with social graces, through the creation of "moral illusions" and so to "make virtue widely loved (beliebt). I explore how a duty of this sort could fit into Kant's system of duties and what it means to make virtue widely loved. I take the duty to imply the obligation that goes beyond "being polite" to rather promote virtue by create the social expectation of virtue, and so to create a society where the (externally) virtuous action is connected with the ritual of social graces.
“Whose Vocation? Which Man?: A.W. Rehberg on the Vocation of Man and Political Theory” (forthcoming) in Studies in Modern German Philosophy: The Vocation of Man. Edited by Courtney Fugate and Anne Pollok. Bloomsbury.
Kant’s Naturrecht Feyerabend has recently gained more sustained attention for its role in clarifying Kant’s published positions in political philosophy. However, too little attention has been given to the lecture’s relation to Gottfried Achenwall, whose book was the textbook for the course. In this paper, I will examine how Kant rejected and transforms Achenwall’s natural law system in the Feyerabend Lectures. Specifically, I will argue that Kant problematizes Achenwall’s foundational notion of a divine juridical state which opens up a normative gap between objective law and subjective rights. In the absence of a divine sovereign, formal natural law is unable to justify subjective natural rights in the state of nature. In the Feyerabend Lectures, Kant, in order to close this gap, replaces the divine will with the “will of society”, making the state necessary for the possibility of rights.
“History, Freedom, and Normativity in Cassirer” (2021) in The Method of Culture edited by Anne Pollok and Luigi Fuglieri. Edizioni ETS, Pisa.
Whether and to what Ernst Cassirer’s of culture contains a normative element for the proper evaluation of symbolic forms is a central question in Cassirer interpretation. In this paper, my aim is to specify the nature of this normative element. I not only assert the of a real normative dimension in of culture, but also specify the nature of its main element: of freedom. The concept of freedom in Cassirer is by no means an explicit facet of his systematic thought. However, this does not indicate that this is not an important part of his system. Rather, it might mean that Cassirer either thought it so basic he didn’t need to explicate it or he thought that it would be made clear through his exposition of symbolic forms. I will proceed by arguing for a “normative space” in Cassirer’s philosophy of culture. By “normative space” I mean a certain limitation to the philosophy of culture that makes room for the free act of the cultural agent for which she is responsible. In other words, by “normative space” I mean to suggest that Cassirer meant to leave room, and a prominent seat, for the normative element in the philosophy of culture. After establishing this, I will suggest that this normative task in the philosophy of culture is, from a first-person perspective, inevitably connected to the descriptive task, but from a third-person perspective, conceptually distinct. I will then move to better define what I take to be the main value of the normative task: freedom. The freedom that Cassirer defends is an ethical conception understood as both a constitutive norm for cultural action and a regulative ideal for the evaluation of cultural objects. Understanding freedom in this way allows us to conceive of it both as a fundamental phenomenon and an evaluative standard.
[Translation] “On the Relationship Between Theory and Practice” by August Rehberg” (2020) , The British Journal of the History of Philosophy.
This is the first English translation of A.W. Rehberg's Über das Verhältnis der Theorie zur Praxis which was a published as a response to Immanuel Kant's On the Common Saying: That may be correct in theory, but is of no use in practice. Rehberg's response appeared originally in February 1794.
Book Reviews
“Reason, Normativity and Law: New Essays in Kantian Philosophy” (2021) Kant-Studien 112 (3): 476-483
“Kant and His German Contemporaries, Volume 2: Aesthetics, History, Politics, Religion” British Journal of the History of Philosophy (42:3 December 2019)
“Kantian Nationalism?: A Review of Nation and Aesthetics” Kantian Review (23:3 September 2018)
“Kant and His German Contemporaries, Volume 2: Aesthetics, History, Politics, Religion” British Journal of the History of Philosophy (42:3 December 2019)
“Kantian Nationalism?: A Review of Nation and Aesthetics” Kantian Review (23:3 September 2018)
Public Philosophy
Immanuel Kant: A Conservative Philosopher As Much As A Liberal One. Merion West.
"The Ethics of Blood-Bending: Why is it so bad and can it ever be good?" In Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy. Ed. Helen DeCruz and Johan De Smedt. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series.
Armchair Opinions (blog):
Various Articles: https://armchairopinions.org/armchairphilosophers/michaelgregory/
"The Ethics of Blood-Bending: Why is it so bad and can it ever be good?" In Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy. Ed. Helen DeCruz and Johan De Smedt. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series.
Armchair Opinions (blog):
Various Articles: https://armchairopinions.org/armchairphilosophers/michaelgregory/
Work in Progress (email for drafts)
Does the Kantian State Dominate
The concept of freedom as non-domination has become an influential way of explaining all sorts of unfreedoms. However, Niko Kolodny recently argues that there is a significant problem with this definition of freedom, namely that this would imply that the state is necessarily dominating. Kant takes the will of the state to be non-dominating because it is a public will. However, specifying what exactly about the public will makes it non-dominating is a difficult task. I argue that some interpretations of the public will fail to solve the problem of state domination. I offer my own interpretation of Kant's public will which relies on a two-tiered justification at the level of rational concepts and actual consent in voting. I further argue that this allows us to escape the problem of state domination by premising the public will on the unanimous consent of the citizens, where this is understood as either the actual consent in voting or rational consent in the original contract.
The Republican Approach to the Relationship Between Right and Ethics
This paper attempts to deliver a new reading on the much contested question of the relation between right and ethics in Kant. I criticize independentist readings which make the legitimacy of coercion as the central normative difference between right and ethics. Instead, I argue that Kant sees coercion as both an ethical and juridical concept subjected to the principle of autonomy as the criterion for rightful coercion. Thus, my approach focuses on a broadly republican focus on the legitimacy of coercive action through rightful authority. However, the principle of autonomy as understood here is simply the formal relation between some subject and some law, and therefore abstracts from any particular lawgiving. The difference between right and ethics can be distinguished by their respective lawgiving, which contain different, though both legitimate, relations between law and subject.
Kant's Introduction to the Naturrecht Feyerabend in the context of Achenwall
This paper argues that some interpretive difficulties in the introduction to the Naturrecht Feyerabend can be solved by putting the introduction into the context of Achenwall's theory of freedom. When we understand the context in which Kant gives his argument in the introduction, we come to understand Kant seemingly odd choses in argumentation and terminology. Using this context leads us to a reading of the Introduction which does not rely on similarities or differences with Kant's Grundlegung, but suggest that Kant is deliberately picking and choosing from his critical moral theory in order to argue against Achenwall.
What is, for Kant, a Natural Right
This paper takes a wide approach to the idea of natural/human rights and suggests that Kant does have a notion of human rights (contra Flikschuh) and that he can justify such a category (contra Sangiovanni). Plus, he can do so without needing to appeal to problematic metaphysical notions (contra Caranti). Rather, we must see Natural/Human Rights as the rationally necessary assumption for any construction of systems of external freedom (i.e. public right). Using the mathematical analogy, they are the necessary axioms by which we proceed in order to assure our further calculations are coherent. Like Kant's constructivist philosophy of mathematics, natural rights are concepts which have independent normative weight and yet need to be "constructed" by an actual lawgiving in positive law. In this sense, natural rights are pre-politically normative in that they can critique existing political systems "from the outside" and yet need to be articulated within a political system.
Kant and Schlegel on MajoritY Rule
Achenwall on the Unity of Natural Law and Natural Right
In the Natural Right tradition, there has been a distinction, emphasized to different degrees, between Natural Law (lex naturae), the objective principle for determining prohibitions and permissions, and Natural Right (ius naturae), the subjective capacity to coerce. Achenwall, in a break with his immediate predecessors, instead adopts the terminology of ius in the objective and the subjective sense. Achenwall’s system of natural law innovatively brings objective law and subjective capacity into a conceptual unity. Achenwall, therefore, unifies the notion of a principle of rightfulness and the notion of capacity to coerce into a single concept.