This 2005 volume provides an extensive translation of the notes and fragments that survived Kant's death in 1804. These include marginalia, lecture notes, and sketches and drafts for his published works. They are important as an indispensable resource for understanding Kant's intellectual development and published works, casting fresh light on Kant's conception of his own philosophical methods and his relations to his predecessors, as well as on central doctrines of his work such as the theory of space, time and categories, (...) the refutations of scepticism and metaphysical dogmatism, the theory of the value of freedom and the possibility of free will, the conception of God, the theory of beauty, and much more. (shrink)

Werner S. Pluhar's masterful rendering of Kant's major work on religion is meticulously annotated and presented here with a selected bibliography, glossary, and generous index. Stephen R. Palmquist's engaging Introduction provides historical background, discusses _Religion_ in the context of Kant's philosophical system, elucidates Kant's main arguments, and explores the implications and ongoing relevance of the work.

Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his contributions to aesthetics and social theory. Critics have always complained about the lack of a practical, political or ethical dimension to Adorno's philosophy. In this highly original contribution to the literature on Adorno, J. M. Bernstein offers the first attempt in any language to provide an account of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings. Bernstein relates Adorno's ethics to major trends in contemporary moral philosophy. He analyses the full range of Adorno's (...) major works, with a special focus on Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia and Negative Dialectics. In developing his account Bernstein lays particular stress on Adorno's contention that the event of Auschwitz demands a new categorical imperative. This book will be widely acknowledged as the standard work on Adorno's ethics and as such will interest professionals and students of philosophy, political theory, sociology, history of ideas, art history and music. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic examination of the place of religion within Kant's major writings. Kant is often thought to be highly reductionistic with regard to religion - as though religion simply provides the unsophisticated with colourful representations of moral lessons that reason alone could grasp. James DiCenso's rich and innovative discussion shows how Kant's theory of religion in fact emerges directly from his epistemology, ethics and political theory, and how it serves his larger political and ethical projects of restructuring (...) institutions and modifying political attitudes towards greater autonomy. It also illustrates the continuing relevance of Kant's ideas for addressing issues of religion and politics that remain pressing in the contemporary world, such as just laws, transparency in the public sphere and other ethical and political concerns. The book will be valuable for a wide range of readers who are interested in Kant's thought. (shrink)

In this book, Allen Wood investigates Kant's conception of ethical theory, using it to develop a viable approach to the rights and moral duties of human beings. By remaining closer to Kant's own view of the aims of ethics, Wood's understanding of Kantian ethics differs from the received 'constructivist' interpretation, especially on such matters as the ground and function of ethical principles, the nature of ethical reasoning and autonomy as the ground of ethics. Wood does not hesitate to criticize and (...) modify Kant's conclusions when they seem inconsistent with his basic principles or fail to make the best use of the resources Kantian principles make available. Of special interest are the book's treatment of such topics as freedom of the will, the state's role in securing economic justice, sexual morality, the justification of punishment, and the prohibition on lying. (shrink)

In this updated edition of his outstanding introduction to Kant, Paul Guyer uses Kant’s central conception of autonomy as the key to his thought. Beginning with a helpful overview of Kant’s life and times, Guyer introduces Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology, carefully explaining his arguments about the nature of space, time and experience in his most influential but difficult work, _The Critique of Pure Reason_. He offers an explanation and critique of Kant’s famous theory of transcendental idealism and shows how much (...) of Kant’s philosophy is independent of this controversial doctrine. He then examines Kant’s moral philosophy, his celebrated ‘categorical imperative’ and his theories of duty, freedom of will and political rights. This section of the work has been substantially revised to clarify the relation between Kant’s conceptions of "internal" and "external" freedom. In his treatments of Kant’s aesthetics and teleology, Guyer focuses on their relation to human freedom and happiness. Finally, he considers Kant’s view that the development of human autonomy is the only goal that we can conceive for both natural and human history. Including a chronology, glossary, chapter summaries and up-to-date further reading, _Kant, second edition _is an ideal introduction to this demanding yet pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, and essential reading for all students of philosophy. (shrink)

An apathetic life is not the sort of life that most of us would want for ourselves or believe that we have a duty to strive for. And yet Kant argues that we have a duty of apathy, a duty to strive to be without affects (Affecten) and passions (Leidenschaften). But is Kant’s claim that there is a duty of apathy really as problematic as it sounds? In arguing that it is not, this paper investigates in detail in Kant’s accounts (...) of affects and passions and defends Kant’s argument that we have a duty of apathy. This investigation reveals Kant’s nuanced view on the role that sensible motivating states play in moral agency and the development of a virtuous character. (shrink)

Published in 1785, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is one of the most powerful texts in the history of ethical thought. In this book, Immanuel Kant formulates and justifies a supreme principle of morality that issues universal and unconditional moral commands. These commands receive their normative force from the fact that rational agents autonomously impose the moral law upon themselves. As such, they are laws of freedom. This volume contains the first facing-page German-English edition of Kant's Groundwork. It (...) presents a new, authentic edition of the German text and a carefully revised version of Mary Gregor's acclaimed English translation, as well as editorial notes and a full bilingual index. It will be the edition of choice for any student or scholar who is not content with reading this central contribution to modern moral philosophy through the veil of English translation. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of the propensity to evil and its relation to Kant's claim that the human race is universally evil. Unlike most of its competitors, the interpretation presented here neither trivializes Kant's claims about the universal evil of humanity nor attributes a position to him that is incompatible with his repeated insistence that we are blameworthy for actions only when we could have acted differently. This interpretation also accounts for a number of otherwise bewildering claims in (...) the Religion and makes sense of the analogy Kant draws between the propensity to evil and addiction. (shrink)

Lecture notes taken by Kant's students of his university courses in ethics.

Agency and identity -- Necessitation -- Acts and actions -- Aristotle and Kant -- Agency and practical identity -- The metaphysics of normativity -- Constitutive standards -- The constitution of life -- In defense of teleology -- The paradox of self-constitution -- Formal and substantive principles of reason -- Formal versus substantive -- Testing versus weighing -- Maximizing and prudence -- Practical reason and the unity of the will -- The empiricist account of normativity -- The rationalist account of normativity (...) -- Kant on the hypothetical imperative -- Against particularistic willing -- Deciding and predicting -- Autonomy and efficacy -- The function of action -- The possibility of agency -- Non-rational action -- Action -- Attribution -- The psychology of action -- Expulsion from the garden : the transition to humanity -- Instinct, emotion, intelligence, and reason -- The parts of the soul -- Inside or outside -- Pull yourself together -- The constitutional model -- Models of the soul -- The city and the soul -- Platonic virtues -- Justice : substantive, procedural, and platonic -- Kant and the constitutional model -- Defective action -- The problem of bad action -- Being governed by the wrong law -- Or five bad constitutions -- Conceptions of evil -- Degrees of action -- Integrity and interaction -- Deciding to be bad -- The ordinary cases -- Dealing with the disunified -- Kant's theory of interaction -- My reasons -- Deciding to treat someone as an end in himself -- Interacting with yourself -- How to be a person -- What's left of me? (shrink)

This volume contains four versions of the lecture notes taken by Kant's students of his university courses in ethics given regularly over a period of some thirty years. The notes are very complete and expound not only Kant's views on ethics but many of his opinions on life and human nature. Much of this material has never before been translated into English. As with other volumes in the series, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes and a glossary of key (...) terms. (shrink)

Anthropology, History, and Education contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature. Some of these works, which were published over a thirty-nine year period between 1764 and 1803, have never before been translated into English. Kant's question 'What is the human being?' is approached indirectly in his famous works on metaphysics, epistemology, moral and legal philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion, but it is approached directly in his extensive but less well-known writings on physical and cultural anthropology, the (...) philosophy of history, and education which are gathered in the present volume. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question 'What is the human being?' should be philosophy's most fundamental concern, and Anthropology, History, and Education can be seen as effectively presenting his philosophy as a whole in a popular guise. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has been furnished (...) with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. (...) All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

The emphasis on duly in Kant's ethics is widely held to constitute a defect. Marcia W. Baron develops and assesses the criticism, which she sees as comprising two objections: that duty plays too large a role, leaving no room for the supererogatory, and that Kant places too much value on acting from duty. Clearly written and cogently argued, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology takes on the most philosophically intriguing objections to Kant's ethics and subjects them to a rigorous yet sympathetic (...) assessment. (shrink)

We all know what Kant means by autonomy: “the property of the will by which it is a law to itself ” , or, since any law must be universal, the condition of an agent who is “subject only to laws given by himself but still universal” . Or do we know what Kant means by autonomy? There are a number of questions here. First, Kant's initial definition of autonomy itself raises the question of why the property of the will (...) being a law to itself should be equivalent to its independence from any property of objects of volition. It is also natural to ask, how does autonomy as Kant conceives it relate to more familiar notions of freedom. For example, consider Locke's conception of freedom as the condition of a person “to think, or not to think; to move, or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind,” rather than according to the preference or direction of any other person. What is the relation between autonomy and this traditional conception of freedom as the liberty of an agent? And what is the relation of autonomy to the traditional conception of freedom of the will; that is, the condition that obtains, as G. E. (shrink)

With this volume, Werner Pluhar completes his work on Kant's three Critiques, an accomplishment unique among English language translators of Kant. At once accurate, fluent, and accessible, Pluhar's rendition of the Critique of Practical Reason meets the standards set in his widely respected translations of the Critique of Judgement (1987) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1996).

Kant proclaimed that all theodicies must fail in ?On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy?, but it is mysterious why he did so since he had developed a theodicy of his own during the critical period. In this paper, I offer an explanation of why Kant thought theodicies necessarily fail. In his theodicy, as well as in some of his works in ethics, Kant explained moral evil as resulting from unavoidable limitations in human beings. God could not create (...) finite beings without such limitations and so could not have created humans that were not prone to committing immoral acts. However, the work of Carl Christian Eberhard Schmid showed Kant that given his own beliefs about freedom and the nature of responsibility one could not account for moral evil in this way without tacitly denying that human beings were responsible for their actions. This result is significant not only because it explains an otherwise puzzling shift in Kant's philosophy of religion, but also because it shows that the theodicy essay provides powerful evidence that Kant's thinking about moral evil and freedom underwent fundamental shifts between early works such as the Groundwork and later works like the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Kant engaged with many of the fundamental questions in philosophy of religion: arguments for the existence of God, the soul, the problem of evil, and the relationship between moral belief and practice. _Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason_ is his major work on the subject. This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of _Religion_. In contrast to more reductive interpretations, as well as those that characterize _Religion_ as internally inconsistent, Lawrence R. Pasternack defends the (...) rich philosophical theology contained in each of _Religion_’s four parts, and shows how the doctrines of the "Pure Rational System of Religion" are eminently compatible with the essential principles of Transcendental Idealism. The book also presents and assesses: the philosophical background to Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason the ideas and arguments of the text the continuing importance of Kant’s work to philosophy of religion today. (shrink)

IntroductionIn November of 1785, Kant published a highly unsympathetic review of the second part of Johann Gottfried Herder's Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Herder had once been Kant's pupil, and had greatly admired his teacher, but the content of this review shows how profound the philosophical differences between them had by then become. A central area of dispute emerging from the review concerns the nature of happiness, and its place within the ‘destiny’ or ‘vocation’ of the (...) human race. Kant is responding, in particular, to a section of the Ideas entitled: ‘The happiness of human beings is everywhere an individual good; consequently, it is everywhere climatic and organic, a child of practice, tradition, and custom.’ Although Kant is not mentioned by name in this section, it clearly contains critical rejoinders, often quite harsh in tone, to aspects of his practical philosophy and philosophy of history, as Herder understands them. (shrink)

IntroductionIn November of 1785, Kant published a highly unsympathetic review of the second part of Johann Gottfried Herder'sIdeas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Herder had once been Kant's pupil, and had greatly admired his teacher, but the content of this review shows how profound the philosophical differences between them had by then become. A central area of dispute emerging from the review concerns the nature of happiness, and its place within the ‘destiny’ or ‘vocation’ of the human (...) race. Kant is responding, in particular, to a section of theIdeasentitled: ‘The happiness of human beings is everywhere an individual good; consequently, it is everywhere climatic and organic, a child of practice, tradition, and custom.’ Although Kant is not mentioned by name in this section, it clearly contains critical rejoinders, often quite harsh in tone, to aspects of his practical philosophy and philosophy of history, as Herder understands them. (shrink)