Description
Book SynopsisHalla Kim explores the leading themes in Kant's philosophical ethics from a structural-methodological point of view to highlight the activities of reason vis-à-vis the blind forces of brute nature. Basing the study on Kant''s short, but monumental, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kim also draws on other major writings by Kant and his critics. Kim shows that philosophical ethics, as Kant conceived it, must capture the gist of the ineluctable, inescapable, and irreducible freedom we strive to exemplify in our practical lives. Viewed this way, the moral law is none other than the law of the will determining itself. It is the law of the self-activity of the will. Contending that the concepts and doctrines in Kant's ethics should be understood as an ethics of the self-activity of the will, Kim argues that the categorical imperative is the particular way this moral law is addressed to finite rational beings. Kant and the Foundations of Morality provides new perspective on the philos
Trade ReviewKant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is his most popular and influential book, but one with many complexities. Halla Kim's clear and detailed discussion of Kant's ethics is especially valuable because of the way in which it clarifies the significant interrelations of the three sections of Kant's book. Highly recommended. -- Karl Ameriks, University of Notre Dame
Table of ContentsChapter 1. The Purpose, the Method, and the Structure of the Groundwork Chapter 2. The Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality Chapter 3. Prudence and Morality Chapter 4. The Formulation of the Categorical Imperative Chapter 5. The Unity of the Categorical Imperative Chapter 6. The Authentication of Morality Chapter 7. The Metaphysical Foundation of Morality
