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 (1797). We will read 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).

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. This idea is introduced in the first assignment.

As you read this assignment, don’t ignore the translator Ellington’s footnotes. Many of them are designed to help you follow Kant’s exposition. Also, pay special attention to the first full paragraph on p. 14 (at 402 in the marginal numbers); the “categorical imperative” referred to in Ellington’s note is the central idea of the whole book. (The term ‘categorical imperative’ will be introduced by Kant in his second section.)

The Grounding is often referred to by the first word ‘Grundlegung’ of its title in German, a word that has also sometimes been translated as ‘foundations’ or ‘groundwork’. You will see numbers in margins of Ellington’s translation. These, like the numbers you saw in Plato and Aristotle, are page numbers in an edition of Kant’s works, in this case an edition dating from the early 20th century that is still the standard one. The page numbers in Ellington’s index refer to these rather than to page numbers in the translation.