In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant claims that “the first command” of all self-regarding duties is to know our “heart.” Kant ostensibly identifies our heart with our moral disposition. Strangely, this appears to be precisely the sort of knowledge that, elsewhere, Kant claims is epistemically inaccessible to us. While the more sophisticated attempts to resolve this difficulty succeed in situating an injunction to know the quality of one’s disposition within a Kantian epistemic framework, no account is wholly successful in explaining why Kant takes self-knowledge to be a necessary condition of virtue. To make sense of the priority Kant assigns to the pursuit of self-knowledge, I argue that it is essential to understand the role of what has been called “generic” self-knowledge in Kant’s moral philosophy. I proceed to defend the place Kant grants moral self-knowledge in his moral philosophy, primarily by developing a Kantian account of such “generic” self-knowledge.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis, MO, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-274).

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Moral virtues need intellectual virtues. I support this claims by (1) proposing a response in terms of intellectual virtues and other psychological factors to situationalist critiques against moral virtue, (2) arguing that intellectual virtues must assess moral contexts for proper manifestation of moral virtue, and (3) showing that interrelations between moral and intellectual virtues deem them inextricable in moral behavior. These arguments--(1), (2), and (3), respectivelyare designed to show the function, the prescriptive advantage and the descriptive accuracy of intellectual virtues in virtue theory. Further, I argue that supplementing virtue theory with intellectual virtues yields more subtle characterological assessments of agents in moral action. Finally, I demonstrate the function of intellectual virtues to fill the theoretical gap revealed by the problem of moral luck.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 1992. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-143).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis, MO, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-274).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 209-212).

Thesis (S.T.D.)--Catholic University of America. / Vita: leaf at end. Bibliography: p. 128-133.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-98).

Thesis (Ph.D. Philosophy)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-272) Also available via the World Wide Web.