Hugur - 01.01.2012, Blaðsíða 93

Vilji og skynsemi 93
sciences of mind 1815–1879. The Nineteenth Century. Routledge History of Philosophy.
VII. bindi (bls. 297–356). London: Routledge.
Spencer, Herbert. 1855. Principles of Psychology. London: Longman, Green, Brown,
Longmans. (Hér er vísað til rafbókarútgáfu Liberty Fund, sem má m.a. nálgast sem
pdf skjal á vefslóðinni: http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1394.)
Spencer, Herbert. 1891. The Ethics of Kant. Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative.
Library Edition, containing Seven Essays not before republished, and various other
Additions. III. bindi (bls. 108–121). London: Williams and Norgate. (Hér er vísað
til rafbókarútgáfu Liberty Fund, sem má m.a. nálgast sem pdf skjal á vefslóðinni:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/)
Spencer, Herbert. 1897. First Principles. 4. útgáfa. New York: D. Appleton and Comp-
any.
Skirbekk, Gunnar og Nils Gilje. 1999. Heimspekisaga. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.
Vilhjálmur Árnason. 2008. Farsælt líf, réttlátt samfélag – kenningar í siðfræði. Reykjavík:
Heimskringla. Háskólaforlag Máls og menningar.
Þorsteinn Gylfason. 2006. Ætti sálarfræði að vera til? Sál og mál (bls. 23–56). Ritstj.
Hrafn Ásgeirsson. Reykjavík: Heimskringla. Háskólaforlag Máls og menningar.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 2004. Reid on Common Sense. The Cambridge Companion to
Thomas Reid (bls. 77–100). Ritstj. Terence Cuneo og René Van Woudenberg. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Abstract
Will and reason: Spencer’s critique of Kantian ethics
Through an examination of Herbert Spencer’s critique of Kantian ethics, which
he based on a limited reading of Kant’s Grundlegung zur Metaphysic der Sitten
(1785) and published in the article “The Ethics of Kant” (1888), attention is drawn
to the different conceptions of “will” that underlies Kant’s and Spencer’s ethical
theories. A closer study of Kant’s formulation of the human will, especially in the
Grundlegung, is contrasted with Spencer’s treatment of the subject in The Principles
of Psychology (1855). What emerges are two diametrically opposed positions that
on the one hand regard the human will as unconditionally free and autonomous
from a metaphysical standpoint in the case of Kant, and on the other hand as
naturally and psychologically conditioned, and to a great extent determined in
the case of Spencer. Despite the clear and distinct differences between them,
both with regard to the apparently diametrically opposed philosophical approach
they employ and the conclusions they reach, they do share an important common
ground: Both treat the human will as inexorably connected to human reason.
Building on this conclusion it is possible to shed some light on the developing
relationship between philosophy and psychology in the nineteenth century and
the questionable effects that a rigid understanding of this relationship had on
philosophical traditions in the twentieth century.