Download or read book The Moral Law written by Immanuel Kant and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant'sMoral Law: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Moralsranks with Plato'sRepublicand Aristotle'sEthicsas one of the most important works of moral philosophy ever written. InMoral Law,Kant argues that a human action is only morally good if it is done from a sense of duty, and that a duty is a formal principle based not on self-interest or from a consideration of what results might follow. From this he derived his famous and controversial maxim, the categorical imperative: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature." H. J. Paton's translation remains the standard in English for this work. It retains all of Kant's liveliness of mind, suppressed intellectual excitement, moral earnestness, and pleasure in words. The commentary and detailed analysis that Paton provides is an invaluable and necessary guide for the student and general reader.

Download or read book Kant s System of Moral Law written by Zachary Biondi and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals has a surprisingly simple aim: to identify the Categorical Imperative, the single principle of morality. Yet Kant never directly says what the principle is. It is a scandal of Kant scholarship. One statement is the Formula of Universal Law: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Shortly after, in a different formulation of the principle (called the Formula of Humanity), Kant says that you should "act in such a way that you treat humanity [...] always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means." The book includes as many as five or six other formulations, all of which are somehow the Categorical Imperative. There is a natural puzzle: given that Kant presents his single moral principle in a variety of formulations, how do they all relate to each other? Any reading of the text demands an answer to this question. Literature tends to revolve around issues of equivalence and priority among formulations. The majority of scholars, including John Rawls, Paul Guyer, and Onora O'Neill, believe that the formulations are equivalent: the formulations either yield the same results when applied to cases or can be derived from each other. Scholars also wonder whether some formulations are more important than others. For example, is the Formula of Universal Law the Categorical Imperative, while the others are subsidiary? Fortunately, in some neglected and abstract passages, Kant discusses the relation among the formulas directly. In the Groundwork (p. 4:436), he says that the Formula of Universal Law highlights 1) the form of the law, 2) the Formula of Humanity the matter, and 3) most enigmatically, that there is a "complete determination" of laws in a possible kingdom of ends. Kant is invoking terms from the Critique of Pure Reason, an earlier work not directly about ethics. My dissertation uses a new reading of the terms in the Critique of Pure Reason to inform a new reading of the Categorical Imperative and Groundwork as a whole. On this approach, issues like equivalence and priority fall away and new, more productive readings of Kant's argument emerge. In my view, the best way to solve an enduring problem in the scholarship on Kant's ethics is to look outside his ethics. Chapter One uses Kant's theory of matter and form to frame a new reading of the first two formulas in the Groundwork, the Formula of Universal Law and the Formula of Humanity. The chapter begins by discussing the influence of Aristotelian hylomorphism on Kant's language, epistemology, and metaphysics. I look at the first Critique and Lectures to develop Kant's picture of form and matter. With this picture, it becomes clear that the first two formulations are about two distinct but inseparable concepts. When Kant talks about universality, he is highlighting the formal or structural features of the Categorical Imperative. It is a law-universal, general, and necessary. 'Do not lie' is a principle that holds for everyone. The formulation about humanity as an "end" supplies its matter or content. The law is about humanity-a rational nature with value or worth. Lying involves communication among rational beings. My reading has implications for freedom or autonomy, the concept at the core of Kant's philosophy. Hylomorphic language indicates that the matter and form combine. An autonomous will is one that wills universal laws that have itself as content. A good will, then, has a hylomorphic structure: it is a combination of matter and form. Kant uses the relation between the first two formulas to make this point. Understanding the relation among the formulations turns out to be the same as understanding how we are free. Chapters Two and Three analyze Kant's claims about complete determination and possibility, the third point in the 4:436 passage. Chapter Two focuses entirely on theoretical philosophy. Kant discusses complete determination in the Ideal of Pure Reason, the last chapter of the Transcendental Dialectic in the Critique of Pure Reason. He makes an intricate and compressed argument that possibility is grounded in reality, specifically God as a rational ideal. By considering Kant's theories of modality, reason, and concepts, I show that the primary function of complete determination is to lead to this ideal. For Kant, the faculty of reason assumes that all concepts are derived from some maximally real and completely determined being, the titular ideal of pure reason. The chapter provides a new reading of the argument, including a discussion of Kant's mention of refinement (läuterung), which has gone overlooked by scholars. It also traces the development of the argument from pre-critical works like The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God and Negative Magnitudes. Chapter Three, the culmination of the dissertation, applies the reading of the Ideal of Pure Reason to the Groundwork. It begins with a treatment of Kant's theory of reason and concept of system. With a third formula of the moral law, the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends, Kant is showing that practical reason utilizes systematic thinking. Morality is not a list of isolated principles but includes interrelation and interdependence among them. The Formula of the Kingdom of Ends and reference to complete determination emphasize this. Chapter Three provides a reading of the Kingdom of Ends, why systematicity is essential to it, and what a complete determination of moral laws would be. For Kant, practical reason assumes that all possible moral principles are derived from a single ideal that supplies their content. The reference to complete determination leads the reader to see that a version of the argument from the first Critique Ideal of Pure Reason is assumed in the Groundwork. The chapter details the argument and explores how it solves a longstanding problem in Kant's scholarship, namely, the source of the positive content of the law. The answer is an ideal that makes systematic practical cognition possible. The central claim of the dissertation is that the relation among the formulas is best understood through the theories of hylomorphism, modality, and reason implicit throughout the Groundwork. A possible law, like 'Do not lie', is a type of hylomorphic composite: the matter of rational nature under the form of universality. But reason treats morality as necessarily systematic. The individual laws are a plurality that is unified under the form of system. The Groundwork uses a sequence of formulas to identify the moral law as a single system. And if the law is a complete system, it cannot be stated in a single formula. The reading that the Categorical Imperative and Groundwork must be understood as parts of Kant's philosophical system provides responses to many objections to his moral theory. It also portrays the theory as a commentary on figures in the history of philosophy-from Aristotle and Plato to Leibniz and Rousseau. In the end, this is how Kant wanted his system to be read: as one part of a larger whole.

Download or read book Kant on Laws written by Eric Watkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a unified account of the notion of law - both natural and moral - in Kant's abstract and empirical philosophy.

Download or read book Kant and Applied Ethics written by Matthew C. Altman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals written by Immanuel Kant and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: [T]he present groundwork is nothing more than the identification and vindication of the supreme principle of morality.' In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Immanuel Kant makes clear his two central intentions: first, to uncover the principle that underpins morality, and secondly to defend its applicability to human beings. The result is one of the most significant texts in the history of ethics, and a masterpiece of Enlightenment thinking. Kant argues that moral law tells us to act only in ways that others could also act, thereby treating them as ends in themselves and not merely as means. Kant contends that despite apparent threats to our freedom from science, and to ethics from our self-interest, we can nonetheless take ourselves to be free rational agents, who as such have a motivation to act on this moral law, and thus the ability to act as moral beings. One of the most studied works of moral philosophy, this new translation by Robert Stern, Joe Saunders, and Christopher Bennett illuminates this famous text for modern readers.

Download or read book Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals written by Immanuel Kant and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-04-04 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is morally permissible, and what is morally obligatory? These questions form the core of a vast amount of philosophical reasoning. In his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant developed a basis for the answers. In this landmark work, the German philosopher asks what sort of maxim might function as a guide to appropriate action under a given set of circumstances. By universalizing such a maxim, would morally permissible behavior not become clear? Suppose that everyone were to behave in accordance with this maxim. If everyone followed the maxim in the same way without harm to civilized culture, then the behavior would be morally permissible. But what if no one followed the maxim? Would civilization thereby be at risk? In such a case, the behavior would be morally obligatory. Kant's test, known as the Categorical Imperative, is a logical proof of the Golden Rule and the centerpiece of this work. It constitutes his best-known contribution to ethical discussion, and a familiarity with his reasoning in this book is essential to students of philosophy, religion, and history.

Download or read book The Moral Law written by Immanuel Kant and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kant on Freedom Law and Happiness written by Paul Guyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-02-13 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant is often portrayed as the author of a rigid system of ethics in which adherence to a formal and universal principle of morality - the famous categorical imperative - is an end itself, and any concern for human goals and happiness a strictly secondary and subordinate matter. Such a theory seems to suit perfectly rational beings but not human beings. The twelve essays in this collection by one of the world's preeminent Kant scholars argue for a radically different account of Kant's ethics. They explore an interpretation of the moral philosophy according to which freedom is the fundamental end of human action, but an end that can only be preserved and promoted by adherence to moral law. By radically revising the traditional interpretation of Kant's moral and political philosophy and by showing how Kant's coherent liberalism can guide us in current debates, Paul Guyer will find an audience across moral and political philosophy, intellectual history, and political science.

Download or read book Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals written by Immanuel Kant and published by Phoemixx Classics Ebooks. This book was released on 2021-10-14 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals Immanuel Kant - How should human beings behave toward one another? How must we behave? One of the most influential thinkers of the Western civilization, a man who profoundly shaped the mind-set of the modern world, Immanuel Kant developed his "Categorical Imperative" as a philosophical proof of the "Golden Rule," and in this 1873 essay, he elaborates upon and defends his understanding of the logical underpinnings of all human morality. Essential reading for anyone seeking an appreciation of modern philosophy, this is an intriguing and provocative work exploring the intersection of morality and reason. German metaphysician IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804) served as a librarian of the Royal Library, a prestigious government position, and as a professor at Knigsberg University. His other works include Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (1764), Critique of Pure Reason (1781), and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785).

Download or read book Understanding Kant s Ethics written by Michael Cholbi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-17 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic guide to Kant's ethical work and the debates surrounding it, accessible to students and specialists alike.

Download or read book How Hume and Kant Reconstruct Natural Law written by Kenneth R. Westphal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenneth R. Westphal presents an original interpretation of Hume's and Kant's moral philosophies, the differences between which are prominent in current philosophical accounts. Westphal argues that focussing on these differences, however, occludes a decisive, shared achievement: a distinctive constructivist method to identify basic moral principles and to justify their strict objectivity, without invoking moral realism nor moral anti-realism or irrealism. Their constructivism is based on Hume's key insight that 'though the laws of justice are artificial, they are not arbitrary'. Arbitrariness in basic moral principles is avoided by starting with fundamental problems of social coördination which concern outward behaviour and physiological needs; basic principles of justice are artificial because solving those problems does not require appeal to moral realism (nor to moral anti-realism). Instead, moral cognitivism is preserved by identifying sufficient justifying reasons, which can be addressed to all parties, for the minimum sufficient legitimate principles and institutions required to provide and protect basic forms of social coördination (including verbal behaviour). Hume first develops this kind of constructivism for basic property rights and for government. Kant greatly refines Hume's construction of justice within his 'metaphysical principles of justice', whilst preserving the core model of Hume's innovative constructivism. Hume's and Kant's constructivism avoids the conventionalist and relativist tendencies latent if not explicit in contemporary forms of moral constructivism.

Download or read book The Value of Humanity in Kant s Moral Theory written by Richard Dean and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-11 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The humanity formulation of Kant's Categorical Imperative demands that we treat humanity as an end in itself. Because this principle resonates with currently influential ideals of human rights and dignity, contemporary readers often find it compelling, even if the rest of Kant's moral philosophy leaves them cold. Moreover, some prominent specialists in Kant's ethics have recently turned to the humanity formulation as the most theoretically central and promising principle of Kant'sethics. Nevertheless, it has received less attention than many other aspects of Kant's ethics. Richard Dean offers the most sustained and systematic examination of the humanity formulation to date. He presents an original analysis of what it means to treat humanity as an end in itself, and examinesthe implications both for Kant scholarship and for practical guidance on specific moral issues.

Download or read book Moral Law written by Immanuel Kant and published by Barnes & Noble. This book was released on 1978 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kant's "Moral Law: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" ranks with Plato's "Republic" and Aristotle's "Ethics" as one of the most important works of moral philosophy ever written. In "Moral Law," Kant argues that a human action is only morally good if it is done from a sense of duty, and that a duty is a formal principle based not on self-interest or from a consideration of what results might follow. From this he derived his famous and controversial maxim, the categorical imperative: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature." H. J. Paton's translation remains the standard in English for this work. It retains all of Kant's liveliness of mind, suppressed intellectual excitement, moral earnestness, and pleasure in words. The commentary and detailed analysis that Paton provides is an invaluable and necessary guide for the student and general reader.

Download or read book Kant s System of Nature and Freedom written by Paul Guyer and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2005-04-21 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of systematicity is central to Immanuel Kant's conception of scientific knowledge and to his practical philosophy. But Kant also held that we must be able to unite the separate systems of nature and freedom into a single system: on the one hand, morality itself requires that we be able to see its commands and goals as realizable within nature, while on the other hand our experience of nature itself leads us to see it as a system with the goal of human moral development. The essays in this volume, including two published here for the first time, explore various aspects of Kant's conception of the system of nature, the system of freedom, and the system of nature and freedom. The essays in the first part explore the systematicity of concepts and laws as the ultimate goal of natural science, consider the implications of Kant's account of our experience of organisms for the goal of the unity of science, and examine Kant's attempts to prove that the existence of an ether is a necessary condition for a physical system of nature. The essays in the second part explore Kant's view that morality requires a systematic union of persons as ends in themselves and of the ends that persons set for themselves, and examine the system of duties and obligations necessary to realize such a systematic union of persons and their ends. These essays thus examine both the general foundations of Kant's moral philosophy and his final account of the duties of right or justice and of ethics or virtue in his late work, the Metaphysics of Morals. The essays in the third part examine Kant's attempt, in the last of his three great critiques, the Critique of the Power of Judgment., to unify the systems of nature and freedom through a radical transformation of traditional teleology as a theory of the creation of organic nature into an account of our experience of organic nature and of nature as a whole.

Download or read book Kant The Metaphysics of Morals written by Immanuel Kant and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers key philosophical, interpretive and textual issues, including an extensive further reading essay and translation notes.

Download or read book Kant s Foundations of Ethics written by Immanuel Kant and published by Agora Publications, Inc.. This book was released on 1995 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two works included in this volume articulate the most fundamental principles of Kant's ethical world view. "What Is Enlightenment?" (1784) & "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals" (1785) were written in the period between the American Revolution & the French Revolution. Taken together they challenge all free people to think about the requirements for self-determination both in our individual lives & in our public & private institutions.

Download or read book Creating the Kingdom of Ends written by Christine M. Korsgaard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-28 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christine Korsgaard has become one of the leading interpreters of Kant's moral philosophy. She is identified with a small group of philosophers who are intent on producing a version of Kant's moral philosophy that is at once sensitive to its historical roots while revealing its particular relevance to contemporary problems. She rejects the traditional picture of Kant's ethics as a cold vision of the moral life which emphasises duty at the expense of love and value. Rather, Kant's work is seen as providing a resource for addressing not only the metaphysics of morals, but also for tackling practical questions about personal relations, politics, and everyday human interaction. This collection contains some of the finest current work on Kant's ethics and will command the attention of all those involved in teaching and studying moral theory.