All assignments, except for a short handout, are in the collection Ethical Philosophy translated by Ellington, but this is in fact two books, with separate pagination, bound together; the two parts are labeled “EG” and “EM” in the following:

Along with Aristotle, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the two most important figures in the history of ethics. His major ethical writings are found in three books, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Metaphysics of Morals (1790, 1797). We will read most of the first and selections from the last, along with one of Kant’s few short works on ethics, “On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns” (1799).

The Grounding and the Critique are primarily discussions of the general character of ethics while the Metaphysics of Morals concerns more specific moral issues. The latter work was published in two parts. The first, Metaphysical Principles of Right, concerned the philosophy of law but also contained a general introduction to the two parts (which is the only portion included in Ellington). The second part, Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, was Kant’s substantive discussion of ethics in the usual sense.

Apart from his philosophical style, the main difference you are likely to notice between Kant and the people we have read in the first half of the course is the focus of his thinking on ethics. While he has things to say about virtue, his main concern is moral duty, an idea that has scarcely been mentioned by the others we have read. The first assignment in the Grounding will introduce this idea, and the next two will develop Kant’s three formulations of a principle, the “categorical imperative,” that he takes to lie behind all moral duties. After this, we will read (for 10/28) a group of selections in which Kant presents his views on the general character and organization of ethics, and our last two classes will sample his discussions of particular ethical issues.