Duty and Grace

Abstract

This paper discusses via Kant’s ethics of duty the relationship between reason and emotions. The fact that for Kant, sentiments and emotions should not play a role in the production the moral law has caused many people to think that Kantian moral theory does not leave room for emotions, and even the idea that a moral agent must not have emotions at all. The criticisms and views of one of those people, the great German poet and thinker Friedrich Schiller, will be discussed to find an answer to the question whether Kantian moral theory leaves room for emotions or not.