Kant's Moral and Legal Philosophy

This volume brings to English readers the finest postwar German-language scholarship on Kant's moral and legal philosophy. Examining Kant's relation to predecessors such as Hutcheson, Wolff, and Baumgarten, it clarifies the central issues in each of Kant's major works in practical philosophy, including The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. It also examines the relation of Kant's philosophy to politics. Collectively, the essays in this volume provide English readers with a direct view of how leading German philosophers are now regarding Kant's revolutionary practical philosophy, one of the outstanding achievements of German thought.

1. Introduction Karl Ameriks and Otfried Höffe; Part I. Early Conceptions: 2. Hutcheson and Kant Dieter Henrich; 3. The theory of obligation in Wolff, Baumgarten, and the early Kant Clemens Schwaiger; Part II. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: 4. What is the purpose of a metaphysics of morals? Some observations on the preface to the groundwork of the metaphysics of morals Ludwig Siep; 5. The transition from common rational to philosophical rational moral knowledge in the groundwork Dieter Schönecker; 6. Reason practical in its own right Gerold Prauss; 7. Kant's justification of the role of maxims in ethics Michael Albrecht; Part III. Critique of Practical Reason: 8. The form of the maxim as the determining ground of the will (critique of practical reason, §§ 4-6, 27-30) Otfried Höffe; 9. On the concept of an object of pure practical reason (chapter two of the analytic of practical reason) Annemarie Pieper; 10. The dialectic of pure practical reason in the second critique (cprr 107-121) Eckart Förster; 11. The postulates of pure practical reason Friedo Ricken; Part IV. Legal and Political Philosophy: 12. On how to acquire something external, and especially on the right to things (a commentary on the metaphysics of morals §§ 10-17) Kristian Kühl; 13. 'The civil constitution in a republican state shall be a republican one' Wolfgang Kersting; 14. Commentary on Kant's treatment of constitutional right (metaphysics of morals II: general remark A, §§ 51-52; conclusion, appendix) Bernd Ludwig; 15. Refusing sovereign power - the relation between politics and philosophy in the modern age Volker Gerhardt.

Karl Ameriks is McMahon–Hank Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. A recipient of fellowships from the Humboldt Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Earheart Foundation, he is the author of several books, including Kant's Theory of Mind and Kant and the Fate of Autonomy, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. He is also co-editor of the series Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy.
Otfried Höffe is Professor of Philosophy at Universität Tübingen and permanent visiting Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University of St Gallen. He is also doctor honoris causa of the University of Porto Allegre (PUCRS), Fellow of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, and Fellow of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He is the author of Immanuel Kant, Political Justice, Categorical Principles of Law, Aristotle, Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace, Democracy in an Age of Globalisation, and many other books in German. He has coedited Hegel on Ethics and Politics, edited Lexikon der Ethik and Lesebuch zur Ethik, and is editor of Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, the series Denker, and Klassiker Auslegen. With Robert Pippin, he is co-editor of the Cambridge series The German Philosophical Tradition.