Oliver A. Johnson

Andrews Reath

This unique collection includes writings of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the Western tradition, from Plato to John Rawls. Chronologically organized to illuminate each writer's role in the history of ethics, the book's comprehensive coverage fosters a firm grasp of ideas in the history of Western moral philosophy, as well as contemporary moral philosophy. Selections from the contemporary period are designed to highlight the continuity between the history of moral philosophy and contemporary moral theory. The collection includes an introduction to ethical theory, introductions to each of the major historical periods, brief introductions to each selection, and new study tools to help focus students' reading. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Ethics: Selections from Classic and Contemporary Writers

Andrews Reath presents a selection of his best essays on various features of Kant's moral psychology and moral theory, with particular emphasis on his conception of rational agency and his conception of autonomy. The opening essays explore different elements of Kant's views about motivation, including his account of respect for morality as the distinctive moral motive and his view of the principle of happiness as a representation of the shared structure of non-moral choice. These essays stress the unity of Kant's moral psychology by arguing that moral and non-moral considerations motivate in essentially the same way. Several of the essays develop an original approach to Kant's conception of autonomy that emphasizes the political metaphors found throughout Kant's writings on ethics. They argue that autonomy is best interpreted not as a psychological capacity, but as a kind of sovereignty: in claiming that moral agents have autonomy, Kant regards them as a kind of sovereign legislator with the power to give moral law through their willing. The final essays explore some of the implications of this conception of autonomy elsewhere in Kant's moral thought, arguing that his Formula of Universal Law uses this conception of autonomy to generate substantive moral principles and exploring the connection between Kantian self-legislation and duties to oneself. The collection offers revised versions of several previously published essays, as well as two new papers, 'Autonomy of the Will as the Foundation of Morality' and 'Agency and Universal Law'. It will be of interest to all students and scholars of Kant, and to many moral philosophers.

Selected Essays

Agency and Autonomy in Kant's Moral Theory

Jens Timmermann

The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Kant's three Critiques, and his second work in moral theory after the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Its systematic account of the authority of moral principles grounded in human autonomy unfolds Kant's considered views on morality and provides the keystone to his philosophical system. The essays in this volume shed light on the principal arguments of the second Critique and explore their relation to Kant's critical philosophy as a whole. They examine the genesis of the Critique, Kant's approach to the authority of the moral law given as a 'fact of reason', the metaphysics of free agency, the account of respect for morality as the moral motive, and questions raised by the 'primacy of practical reason' and the idea of the 'postulates'. Engaging and critical, this volume will be invaluable to advanced students and scholars of Kant and to moral theorists alike.

A Critical Guide

Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason'

The essays in this volume offer an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. The distinctive feature of this approach is to address substantive normative questions in moral and political philosophy through an analysis of the texts and theories of major figures in the history of the subject: Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, and Marx. By reconstructing the core of these theories in a way that is informed by contemporary theoretical concerns, the contributors show how the history of the subject is a resource for understanding present and perennial problems in moral and political philosophy.

Essays for John Rawls

Reclaiming the History of Ethics

Reath presents a selection of his essays on various features of Kant's moral philosophy and moral theory, with particular emphasis on his conception of rational agency and autonomy. He explores Kant's belief that objective moral requrirements are based on principles we choose for ourselves.

Andrews Reath

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