Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Translations Introduction 1. Action, reason, and causes in Kant 2. Can we act without feelings? Respect, sympathy, and other forms of Love 3. A place for affects and passions in the Kantian system 4. What can Kant teach us about emotions? 5. Physiology and the Controlling of Affects in Kant’s Philosophy 6. Kantian Virtue as a Cure for Affects and Passions 7. The beautiful and the good: refinement as a propaedeutic to morality 8. Women and Emotion 9. Evil and Passions Conclusion: An emotional Kant? Notes References Index

Promotional Information

Discusses Kant’s philosophy of emotion, exploring his understanding of how emotions can shape our actions both good and bad.

About the Author

Maria Borges is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Reviews

English-language readers now have the opportunity to learn about Brazilian philosopher Maria Borges’s groundbreaking work on Kant and the emotions. In Emotion, Reason and Action in Kant – her first book in English – she expands and deepens her investigations into an underexplored side of Kant that is unfortunately still foreign territory for many of Kant’s friends as well as foes.
*Robert B. Louden, Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, USA*

Among the recently increasing number of works on Kant on emotion, Borges's book is the most wide-ranging and insightful yet. Drawing on the full range of Kant's work in moral philosophy, anthropology, and aesthetics, she brings out the complexity of Kant's conception of what we now call the emotions and of the relation between his view of the emotions and his transcendental idealist theory of free will. A bonus is her demonstration that in spite of well-taken feminist critiques of Kant, he also allotted an indispensable role to women in the moral education of humankind at large. Borges convincingly argues that Kant made enduring contributions to our understanding of the nature and importance of human emotions.
*Paul Guyer, Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Brown University, USA*

Wide-ranging in topics and scholarship, Emotion, Reason and Action in Kant develops Maria Borges’s initially shocking claim that we can learn something about the emotions from Kant. Since, as she argues, any adequate account of Kant’s moral psychology must include his views about the roles of different emotions in moral life, Borges’s book will be valuable to many.
*Patricia Kitcher, Roberta and William Campbell Professor of Humanities, Columbia University, USA*