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This essay considers the structure of the argument for duty in the Kantian context, in which it was most influentially formed. Kant notoriously argues that the supreme principle of morality must be purely formal, by which he means that it does not direct us to act in order to achieve certain ends. Thus, any principle directed to the realization of certain ends must be merely hypothetical in character, and its motivational grounds subjective. It is shown that Kant overlooks a third possibility, namely, that there can be substantive categorical principles that objectively require us to realize certain ends regardless of our inclinations.

This chapter outlines an explanation of how Kant grounds morality in reason. It argues that all rational choice is guided by normative considerations (reasons with normative force for the agent). In moral choice, the reasons from which the agent acts are in fact sufficient to justify the action to anyone. Such a view underlies Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative, and offers the best understanding of the connection that he draws between moral principles and the nature of practical reason. The chapter offers a reconstruction of the derivation of the Formula of Universal Law in the first two sections of the Groundwork. Section II provides an overview of the argument of Groundwork, I, which explains how Kant thinks that the concept of morality implicit in ordinary thought leads to the Formula of Universal Law (FUL). Sections III through V explain, respectively, what leads Kant to undertake another derivation of the FUL in Groundwork, II — this time one that traces it to the nature of practical reason; his conception of practical reason; and how it is most fully expressed by the Categorical Imperative.

This chapter spells out two distinct senses in which the rational will legislates moral requirements: one that holds for the Categorical Imperative, and a different sense that holds for particular categorical imperatives or moral requirements. The Formula of Universal Law is a law that Kant derives from the nature of rational volition or rational choice. In this sense, it is a law that the rational will legislates or gives to itself. Roughly, the will is a law to itself since the nature of rational volition leads to a principle that governs its own exercise, namely the Categorical Imperative. To understand the sense in which rational agents legislate particular moral requirements, it is important to bear in mind that Kant is led to this idea by considering how such requirements get their normative authority. Kant appears to claim that the agents who are subject to moral law must be the ‘legislators’ from whom these requirements receive their authority, because only then can we explain their unconditional authority as categorical imperatives. The view ascribed to Kant is that the reasons to comply with moral requirements are given simply by the reasoning that establishes them as requirements, from which it follows that moral agents are bound to moral requirements in such a way that they model the source of their authority.

The chapter focuses on Kant’s account of rational agency and his move from this to the formulation of the categorical imperative. Rational agents are those with a capacity to act according to their representation of laws, that is, on principles, rather than merely according to the laws of nature. In the case of imperfectly rational agents, these laws take the form of imperatives, of which Kant recognizes two kinds: hypothetical and categorical. Kant claims that the possibility of the former is easily understood, since it is an analytic proposition that whoever wills an end also wills the indispensably necessary means to that end. But since the categorical imperative expresses a synthetic a priori proposition, Kant postpones a consideration of its possibility for the third part of the Groundwork and instead provides a derivation of the content of such an imperative from an analysis of its concept.

It is no easy task to decipher Kant’s argument for accepting the humanity formulation as a fundamental principle of morality (often called his ‘derivation’ of the humanity formulation). The argument may be viewed as having two steps. The first step, establishing that each rational agent has reason to treat her own rational nature in certain ways, is justified because one’s own rational nature is the necessary condition of the value of any other ends one has. The second step, establishing that each rational agent also must treat others’ rational nature in certain ways, depends on Kant’s idea that any formulation of the Categorical Imperative must embody basic everyday assumptions about the nature of morality. A principle of morality must give people common ends to work toward, rather than spurring them toward inevitable conflict. Thus, a moral principle based on the importance of rational nature must emphasize the importance of everyone’s rational nature, instead of telling each person to care only about her own.

This chapter argues that reading ‘humanity’ in the humanity formulation as good will provides the best fit between the humanity formulation and other major themes of Kant’s ethics. An analysis of Kant’s most significant claims about value in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals shows that good will and humanity are equivalent. Since all of Kant’s claims about value must be read in light of his position that value is just a way to describe the choices that rational beings would make, it is especially significant to note that he often describes humanity as a moral ideal that must be pursued at all costs. Taking the end in itself to be good will also explains why the duty to aid others in pursuing their ends does not include their immoral ends, and allows for stronger connections between the different formulations of the Categorical Imperative.

This essay defends Kant's thesis that there is only a single categorical imperative. This needs a defense because in the Groundwork Kant presents a number of formulations of this imperative (the precise number itself being subject to dispute), which are not obviously equivalent. Its strategy is to show that these formulations result from Kant's attempt to provide a complete construction of the concept of the categorical imperative by linking them with various steps in a progressive account of rational agency. By the complete construction of the concept is understood an account of the necessary and sufficient conditions of the possibility of the categorical imperative. Kant's analysis of rational agency is termed progressive because each step, which is correlated with a distinct formula, adds a fresh dimension to the conception of such agency. The claim is that this makes it possible to view these formulas as extensionally but not intentionally equivalent.

Kant was the greatest of modern philosophers. He held that we have knowledge of the phenomenal world alone; of the realm of the noumenal we have only moral experience. But he had moral passion in his notion of the categorical imperative, or goodwill dedicated to duty. Kant’s revolutionism is seen in the idea of the homogeneity of states—a federation of ‘republics’; or alternatively in cosmopolitanism— a world of individuals and peoples rather than of governments and states. Kant’s belief in the harmony of interests underlies his doctrine of progress. There are categories of Kantians, although Kant himself was both comprehensive and universal as a philosopher.

This chapter deals with the principle of autonomy, which is at once the third formula of the categorical imperative (FA), a property of the will, and the supreme principle of morality in the sense of being a condition of the possibility of a categorical imperative. Its central thesis is that this principle marks the completion of the construction of the concept of the categorical imperative, which is the central project of Groundwork 2. The basic idea is that such an imperative presupposes a universal law, which is provided by FLN, something of absolute value, which is provided by FH, and a source of unconditioned authority, which the principle of autonomy locates in the will. The chapter also discusses the controversial issue of the equivalence of these formulas and the contrast between autonomy and heteronomy as two possible sources of moral principles.

This chapter deals with two issues: (1) Kant’s deduction of the categorical imperative and (2) the bounds of what can be claimed from a practical point of view. The task of the deduction is to explain how the moral law can be unconditionally binding on the wills of finite beings with a sensuous as well as a rational nature. Kant’s argument turns on the proposition that the intelligible world is the ground of both the sensible world and its laws. Although the argument is problematic because it appears to be based on unwarranted metaphysical assumptions, it is suggested that it can be made more plausible, if read in a less blatantly metaphysical way. The boundary question concerns the limits of explanation. Kant claims that we are justified in presupposing freedom and a pure moral interest, both of which are required by the categorical imperative, even though neither is itself explicable.

This is the first of three chapters dealing with Kant’s attempt to provide a deduction (justification) of the categorical imperative. It suggests that this deduction occurs in stages, involving the deductions of both the moral law, which describes the volition of a perfectly rational or holy will, and the presupposition of freedom. The foundation of this deduction and the central topic of the chapter is Kant’s claim that “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same thing,” which is called the “reciprocity thesis.” The argument for this thesis is analyzed and defended; and it is pointed out that its importance stems from the fact that it entails that freedom of the will is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for standing under the moral law.

This chapter reviews the calumnies that are commonly directed at moral naturalists. Philosophical rationalism is compared unfavorably with the empirical tradition by drawing attention to the inadequacies in the reasoning that supposedly leads to Kant's categorical imperative. Moral naturalism is defended on the same basis as biological naturalism. Moral relativism — the big no-no for metaphysical moralists — is defended against a variety of common criticisms; reductionism gets the same treatment. Finally, the life of David Hume is advanced as a counter-example to those who feel that naturalism is necessarily dehumanizing or dispiriting.

This chapter presents an overview of Kant's ethical theory, contrasting it briefly with earlier views such as those of Wolff and Crusius. The ability of rational agents to govern themselves — their autonomy — is at the center of Kant's theory. Rational agents give themselves two kinds of law. One says that an agent who sets an end will necessarily use the available means to achieve it. The other says that in all action the agent will necessarily act only on plans for action that he could will to be laws for every rational agent. Because we humans are finite, these necessities appear to us as imperatives. The first kind prescribes what we ought to do if we set ourselves an end. These imperatives, as Kant calls them, are hypothetical because they bind only if we have set ourselves an end. The second kind binds us in all action, regardless of our ends. They are called categorical imperatives. They constitute morality. Kant explains how the various concepts with which we think morality are all related to categorical imperatives. The obligatory, the right, the good and virtue are explained in terms of them. Kant also argues that there are several forms of the categorical imperative. One form requires that we treat all rational agents as ends in themselves, never merely as means; another, that we act on maxims capable of being laws for a community of rational agents. Kant offers one sort of justification for his claims about the categorical imperative in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, but treats justification in quite a different way in the later Critique of Practical Reason. In all his works however he insists that morality is tied to freedom of the will. He also argues that the categorical imperative requires us to act on the faith that we can improve our character endlessly (and so must believe we are immortal) and that human effort can result in bringing about a world federation of republics. He is strongly opposed to all forms of consequentialism but he thinks nonetheless that we are required to work to bring about the happiness of others as well as our own perfection.

This chapter deals with Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative: the formula of humanity as an end in itself (FH). It examines Kant’s claims that a categorical imperative presupposes something of absolute value; that this must have the status of an end in itself, and that humanity or rational nature is the only thing that could meet this condition. It argues that this end must be understood in the negative sense as something not to be acted against, rather than in the positive sense as something to be attained. In light of this, it examines FH, which maintains that humanity (whether in one’s own person or that of others) is always to be respected as an end in itself and never treated merely as a means, and considers Kant’s application of this principle to the four examples that considered under FLN.

Distinguishes basic and more extreme ideas underlying three related Kantian themes: that fundamental questions of moral philosophy require an a priori method, that moral duties are conceived as categorical imperatives, and that moral agents have autonomy of the will. Arguably, an a priori method is needed for analysis and assessment of rationality claims, and we can act on moral reasons implicit in the humanity formula without a sense of constraint or an objectionably impartial attitude. The idea of a noumenal world is not a premise of Kantian ethics, but a conclusion to which Kant thought his ethics inevitably led.

Most philosophers think it uncontroversial that practical reason requires us to take the means to our ends, but have been silent about the normative foundation of this requirement. The interesting question, almost everyone agrees, is whether practical reason requires anything more, such as a principle of morality or prudence. This chapter examines the question what makes instrumental reason normative. It articulates the answers implicit in the rationalist and empiricist traditions, criticizing the former for its inability to explain how we can be motivated by the instrumental principle, and the latter for its inability to explain how we can be guided by it. It argues that the normativity of instrumental reason, like that of moral reason, must be grounded in the agent's autonomy, and also that there can be no requirement to take the means to our ends unless there are also required ends.

This introductory chapter presents a concise summary of major themes in Kant’s moral philosophy, broadly conceived. Topics include Kant’s a priori method for basic questions, the special features of moral judgments, the formulations of the Categorical Imperative, justice and the moral obligation to obey the law, and ethics and religion.