Kant and Rawls on the cultivation of virtue

Abstract

In ‘Two conceptions of virtue’, Thomas Hill reconstructs the conceptions of virtue, and of proper moral upbringing, found in Kant and Rawls. Here I offer some brief reflections on these conceptions of virtue and its cultivation. I argue that Kant’s conception of virtue is grounded in a mistaken conception of desire, and that this makes it difficult to account properly for the role of ‘sentimental education’ in a good moral upbringing. I then suggest that, in addition to the explicit conception of moral upbringing to which Hill attends, Rawls has an implicit conception of the cultivation of the virtue of justice. This conception is implicit in Rawls’ philosophical methodology, and it assigns a central and recognizably Hegelian role to reasoned philosophical reflection.