The Highest Good as Content for Kant’s Ethical Formalism

Abstract

This article examines Kant’s conception of the highest good (summum bonum) with a view to determining whether it can, as Kant believed, function as a necessary content for the form of moral violation. It argues that it cannot and also suggests that the whole procedure of looking for a material content to fill out Kant’s formalism is spurious, because this content is already quite obviously given in the context of common moral experience. In dealing with this notion of the highest good, this article is primarily concerned to investigate the differences between Professors John Silber and Lewis White Beck on this subject. It outlines and questions Professor Silber’s continued insistence that Kant, in speaking of the highest good as a necessary object of moral violation, was exhibiting great insight. Contrarily, this article argues that Kant’s introduction of this notion was unnecessary and ill-advised, serving as it does extra-moral theological purposes by introducing confusions into the epistemology of his moral philosophy proper.

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