The moral law : groundwork of the metaphysic of morals

by Immanuel Kant

Other authorsH. J. Paton

Paper Book, 1991

Status

Available

Call number

170

Genres

Publication

London ; New York : Routledge, 1991

Description

Now in a new, affordable edition with updated notes, a superbly readable translation of Kant's classic work This work, one of the most important texts in the history of ethics, presents Immanuel Kant's conception of moral self-government based on pure reason. It has been a source of controversy and an object of reinterpretation for over two centuries. This new edition of Kant's work provides a fresh translation that is uniquely faithful to the German original and more fully annotated than any previous translation. The editor and translator, Allen Wood, has written a new introduction.

Media reviews

bergenbibliotek.no

Forlaget skriver om denne boka: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) betraktes som den største filosof i nyere tid. Han regnes som grunnleggeren av den tyske idealisme, og hans hovedbedrift er den kritiske filosofi, som går ut på å undersøke selve erkjenneisens mulighet og grenser. I denne boken

presenteres et fyldig utvalg av Kants moralfilosofiske skrifter. Siktepunktet har vært å gi et allsi-dig bilde av Kants etikk med hovedvekt på moralloven. Menneskets situasjon er en kampplass der fornuften ligger i en uforsonlig strid med de slette tilbøyeligheter i den menneskelige natur, men der mennesket likevel i sitt innerste vesen er fritt. Nøkkelen til Kants frihetsproblematikk finner vi i menneskets autonomi, hevder Eivind Storheim i bokens innledning, som er en innføring i Kants etikk. Skriftene som her er oversatt, er Grunnlegging til moralens metafysikk (1785), sentrale avsnitt fra første bok av Kritikk av den praktiske fornuft (1788) og forordet og innledningen til Etikken, annen del av Moralens metafysikk (1797). I tillegg er det oversatt et utsnitt av Kants skrifter i årene 1762-1765.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member KXF

Inasmuch as we can praise Kant's brilliance and analytical rigour, the Metaphysics of Morals falls patently flat if only because he is overextending the gains he has made in the first Critique to apply to the domain of ethics. Any movement from "is" to "ought" (i.e., the shift from ontology to

ethics) is going to be fraught with perils. I would say that, from the standpoint of Kant's entire oeuvre, this is his lowest point. That being said, no serious reader in philosophy can bypass this text as it is essential reading in the development of ethics in the transition from the Enlightenment to subsequent Romanticism.

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LibraryThing member jpsnow

I don't know--this just doesn't come together for me. Kant tries to develop a consistent system of morals in light of reason and will. He starts off though (p143) with "We assume, as a fundamental principle, that no organ for any purpose will be found in the physical constitution of an organized

being, except one which is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose." He is speaking about reason and will as much as any other organ. Another odd tautology: "Innocence is indeed a glorious thing, only it is a pity that it cannot maintain itself well and is easily seduced." He defines God (ok, so here is why the die-hard intellectuals like him) as "the idea of moral perfection." He does have a nugget of truth in his footnotes about why moral teachings fail -- because the teacher does usually not have a consistent grounding of their own and thus fails to present a coherent picture by example. He describes happiness as the one common end and a duty of practical reason. Ends are valued over means and the "one categorical imperative" is "Act only on a maxim by which you can will that it, at the same time, should become a general law." His conclusion of a few paragraphs does summarize everything and is perhaps the first clearly conveyed information. However, much of his work is an attack on straightforward reason.

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LibraryThing member michaelbartley

Kant is very hard to read, at least for me, however when reading him you discover a first rate mind, that looks very deeply into the human condition. In this book Kant looks for ground to build a system of moral and ethics on. While it has flaws, for its time his conclusions are breath taking.

LibraryThing member drbrand

So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case at the same time as an end, never as a means only.

A virtuosic display of intellect as is typical of Kant. He teeters on the verge of mysticism sometimes in his adulation of reason and desire to strip

inclination and the empirical world from morality. The problem is that it results in a pure morality that rests on an assumption both of free will and unknowable noumena (and yet somehow it affects the sensible world?). I don't dare say I understand the Groundwork enough to truly address its plausibility, but I urge anyone interested in moral realism and ethical theory to take the time to process his ideas. This is the second translation I've dealt with, and its impeccable. I can't vouch for the consistency of the terminology because my Kantian German is zero, but it's highly readable and has a number of helpful appendices.

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