Understanding Kant S Ethics

A systematic guide to Kant's ethical work and the debates surrounding it, accessible to students and specialists alike.

Kant's ethical thought remains one of the most influential, yet notoriously challenging, systems in the history of philosophy. This volume provides a sympathetic but critical reconstruction of the main strands of Kant's ethics, focusing on the most commonly read of Kant's ethical works, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Part I outlines Kant's arguments in defense of his Categorical Imperative, as well as elaborating Kant's understanding of dignity and human freedom. Part II addresses the most common objections to Kant's ethics, including challenges to the Formula of Universal Law; Kant's controversial ethical stances on suicide, sex and marriage, and non-human animals; and the place of reason, sentiment, and happiness in Kant's ethics. For scholars and specialists alike, the volume offers a clear and accessible account of what Kantian morality both offers us and asks of us.

Kant and Applied Ethics makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new and interesting directions Clarifies Kant’s legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them

In many histories of modern ethics, Kant is supposed to have ushered in an anti-realist or constructivist turn by holding that unless we ourselves 'author' or lay down moral norms and values for ourselves, our autonomy as agents will be threatened. In this book, Robert Stern challenges the cogency of this 'argument from autonomy', and claims that Kant never subscribed to it. Rather, it is not value realism but the apparent obligatoriness of morality that really poses a challenge to our autonomy: how can this be accounted for without taking away our freedom? The debate the book focuses on therefore concerns whether this obligatoriness should be located in ourselves (Kant), in others (Hegel) or in God (Kierkegaard). Stern traces the historical dialectic that drove the development of these respective theories, and clearly and sympathetically considers their merits and disadvantages; he concludes by arguing that the choice between them remains open.

Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is one of the most important texts in the history of ethics. In it Kant searches for the supreme principle of morality and argues for a conception of the moral life that has made this work a continuing source of controversy and an object of reinterpretation for over two centuries. This new edition of Kant’s work provides a fresh translation that is uniquely faithful to the German original and more fully annotated than any previous translation. There are also four essays by well-known scholars that discuss Kant’s views and the philosophical issues raised by the Groundwork. J.B. Schneewind defends the continuing interest in Kantian ethics by examining its historical relation both to the ethical thought that preceded it and to its influence on the ethical theories that came after it; Marcia Baron sheds light on Kant’s famous views about moral motivation; and Shelly Kagan and Allen W. Wood advocate contrasting interpretations of Kantian ethics and its practical implications.

These works articulate the most fundamental principles of Kant’s ethical and political world-view. "What is Enlightenment?" (1784) and "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals" (1785) challenge all free people to think about the requirements for self-determination both in our individual lives and in our public and private institutions. Kant’s "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals" is dedicated to the proposition that all people can know what they need to know to be honest, good, wise, and virtuous. The purpose of Kant’s moral philosophy is to help us become aware of the principles that are already contained within us. Innocence and dependence must be replaced with wisdom and good will if we are to avoid being vulnerable and misguided. According to Kant, freedom of thought leads naturally to freedom of action. When that happens, governments begin to treat human beings, not as machines, but as persons with dignity. Immanuel Kant begins "Toward Lasting Peace" by contrasting the realism of practical politicians with the high-minded theories of philosophers who "dream their sweet dreams." His opening line provides a grim reminder that the only alternative to finding a way to avoid the war of each against all is the lasting peace of the graveyard. The advent of total war and the development of nuclear weapons in the twentieth century give Kant’s reflections an urgency he could not have anticipated. Kant published this work in 1795, during the aftermath of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The high hopes of the European Enlightenment had been dampened by the Reign of Terror in which tens of thousands of people died, and the perpetual cycle of war and temporary armistice seemed to be inescapable. Kant’s essay is best known as an early articulation of the idea of a league of nations that could bring "an end to all hostilities." Today The United Nations continues to pursue that dream, but lasting peace still seems to be wishful thinking. No modern philosopher is more important than Immanuel Kant. His works extend from epistemology and metaphysics to aesthetics, ethics, and political philosophy. His "Critical Philosophy" is developed in three major works: "The Critique of Pure Reason," "The Critique of Practical Reason," and "The Critique of Judgment." A German speaker, he was born in Prussia, an area that is now part of Poland. He never travelled more than 50 miles from his home in Königsberg, but his influence has since pervaded every aspect of Western culture.

This is the first book-length study in any language to examine in detail and critically assess the second part of Kant's ethics--an empirical, impure part, which determines how best to apply pure principles to the human situation. Drawing attention to Kant's under-explored impure ethics, this revealing investigation refutes the common and long-standing misperception that Kants ethics advocates empty formalism. Making detailed use of a variety of Kantian texts never before translated into English, author Robert B. Louden reassesses the strengths and weaknesses of Kantian ethics as a whole, once the second part is re-admitted to its rightful place within Kant's practical philosophy.

This book, sure to become a standard reference work, is a comprehensive, lucid, and systematic commentary on Kant's practical (or moral) philosophy. Kant is arguably the most important moral philosopher of the modern period; yet, prior to this area in a single volume. Using as nontechnical a language as possible, Professor Sullivan offers a detailed, authoritative account of Kant's moral philosophy - including his ethical theory, his philosophy of history, his political philosophy, his philosophy of religion, and his philosophy of education - and demonstrates the historical, Kantian origins of such important notions as â€~autonomy', â€~respect for persons', â€~rights', and â€~duties'. An invaluable resource, this book will be extremely useful to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and professional philosophers alike.