Element contents
Formulas of the Moral Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2017
Summary
This Element defends a reading of Kant's formulas of the moral law in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. It disputes a long tradition concerning what the first formula (Universal Law/Law of Nature) attempts to do. The Element also expounds the Formulas of Humanity, Autonomy and the Realm of Ends, arguing that it is only the Formula of Humanity from which Kant derives general duties, and that it is only the third formula (Autonomy/Realm of Ends) that represents a complete and definitive statement of the moral principle as Kant derives it in the Groundwork. The Element also disputes the claim that the various formulas are 'equivalent', arguing that this claim is either false or else nonsensical because it is grounded on a false premise about what Kant thinks a moral principle is for.
Keywords
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781108332736Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 12 October 2017
References
Other sources
Allison, Henry (2011). Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, (1999). Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd edn., trans. Irwin, Terence. Indianapolis: Hackett. Abbreviated ‘NE’ and cited by Becker number.Google Scholar
Brucker, Johann Jacob (1742–1744). Historia Critica Philosophiae a mundi incunabulis ad nostrum aetatum deducta, 5 vols. Leipzig: Weidemann and Reich, Pars II, Cap. II, Lib. VII.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald (2011). Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fahmy, Melissa Seymour (2009). “Active Sympathetic Participation: Reconsidering Kant’s Duty of Sympathy,” Kantian Review 14(1), 31–52.Google Scholar
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (2011). Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, trans. Green, Garrett, ed. Wood, A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Greene, Joshua (2008). “The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul,” in Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (ed.), Moral Psychology, Volume 3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1991). Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. Nisbet, H. B., ed. Wood, A., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara (1993). The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kleingeld, Pauline (2017). “Contradiction and Kant’s Formula of Universal Law,” in Watkins, E. (ed.), Kant, Agency and Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine (1996a). Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine (1996b). The Sources of Normativity, ed. O’Neill, Onora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, David B. (1965). The Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (2001). Utilitarianism, 2nd edn., ed. Sher, George. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Mossner, Ernest Campbell (1970). The Life of David Hume. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich (2002). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future, ed. Horstmann, Rolf-Peter and Norman, Judith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Onora (1989). Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Onora (2013). Acting on Principle: An Essay in Kantian Ethics, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. First edition: New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1989). “Themes in Kant’s Moral Philosophy,” in Förster, E. (ed.), Kant’s Transcendental Deductions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John (2000). Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Herman, Barbara. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reich, Klaus (1939). “Kant and Greek Ethics I–II,” trans Walsh, W. H.. Mind 48, 338–354.Google Scholar
Rivera-Castro, Faviola (2014). “Kant’s Formula of the Universal Law of Nature Reconsidered,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 11(2), 185–208.Google Scholar
Sade, Marquis de (1966 [1791]). Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings, trans. Seaver, R. and Wainhouse, A.. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Schönecker, Dieter and Wood, Allen (2015). Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2007). Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tittel, Gottlob August (2012 [1786]). Über Herrn Kants Moralreform. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan (2003). “‘One Thought Too Many’: Love, Morality, and the Ordering of Commitment,” in Heuer, Ulrike and Land, Gerald (eds.), Luck, Value, and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (1990). Hegel’s Ethical Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (2001). “The Moral Law as a System of Formulas,” in Stolzenberg, H. and Fulda, H. F. (eds.), Architektonik und System in der Philosophie Kants. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen (2014). The Free Development of Each: Studies in Freedom, Right and Ethics in Classical German Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Allen (2017a). “Kant on Friendship,” in Sensen, Oliver and Bacin, Stefano (eds.), Kant’s Ethics in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen (2017b). “Universal Law,” in Watkins, E. (ed.), Kant, Agency and Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- 13
- Cited by