Emotions and the Categorical Authority of Morality

The Chapter argues that standard sentimentalist and rationalist theories fail to account for the categorical authority of moral reasons. This is because they take emotions to be either completely separable from or only contingently related to reason. An adequate explanation of moral authority requires a different philosophical treatment of the role of emotions, and of their relation to practical reason. From within a Kantian perspective, it is argued that the experience of moral emotions is constitutive of the exercise of practical reason. The categorical authority of moral reasons does not depend upon, but constitutively impliesmoral emotions.