Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Henry E. Allison presents a comprehensive commentary on Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). Allison pays special attention to the structure of the work and its historical and intellectual context. He argues that, despite its relative brevity, the Groundwork is the single most important work in modern moral philosophy.

Acknowledgments; Note on sources and key to abbreviations and translations; Preface; Part One: Preliminaries; 1: The Nature of and Need for a Metaphysic of Morals: An Analysis of the Preface of GMS; 2: Universal Practical Philosophy and Popular Moral Philosophy; Part Two: GMS 1; 3: The Good Will; 4: Maxims and Moral Worth Redux; 5: Kant`s Three Propositions, the Supreme Principle of Morality, and the Need for Moral Philosophy; Part Three: GMS 2; 6: Rational Agency and Imperatives; 7: The Universal Law (FUL) and the Law of Nature (FLN); 8: The Formula of Humanity (FH); 9: Autonomy, Heteronomy, and Constructing the Categorical Imperative; Part Four: GMS 3; 10: The Moral Law, the Categorical Imperative, and the Reciprocity Thesis; 11: The Presupposition of Freedom, The Circle, and the two Standpoints; 12: The Deduction of the Categorical Imperative and the Outermost Boundary of Practical Philosophy