Kant's Ethics: The Good, Freedom, and the Will

by John Silber

Overview

Kant’s Ethics: The Good, Freedom, and the Will is a systematic examination of Kant’s ethics that recognizes the central importance of the good in relation to duty as forming a unified whole, in accordance with Kant’s intent. The Enlightenment, by undermining the religious foundations of morality, prompted Kant to offer a new foundation for ethics based not on religion but on reason. The first chapter provides the context of Kant’s ethics and explains the criteria by which to select views that are authoritative among Kant’s variety of statements. With these criteria for interpretation in hand, the book attempts a systematic account of Kant’s ethics as he developed it over a period of more than 40 years. Kant’s Ethics includes an analysis of the tripartite nature of the will in its dynamic unity and the relation of the will to the good. An appendix, “Kant at Auschwitz,” briefly considers a serious problem for Kant’s political philosophy that follows from his insistence on obeying civil authority.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614510710
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	05/18/2012
Pages:	374
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Silber, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Table of Contents

Preface (Manfred Kühn) vii

Foreword ix

Introduction 1

Chapter I The Context Of Kant's Ethics 11

1 Kant's Conception Of Philosophy 11

2 Kant's Philosophical Method: Logical and Transcendental 20

3 The Chief Characteristics of Kant's Critical Thought 33

Chapter II The Copernican Revolution In Ethics: The Good Reexamined 46

1 The Primacy of the Moral Law in the Determination of the Good 46

2 The Heterogeneity of the Good 54

3 The Good as the Object of the Moral Law 61

Chapter III Kant's Analysis Of The Will 64

1 The Theoretical Background and Importance of the Religion 64

2 Freedom 69

3 The Human Will 78

4 The Contribution of the Religion to Ethics 114

Chapter IV The Moral Good And The Natural Good 116

1 Terminological Problems 116

2 The Intrinsic Goodness of Both the Natural Good and the Moral Good 119

3 Particular Natural Goods and the Natural Good 129

4 Particular Natural Goods as Extrinsic, Relational Goods 134

5 The Qualification of the Natural Good by the Moral Good 141

6 Summary 148

Chapter V The Highest Good As The Material Object Of Moral Volition 152

1 The Centrality of the Highest Good in Kant's Ethics 152

2 Perfection (the Moral Good) as a Component of the Highest Good 156

3 Happiness (the Natural Good) as a Component of the Highest Good 164

4 The Unity of Perfection and Happiness in the Highest Good 167

Chapter VI The Highest Good As Immanent And As Transcendent 173

1 The Highest Good as the Canon of Pure Reason 173

2 The Immanence of the Highest Good 184

3 The Transcendence of the Highest Good 192

4 The Constitutive Immanence and Regulative Transcendence of the Highest Good 197

Chapter VII The Moral Task: The Embodiment Of The Highest Good 203

1 The Moral Task as the Creation of Moral Schemata 203

2 The Symbolic Schematism of the Highest Good 211

Chapter VIII The Role Of Judgment In Kant's Procedural Formalism 225

1 The Procedure of Judgment in All Employments 225

2 The Procedures of Judgment in Ethics 231

3 The Procedural Formalism of Kant's Ethics 246

Chapter IX The Role Of Judgment In The Embodiment Of The Highest Good 261

1 Moral Feeling 261

2 The Cultivation of Moral Feeling 272

Chapter X Summary And Assessment 281

1 Kant's Attempt to Reconcile the Christian and Scientific Worldviews 281

2 The Heterogeneity of the Good 282

3 The Clarification of the Concept of Freedom 283

4 Kant's Response to Diderot's Demand for Moral Guidance 287

5 Kant's Absolute Concept of Freedom 290

6 Moral Incentive in Kant's Ethics 298

7 Ethical Orthodoxy in Religious Education 307

Appendix: Kant at Auschwitz 314

1 The Holocaust 314

2 Eichmann's Claim to be a Kantian 317

3 Absolute Obedience in Kant's Ethics 323

4 Devilishness as an Actual Mode of Freedom 329

5 Alternative Explanations of Moral Responsibility 335

Kant's Works And Their Abbreviations 343

Other translations of Kant's works 345

Bibliography 346

Acknowledgements 350

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

Kant’s Ethics: The Good, Freedom, and the Will is sui generis. Most scholars take the Grundlegung as the foundation of Kant’s ethics. But Silber locates the foundation in the second Critique. He clearly articulates Kant’s conception of the good and the moral will as the two principles of his ethics and organizes all Kant’s ethical writings on the basis of these two principles. This magnificent systematization is destined to stand for a long time as the most reliable guide for students of Kant’s ethics.”

Thomas K. Seung, Professor, University of Texas at Austin

“In this landmark study of Kant’s moral philosophy, Silber presents a uniquely coherent reconstruction of all important and sometimes seemingly disparate aspects of Kant’s ethical thought. … Rarely, if ever, have the complexity as well as the unity of Kant’s moral theory been presented in such a lucid manner. In sum, Silber’s book is a scholarly and intellectual achievement of the first order and a true apologia of Kant’s moral ethos.”

Klaus Brinkmann, Professor Emeritus, Boston University

From the Publisher