Kant's Doctrine of Virtue


Book Description

"This book is a reader's guide to Kant's final work in moral philosophy, The Doctrine of Virtue - Part II of the 1797 Metaphysics of Morals. The guide has 5 parts plus a conclusion. Part I "Background" includes two chapters: 1. "Life and Work" and 2. "Philosophical Background." Part II, "General Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals" covers the introduction to the entire work whose content is crucial for understanding the text. This part contains three chapters: 3. "On the Idea of and Necessity for a Metaphysics of Morals", 4. Mental Faculties, the Moral Law, and Human Motivation," and 5. "Preliminary Concepts and Division of the Metaphysics of Morals." Part III, "Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue," includes four chapters that cover Kant's dedicated introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: 6. "The Doctrine of Virtue as a Doctrine of Ends," 7. "General Ends that are also Duties," 8. Radical Evil and the Nature of Virtue," and 9. "The Science of Ethics." Part IV is devoted to Kant's system of duties of virtue that represents his normative ethical theory. It contains five chapters: 10. "Perfect Duties to Oneself as an Animal Being," 11. "Perfect Duties to Oneself as a Moral Being," 12. Imperfect Duties to Oneself," 13. "Duties of Love to Other Human Beings," 14. "The Vices of Hatred and Disrespect," and 15. "Friendship." Part V "The Doctrine of Methods of Ethics and Conclusion" includes chapter 16 "Moral Education and Practice." The book's conclusion reflects on the significance of the Doctrine of Virtue for understanding Kant's ethics"--




Kant's Metaphysics of Morals


Book Description

Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals (1797), containing the Doctrine of Right and Doctrine of Virtue, is his final major work of practical philosophy. Its focus is not rational beings in general but human beings in particular, and it presupposes and deepens Kant's earlier accounts of morality, freedom and moral psychology. In this volume of newly-commissioned essays, a distinguished team of contributors explores the Metaphysics of Morals in relation to Kant's earlier works, as well as examining themes which emerge from the text itself. Topics include the relation between right and virtue, property, punishment, and moral feeling. Their diversity of questions, perspectives and approaches will provide new insights into the work for scholars in Kant's moral and political theory.




The Oxford Handbook of Virtue


Book Description

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a renaissance in the study of virtue -- a topic that has prevailed in philosophical work since the time of Aristotle. Several major developments have conspired to mark this new age. Foremost among them, some argue, is the birth of virtue ethics, an approach to ethics that focuses on virtue in place of consequentialism (the view that normative properties depend only on consequences) or deontology (the study of what we have a moral duty to do). The emergence of new virtue theories also marks this new wave of work on virtue. Put simply, these are theories about what virtue is, and they include Kantian and utilitarian virtue theories. Concurrently, virtue ethics is being applied to other fields where it hasn't been used before, including bioethics and education. In addition to these developments, the study of virtue in epistemological theories has become increasingly widespread to the point that it has spawned a subfield known as 'virtue epistemology.' This volume therefore provides a representative overview of philosophical work on virtue. It is divided into seven parts: conceptualizations of virtue, historical and religious accounts, contemporary virtue ethics and theories of virtue, central concepts and issues, critical examinations, applied virtue ethics, and virtue epistemology. Forty-two chapters by distinguished scholars offer insights and directions for further research. In addition to philosophy, authors also deal with virtues in non-western philosophical traditions, religion, and psychological perspectives on virtue.




THE KANTIAN ETHICS: Metaphysics of Morals - Philosophy of Law & The Doctrine of Virtue, Perpetual Peace and The Critique of Practical Reason


Book Description

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, also known as the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and remains one of the most influential in the field. Kant conceives his investigation as a work of foundational ethics—one that clears the ground for future research by explaining the core concepts and principles of moral theory and showing that they are normative for rational agents. Kant aspires to nothing less than this: to lay bare the fundamental principle of morality and show that it applies to us. The Metaphysics of Morals is a work of political and moral philosophy by Immanuel Kant. The work is divided into two main parts, "The Science of Right, which deals with the rights that people have or can acquire, and the Doctrine of Virtue, which deals with the virtues they ought to acquire." The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques and deals with his moral philosophy. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher, who, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is "the central figure of modern philosophy." Kant argued that fundamental concepts of the human mind structure human experience, that reason is the source of morality, that aesthetics arises from a faculty of disinterested judgment, that space and time are forms of our understanding, and that the world as it is "in-itself" is unknowable. Contents: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals The Metaphysics of Morals Philosophy of Law (The Science of Right) The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics The Critique of Practical Reason: Theory of Moral Reasoning Perpetual Peace




Duty, Virtue and Practical Reason in Kant's Metaphysics of Morals


Book Description

The “Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue” (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre) is the second part of the “Metaphysics of Morals” (Metaphysik der Sitten), published by Kant in 1797. This monographic study comments Kant´s Tugendlehre as a refutation of the “formalist” vision of Kant´s Ethics. This late writing is shown as consistent with the moral philosophy already presented in the “Groundwork” and the second “Critique”. The “Doctrine of Virtue” offers Kant´s application of the categorical imperative and acknowledges the conditions of moral motivation and, in general, of human agency. Kant´s derivation of duties of virtue (Tugendpflichten) is attentive to the fundamental characteristics of human nature, therefore it generates a system of ends that reason itself shows to be obligatory for the human faculty of choice. This book shows that Kant´s “Doctrine of Virtue” is worthy of being taken into a greater philosophical consideration. The “Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue” (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre) is the second part of the “Metaphysics of Morals” (Metaphysik der Sitten), published by Kant in 1797. This monographic study comments Kant´s Tugendlehre as a refutation of the “formalist” vision of Kant´s Ethics. This late writing is shown as consistent with the moral philosophy already presented in the “Groundwork” and the second “Critique”. The “Doctrine of Virtue” offers Kant´s application of the categorical imperative and acknowledges the conditions of moral motivation and, in general, of human agency. Kant´s derivation of duties of virtue (Tugendpflichten) is attentive to the fundamental characteristics of human nature, therefore it generates a system of ends that reason itself shows to be obligatory for the human faculty of choice. This book shows that Kant´s “Doctrine of Virtue” is worthy of being taken into a greater philosophical consideration.




The Virtues of Freedom


Book Description

The essays collected in this volume by Paul Guyer, one of the world's foremost Kant scholars, explore Kant's attempt to develop a morality grounded on the intrinsic and unconditional value of the human freedom to set our own ends. When regulated by the principle that the freedom of all is equally valuable, the freedom to set our own ends -- what Kant calls "humanity" - becomes what he calls autonomy. These essays explore Kant's strategies for establishing the premise that freedom is the inner worth of the world or the essential end of humankind, as he says, and for deriving the specific duties that fundamental principle of morality generates in the empirical circumstances of human existence. The Virtues of Freedom further investigates Kant's attempts to prove that we are always free to live up to this moral ideal, that is, that we have free will no matter what, as well as his more successful explorations of the ways in which our natural tendencies to be moral -- dispositions to the feeling of respect and more specific feelings such as love and self-esteem -- can and must be cultivated and educated. Guyer finally examines the various models of human community that Kant develops from his premise that our associations must be based on the value of freedom for all. The contrasts but also similarities of Kant's moral philosophy to that of David Hume but many of his other predecessors and contemporaries, such as Stoics and Epicureans, Pufendorf and Wolff, Hutcheson, Kames, and Smith, are also explored.




The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy


Book Description

The philosophy of Immanuel Kant is the watershed of modern thought, which irrevocably changed the landscape of the field and prepared the way for all the significant philosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This 2006 volume, which complements The Cambridge Companion to Kant, covers every aspect of Kant's philosophy, with a particular focus on his moral and political philosophy. It also provides detailed coverage of Kant's historical context and of the enormous impact and influence that his work has had on the subsequent history of philosophy. The bibliography also offers extensive and organized coverage of both classical and recent books on Kant. This volume thus provides the broadest and deepest introduction currently available on Kant and his place in modern philosophy, making accessible the philosophical enterprise of Kant to those coming to his work for the first time.




Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals


Book Description

The Metaphysics of Morals is Kant's final major work in moral philosophy. In it, he presents the basic concepts and principles of right and virtue and the system of duties of human beings as such. The work comprises two parts: the Doctrine of Right concerns outer freedom and the rights of human beings against one another; the Doctrine of Virtue concerns inner freedom and the ethical duties of human beings to themselves and others. Mary Gregor's translation, lightly revised for this edition, is the only complete translation of the entire text, and includes extensive annotation on Kant's difficult and sometimes unfamiliar vocabulary. This edition includes numerous new footnotes, some of which address controversial aspects of Gregor's translation or offer alternatives. Lara Denis's introduction sets the work in context, explains its structure and themes, and introduces important interpretive debates. The volume also provides thorough guidance on further reading including online resources.




The Doctrine of Virtue


Book Description




Kant's Theory of Virtue


Book Description

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics.