Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness

by Paul Guyer

• ISBN13: 9780521654210
• ISBN10: 0521654211
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-02-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Note on Translations and Citations	xi
Introduction	1	(16)
Part I Origins
Mendelssohn and Kant: One Source of the Critical Philosophy	17	(43)
The Unity of Reason: Pure Reason as Practical Reason in Kant's Early Conception of the Transcendental Dialectic	60	(36)
Freedom as the Inner Value of the World	96	(33)
Part II Principles
Kant's Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom	129	(43)
The Possibility of the Categorical Imperative	172	(35)
The Strategy of Kant's Groundwork	207	(28)
Part III Duties
Kantian Foundations for Liberalism	235	(27)
Life, Liberty, and Property: Rawls and Kant	262	(25)
Moral Worth, Virtue, and Merit	287	(46)
Part IV Hopes
From a Practical Point of View: Kant's Conception of a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason	333	(39)
Nature, Freedom, and Happiness: The Third Proposition of Kant's Idea for a Universal History	372	(36)
Nature, Morality and the Possibility of Peace	408	(27)
Index	435