Immanuel Kant Thomas Kingsmill Abbott Tr Popular Books

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Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785; German: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; also known as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and the first of his trilogy of major works on ethics alongside the Critique of Practical Reason and The Metaphysics of Morals. It remains one of the most influential in the field. Kant conceives his investigation as a work of foundational ethics—one that clears the ground for future research by explaining the core concepts and principles of moral theory, and showing that they are normative for rational agents. Kant proposes to lay bare the fundamental principle of morality and show that it applies to us. Central to the work is the role of what Kant refers to as the categorical imperative, which states that one must act only according to maxims which one could will to become a universal law. Kant argues that the rightness of an action is determined by the principle that a person chooses to act upon. This stands in stark contrast to the moral sense theories and teleological moral theories that dominated moral philosophy at the time of Kant's career. The Groundwork is broken into a preface, followed by three sections. Kant begins from common-sense moral reason and shows by analysis the supreme moral law that must be its principle. He then argues that the supreme moral law in fact obligates us. The book is famously difficult, and it is partly because of this that Kant later, in 1788, decided to publish the Critique of Practical Reason. Preface In the preface to the Groundwork, motivating the need for pure moral philosophy, Kant makes some preliminary remarks to situate his project and explain his method of investigation. Kant opens the preface with an affirmation of the Ancient Greek idea of a threefold division of philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics. Logic is purely formal—it deals only with the form of thought itself, not with any particular objects. Physics and ethics, on the other hand, deal with particular objects: physics is concerned with the laws of nature, ethics with the laws of freedom. Additionally, logic is an a priori discipline, i.e., logical truths do not depend on any particular experience for their justification. By contrast, physics and ethics are mixed disciplines, containing empirical and non-empirical parts. The empirical part of physics deals with contingently true phenomena, like what kind of physical entities there are and the relations in which they stand; the non-empirical part deals with fundamental concepts like space, time, and matter. Similarly, ethics contains an empirical part, which deals with the question of what—given the contingencies of human nature—tends to promote human welfare, and a non-empirical part, which is concerned with an a priori investigation into the nature and substance of morality. Because it is a priori, Kant calls this latter, non-empirical part of ethics metaphysics of morals. It corresponds to the non-empirical part of physics, which Kant calls metaphysics of nature. Metaphysics of morals Kant proceeds to motivate the need for the special sort of inquiry he calls a metaphysics of morals: “That there must be such a philosophy is evident from the common idea of duty and of moral laws.” The moral law must “carry with it absolute necessity.” The content and the bindingness of the moral law, in other words, do not vary according to the particularities of agents or their circumstances. Given that the moral law, if it exists, is universal and necessary, the only appropriate means to investigate it is through a priori rational reflection. Thus, a correct theoretical understanding of morality requires a metaphysics of morals. Kant believes that, until we have completed this sort of investigation, “morals themselves are liable to all kinds of corruption” because the “guide and supreme norm for correctly estimating them are missing.” A fully specified account of the moral law will guard against the errors and rationalization to which human moral reasoning is prone. The search for the supreme principle of morality—the antidote to confusion in the moral sphere—will occupy Kant for the first two chapters of the Groundwork. Pure ethics In essence, Kant's remarks in the preface prepare the reader for the thrust of the ideas he goes on to develop in the Groundwork. The purpose of the Groundwork is to prepare a foundation for moral theory. Because Kant believes that any fact that is grounded in empirical knowledge must be contingent, he can only derive the necessity that the moral law requires from a priori reasoning. It is with this significance of necessity in mind that the Groundwork attempts to establish a pure (a priori) ethics. Such an ethics explains the possibility of a moral law and locates what Kant calls the supreme principle of morality. The aim of the following sections of the Groundwork is to explain what the moral law would have to be like if it existed and to show that, in fact, it exists and is authoritative for us. Section One In section one, Kant argues from common-sense morality to the supreme principle of morality, which he calls the categorical imperative. Kant thinks that uncontroversial premises from our shared common-sense morality, and analysis of common sense concepts such as ‘the good’, ‘duty’, and ‘moral worth’, will yield the supreme principle of morality (i.e., the categorical imperative). Kant's discussion in section one can be roughly divided into four parts: the good will; the teleological argument; the three propositions regarding duty; and the categorical imperative. The Good Will Kant thinks that, with the exception of the good will, all goods are qualified. By qualified, Kant means that those goods are good insofar as they presuppose or derive their goodness from something else. For example, wealth can be extremely good if it is used for human welfare, but it can be disastrous if a corrupt mind is behind it. In a similar vein, we often desire intelligence and take it to be good, but we certainly would not take the intelligence of an evil genius to be good. The good will, by contrast, is good in itself. Kant writes, “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself.” The precise nature of the good will is subject to scholarly debate. The Teleological Argument Kant believes that a teleological argument may be given to demonstrate that the “true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good.” As with other teleological arguments, such as the case with that for the existence of God, Kant's teleological argument is motivated by an appeal to a belief or sense that the whole universe, or parts of it, serve some greater telos, or end/purpose.... Discover the Immanuel Kant Thomas Kingsmill Abbott Tr popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Immanuel Kant Thomas Kingsmill Abbott Tr books.