INTRODUCTION

Kant's task in his Preface to the Groundwork is threefold: First, he sets out to clarify his main objectives in the text. Second, he provides clues to the method he will use to accomplish his objectives. Third, he indicates how he intends to organize the work. He devotes his first paragraphs to clarifying the title of the book, a title even he admits is “intimidating” (391). The Groundwork, he says, is not a work in physics or logic but a work in the area he refers to as “morals” [Sitten] or “ethics” [Ethik]. Kant notes that the book is a special kind of treatise in morals or ethics: it is a “groundwork” of the “metaphysics” of morals. These latter terms are technical; we will have to consider what he means by them.

The objectives of the Groundwork

As I noted in my Introduction, Kant describes the chief task of the Groundwork in the following passage:

To “search for” the supreme principle is to set out to discover the principle that is appropriate and adequate as the ultimate or fundamental moral standard. To “establish” the principle is to justify or ground it. Clearly, then, Kant aims to offer an argument in the Groundwork for why the principle he identifies as supreme is, indeed, just that.