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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 distinguishes the various claims that make up the thesis that autonomy of the will is the foundation of morality, and offers a reconstruction of the arguments on which they depend. To do so it argues that autonomy should be interpreted as a kind of sovereignty. The model for the autonomous agent is the political sovereign not subject to any outside authority, who has the power to enact law. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section II distinguishes some of the claims that go into Kant's doctrine of autonomy. Since the Sovereignty Thesis follows analytically from the concept of an unconditional moral requirement, Section III takes up Kant's concept of a practical law, to provide supporting material for later arguments. Sections IV to VII are organized around showing that the Formula of Universal Law (FUL) and the Formula of Autonomy (FA) are equivalent in content. The equivalence of the FUL and FA is established by the two ideas just cited (the Sovereignty Thesis and the claim that the FUL is the constitutive principle of a will with autonomy). It serves as a capsule statement of Kant's thesis that autonomy of the will is the foundation of morality. Finally, Section VIII shows how the normative conception of autonomy developed in this chapter bears on the analytical arguments of Groundwork, III, where Kant identifies freedom with autonomy on the way to arguing that a free will is subject to moral principles.

This chapter offers some reflections about how the Formula of Universal Law (FUL) has been understood by those who think that it can provide substantive guidance about choice and action. If the FUL were a purely formal criterion of universalizability, it would not reliably lead to any substantive moral judgments. These theorists have not, in general, understood the FUL as purely formal. Rather, they have incorporated a conception of rational agency into this formula, either explicitly or implicitly. The chapter is organized as follows. Section II briefly discusses some of John Rawls's remarks about what he has called Kant's ‘moral constructivism’ — specifically his claim that a conception of the person plays a central role in specifying the content of a constructivist moral conception. Section III asks how the FUL needs to be understood if it is to play its intended role in the extended argument of the Groundwork. Section IV shows why one is entitled to read a conception of rational agency into the FUL, and then considers some of the elements of this conception. In particular, it tries to make precise different senses in which rational agents with autonomy are independent spheres of judgment and choice and the sources of their own actions. Finally, Section V looks at various ways in which this conception of autonomous agency figures in determining whether a maxim can be willed as universal law without inconsistency.

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.

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 explores a sharply contrasting response to the cognitive dissonance engendered by the incongruity between biblical and classical notions of divine law. This response distinguished biblical divine law from classical divine law. Far from bridging the gap between the universal law grounded in reason and the particular Mosaic Law grounded in will, this response chose to emphasize it, attributing few or none of the features of classical divine law to biblical Law. Versions of this response in the period under study are found in the Gospels and other New Testament books, especially the letters of Paul, and in subsequent Christian writings. The chapter examines select passages touching on the Law in the writings of Paul as but one example of this response.

This chapter offers an overview of canon law. It starts by defining what canon law is not. It then traces the historical development of canon law from its origins in the early church to its flowering in the medieval period. Beginning with the 20th-century codifications of canon law, the second part of the chapter describes contemporary canon law. It discusses legislative, judicial, and executive acts of governance. It also distinguishes universal and particular law, as well as various other types of canon law and the related features of dispensation, exception, privilege, and canonical equity. The chapter concludes with some thoughts about the relationship between canon law and theology.

This chapter deals with three topics: (1) the move from the universal law formula (FUL) of the categorical imperative to the formula of the law of nature (FLN); (2) Kant’s application of the latter to examples of four types of duty; (3) an analysis of the counter-examples to Kant’s applications. We learn that the move from FUL to FLN is motivated by the need to find the form of a law on the basis of which maxims can be tested for their conformity to the imperative. This is known as the “universalizability test” and Kant applies it to maxims of suicide, false promising, neglecting one’s talents, and non-benevolence, all of which fail the test and are rejected as morally impermissible. After considering each case, the rest of the chapter discusses proposed counter-examples to Kant’s procedure (“false positives” and “false negatives”) that are found in the literature.

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 explores Kant's argument that freedom or autonomy can be achieved only through adherence to universal laws of action; his attempts to explain the value of autonomy through psychological and metaphysical arguments; and his recommendations for achieving autonomy in practice.

Sets the stage for subsequent discussions by sketching a deliberative framework drawn from a combination of Kant's formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Ideas of willing universal laws, humanity as an end in itself, and autonomy are elements of the framework, which is analogous to Kant's idea of a ‘kingdom of ends’, an ideal commonwealth in which rational autonomous members legislate the laws that bind them. The framework is meant to guide and constrain reflection about how moral rules, or intermediate level principles, are to be understood and qualified, but it is not intended to be an exact decision procedure and it concerns only aspects of life for which moral rules are appropriate. Several problems in using this sort of heuristic framework are identified, and brief suggestions are made regarding ways in which the Kantian theory might be developed to meet them. The Kantian perspective has structural similarities to rule‐utilitarianism and to Rawls's theory of justice, but it differs from those in important ways.

This chapter considers two related topics. The first is the development of astronomy in the 16th and 17th centuries, culminating in Newton's publication of his laws of motion in 1687; the second concerns the subsequent history of these laws. Observations confirmed the predictions of Newton's theory, and after about 1750 nobody had any doubt that his theory of gravitation provided a true description of the world. However, in the first decades of the 20th century, it was discovered that this certainty was a chimera. Einstein dethroned Newton, and physics moved into a period of flux which has continued ever since. The fact that such a well-established theory could eventually be superseded poses a severe challenge to any theory of scientific knowledge. The chapter recounts the story of the period, selecting the aspects which are most relevant to this matter.

The Formula of the Universal Law of Nature is perhaps the most well-known version of the Categorical Imperative. This chapter sets out the author’s understanding of this Formula and explains in detail the structure of a Kantian argument for self-improvement based on it. The central argument of the chapter is thatthis Formula can only establish that persons ought to perform certain self-developing acts. It cannot establish, however, that persons ought to pursue self-development as a goal.

This afterword addresses some of the larger concerns of this book. In particular, it considers the philosophical underpinnings of natural law and their relationship to Noahide law, as well as the use of natural law thinking in Jewish history, especially since emancipation. Noahide law is related to natural law as a particular manifestation of the universal idea of a rational moral law that all are bound to without the specific obligations of a revealed law. Meanwhile, natural law/Noahide law provided a language of inter-human discourse for Jews to engage the gentile world in dialogue. The chapter then reflects on the analysis of Marvin Fox's and Devora Steinmetz's attitudes towards natural law.

This chapter provides summaries for each of the chapters in this book. The first chapter traces the origins of the Noahide laws, which were considered obligatory for all time, and would be the measure by which gentiles would be judged. The next seven chapters examine each of the Noahide laws in detail, including the law of adjudication, the law of blasphemy, the law of idolatry, the law of homicide, the law of sexual relations, the law of robbery, and the law of the torn limb. After considering the role of aggadah in charting universal moral law, the book looks at Mamonides' and Joseph Albo's theory of Noahide law. It then explores several other prominent Jewish thinkers who reflected on the role of Noahide law, before studying Moses Mendelssohn and his school, as well as Hermann Cohen and the Jewish neo-Kantians.

One version of Kant's Categorical Imperative—the Formula of Universal Law—speaks of testing an agent's ‘maxim’ for moral permissibility. A maxim is a truncated piece of practical reasoning that incorporates the motive of an action. So testing maxims for permissibility could in principle show that motives are relevant deontically. The logical relations of the results of testing maxims and the deontic status of actions are explained. The difference between strongly and weakly wrong‐making motives is explained, as is the difference between strongly and weakly obligation‐making motives. Korsgaard's Practical Contradiction Interpretation of the Formula is presented. The maxims needed for the purposes of running the test sometimes modify the motives that agents actually act on. An example of an action motivated by racism is tested for permissibility. Surprisingly, it passes the test, rather than failing it. This represents a problem for Kantianism. Some comparisons with consequentialism are made.

This chapter begins a two-chapter examination of the second half of the B-Deduction. This chapter has a special focus on §26. It has three parts. The first argues that Kant completes the Deduction in §26 with a cosmology of experience. It advances this argument in part by reading §26 in light of §36 of the Prolegomena. The second part examines the role and significance of image-making and the productive imagination for the cosmology of experience. It argues that, for Kant, they make possible cartography of the sensible world and that, without such cartography, no cosmology of experience and hence no thinking as such is possible. The third part of the chapter completes the examination of §26 by considering the role of universal laws of nature in a cosmology of experience and hence thinking as such. It argues that Kant’s treatment of universal laws and image-making in §26 tries to make good on his reflections in the Duisburg Nachlaß on the ‘ekthesis’ in a proof of classical geometry.

This chapter comments on the genesis of the New Science, with particular emphasis on two principal decisions made by Giambattista Vico: his rejection of Cartesianism and his extension of his conception of universal law to a doctrine of universal history. It first considers Vico’s dismissal of René Descartes’s first truth of the cogito ergo sum and his articulation of the basis from which rightly to obtain first truths. It then discusses Vico’s constant revision of the New Science, writing several annotations to the book even while he was rewriting and printing it. In summary, Vico published three editions of the New Science: in 1725, 1730, and 1744. The chapter shows that the genesis of Vico’s new science goes back to his confrontation with Cartesianism in his 1709 oration On the Study Methods of Our Time, and that he offset Descartes’s fatherhood of modern science by a science of history that combines philosophy and philology.