Theoretical exploration of virtue's pleasantness in finite agents through a conflict model, highlighting implications for ethical understanding.
This paper examines the pleasant state of virtue in Kantian eudaimonism. I investigate how Kantian virtue can be eudaimonistic for finite agents, for whom conflict is never eliminated. I argue that the pleasant dimension of virtue is realized not through harmony between reason and sensibility but as a pleasant state that is structurally dependent on a negative sensible moment of displeasure for finite agents. Drawing on Kant’s account of rational feelings, I show how virtue’s pleasantness does not erase conflict but is instead intelligible within a non-harmonizing conflict model of Kantian eudaimonism – one that finite agents inevitably face.
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Hayate Shimizu (2026) studied this question.
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