Kant on Despondent Moral Failure

Abstract

Typically, Kant describes maxims that violate the moral law as engaging in a kind of comparative judgement: the person who makes a false promise judges it best - at least subjectively - to deceive her friend. I argue that this is not the only possible account of moral failure for Kant. In particular, when we examine maxims of so-called despondency (Verzagtheit) we find that some maxims are resistant to comparative judgement. I argue that this is true for at least two reasons: first, the despondent agent has a maxim to avoid suffering at all costs; second, this anxious preoccupation with suffering makes the despondent agent prone to failures associated with the imagination and its role in creating an ideal of happiness.