Abstract

Jens Timmermann challenges the prevailing view that Kant held an intellectualist conception of moral failure, instead arguing that there are two distinct types of practical failure within Kantian ethics. The first type belongs to the domain of hypothetical imperatives, the second to the domain of categorical imperatives. The former can be regarded as an epistemological failure, while the latter is a failure of the will and is ultimately inexplicable. On his view, Kant therefore held a hybrid theory of practical failure. I disagree with Timmermann’s explanation, and this for two reasons. First, Timmermann follows Socrates in denying the impossibility of incontinence in the prudential realm. In reality, however, there are many situations where the agent knows that an action will contribute to his happiness but fails to do so. In other words, there is such a thing as incontinence with regard to hypothetical imperatives. Second, Timmermann’s interpretation is based on the basic assumption that hypothetical imperatives are the embodiment not of freedom but of heteronomy. However, Timmermann sometimes admits that we act freely in the pursuit of happiness. Hypothetical imperatives, in my view, are also the embodiment of human freedom because they are the activity of the human will.