Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words its aim is to search for and establish the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative. The centerpiece of the Groundwork is Kant's most famous proposition, the Categorical Imperative. While this is often equated with the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), the Categorical Imperative argues for a more universal set of moral action - for example, if one does not mind being lied to, then lying does not become a problem, according to the Golden Rule, but for Kant, this would be unacceptable as it is a violation of the rational principles of what morals are. Kant proceeds to look at issues of law, duty, free will and the good will, and autonomy of action. Kant argues strongly for the need for philosophy to guard against whim, taste and personal desire from becoming normative agents in the way we construct the moral universe. He argue for objective principles to govern the will, and categorizes these as either hypothetical or categorical. Kant also discusses the formulation of universal law and the way in which rational agents should formulate and view this kind of law.

Kant, Immanuel: - Immanuel Kant ( 22 April 1724 - 12 February 1804) was an influential German philosopher[23] in the Age of Enlightenment. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time, and causation are mere sensibilities; things-in-themselves exist, but their nature is unknowable.[24][25] In his view, the mind shapes and structures experience, with all human experience sharing certain structural features. In one of his major works, the Critique of Pure Reason (1781; second edition 1787), [26] he drew a parallel to the Copernican revolution in his proposition that worldly objects can be intuited a priori ('beforehand'), and that intuition is therefore independent from objective reality.[b] Kant believed that reason is also the source of morality, and that aesthetics arise from a faculty of disinterested judgment. Kant's views continue to have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields of epistemology, ethics, political theory, and post-modern aesthetics. He attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human experience and to move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He wanted to put an end to what he saw as an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, while resisting the skepticism of thinkers such as David Hume. He regarded himself as showing the way past the impasse between rationalists and empiricists, [28] and is widely held to have synthesized both traditions in his thought.[29] Kant was an exponent of the idea that perpetual peace could be secured through universal democracy and international cooperation. He believed that this would be the eventual outcome of universal history, although it is not rationally planned.[30] The nature of Kant's religious ideas continues to be the subject of philosophical dispute, with viewpoints ranging from the impression that he was an initial advocate of atheism who at some point developed an ontological argument for God, to more critical treatments epitomized by Schopenhauer, who criticized the imperative form of Kantian ethics as theological morals and the Mosaic Decalogue in disguise, [31] and Nietzsche, who claimed that Kant had theologian blood[32] and was merely a sophisticated apologist for traditional Christian faith

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781492204152
ISBN 10	1492204153
Title	Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Author	Immanuel Kant
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Year published	2013-08-20
Number of pages	94
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.