Schiller's Critique of Kant's Moral Psychology: Reconciling Practical Reason and an Ethics of Virtue

Abstract

Mention of the name of Friedrich Schiller among both critics and defenders of Kant's moral philosophy has most often been with reference to the well known quip: “Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person.“ “Sure, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you.'' This attention, however, has served to obscure the fact that Schiller truly intended his remark as a joke, representing a serious, if understandable, misinterpretation of Kantian morality. Though Schiller's various attempts to articulate a theory of moral motivation include important divergences from Kant's account, they represent a response to a set of problems that arise in the context of Kantian moral theory. As such, they may be of greatest interest to moralists who are working within the Kantian tradition. In this paper, I clarify certain points of Schiller's critique of Kant's account of moral motivation and place them in the context of his broader project of reconciling Kantianism and an ethics of virtue.

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