Currently fashionable among critics of enlightenment thought is the charge that Kant's ethics fails to provide an adequate account of character and its formation in moral and political life. G. Felicitas Munzel challenges this reading of Kant's thought, claiming not only that Kant has a very rich notion of moral character, but also that it is a conception of systematic importance for his thought, linking the formal moral with the critical, aesthetic, anthropological, and biological aspects of his philosophy. The first book to focus on character formation in Kant's moral philosophy, it builds on important recent work on Kant's aesthetics and anthropology, and brings these to bear on moral issues. Munzel traces Kant's multifaceted definition of character through the broad range of his writings, and then explores the structure of character, its actual exercise in the world, and its cultivation. An outstanding work of original textual analysis and interpretation, Kant's Conception of Moral Character is a major contribution to Kant studies and moral philosophy in general.

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.

Although Kant was involved in the education debates of his time, it is widely held that in his mature philosophical writings he remained silent on the subject. In her groundbreaking Kant’s Conception of Pedagogy, G. Felicitas Munzel finds extant in Kant’s writings the so-called missing critical treatise on education. It appears in the Doctrines of Method with which he concludes each of his major works. In it, Kant identifies the fundamental principles for the cultivation of reason’s judgment when it comes to cognition, beauty, nature, and the exercise of morality while subject to the passions and inclinations that characterize the human experience. From her analysis, Munzel extrapolates principles for a cosmopolitan education that parallels the structure of Kant’s republican constitution for perpetual peace. With the formal principles in place, the argument concludes with a query of the material principles that would fulfill the formal conditions required for an education for freedom.

This book examines Immanuel Kant's impact on moral philosophy from his time to our own. Kant's moral philosophy can seem complicated, but at the most basic level it is driven by the simple idea that the greatest possible freedom for each combined with an equal degree of freedom for all is the fundamental principle of philosophy.

Kant’s omnipresence in contemporary cosmopolitan discourses contrasts with the fact that little is known about the historical origins and the systematic status of his cosmopolitan theory. This study argues that Kant’s cosmopolitanism should be understood as embedded and dynamic. Inspired by Rousseau, Kant developed a form of cosmopolitanism rooted in a modified form of republican patriotism. In contrast to static forms of cosmopolitanism, Kant conceived the tensions between embedded, local attachments and cosmopolitan obligations in dynamic terms. He posited duties to develop a cosmopolitan disposition (Gesinnung), to establish common laws or cosmopolitan institutions, and to found and promote legal, moral, and religious communities which reform themselves in a way that they can pass the test of cosmopolitan universality. This is the cornerstone of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, and the key concept is the vocation (Bestimmung) of the individual as well as of the human species. Since realizing or at least approaching this vocation is a long-term, arduous, and slow process, Kant turns to the pedagogical implications of this cosmopolitan project and spells them out in his later writings. This book uncovers Kant’s hidden theory of cosmopolitan education within the framework of his overall practical philosophy.

"A work of rare scope and power that grapples with the big questions: Is happiness the proper end of life, as the Greeks conceived it to be, or is life, as it appears since the early English novel, an endless trial?"--Adam Potkay

In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren damit den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

Originally published in 1972, The Development of Kant's Ethics is Keith Ward's exceptional analysis of the history of Kant's ideas on ethics and the emergence of Kantian ethics as a mature theory. Through a thorough overview of all of Kant's texts written between 1755 and 1804, Ward puts forth the argument that the critical literature surrounding Kantian ethics has underplayed Kant's concern with the role of happiness in relation to morality and the significance of the tradition of natural law for the development of Kantian ethics. Covering all of Kant's extant works from Nova Dilucidatio to Opus Postumum, Ward traces the progression of Kant's views from his early ideas on Rationalism to Moral Sense Theory and the development of Critical Philosophy, and finally to his later-life writings on the relationship between morality and faith. Through careful analysis of each of Kant's works, Ward details the scientific, philosophical, and theological ideas that influenced Kant—such as the works of Emanuel Swedenborg—and demonstrates the critical role these influences played in the development of Kantian ethics. Offering a rare and extraordinary historical view of some of Kant's most important contributions to philosophy, this is an invaluable resource for scholars engaged in questions on the origins and influences of Kant's work, and for students seeking a thorough understanding of Kant's historical and philosophical contexts.

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics.

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 recently have turned to the humanity formulation as the most theoretically central and promising principle of Kant's ethics. Nevertheless, despite the intuitive appeal and the increasingly recognized philosophical importance of the humanity formulation, it has received less attention than many other, less central, aspects of Kant's ethics. Richard Dean offers the most sustained and systematic examination of the humanity formulation to date. Dean argues that the 'rational nature' that must be treated as an end in itself is not a minimally rational nature, consisting of the power to set ends or the unrealized capacity to act morally, but instead is the more properly rational nature possessed by someone who gives priority to moral principles over any contrary impulses. This non-standard reading of the humanity formulation provides a firm theoretical foundation for deriving plausible approaches to particular moral issues - and, contrary to first impressions, does not impose moralistic demands to pass judgment on others' character. Dean's reading also enables progress on problems of interest to Kant scholars, such as reconstructing Kant's argument for accepting the humanity formulation as a basic moral principle, and allows for increased understanding of the relationship between Kant's ethics and supposedly Kantian ideas such as 'respect for autonomy'.