[eBook Code] The Development of Kant's View of Ethics (eBook Code, 1st)

Preface v

List of Textual References vii

One: The Rationalist Background

I. I Statement of general programme 1

1.2 Early influences-Pietism and rationalism 3

1.3 Dilucidatio (1755); the principle of sufficient reason; the rationalist concept of God 5

I ·4 Freedom and necessity-an early antinomy 8

1.5 Early essays and letters-the problem of evil in the best of all possible worlds 11

1.6 Theory of the Heavens (1755); The Only Possible Argument for a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763); early versions of the teleological argument 14

1.7 The Romantic vision of nature as an infinite evolutionary spiritual system 18

Two: The Doctrine of Moral Feeling

2.1 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1763); morality as founded on the ‘feeling of the beauty and dignity of human nature' 21

2.2 Prize Essay (1764); the influence of the British moralists; formal and material elements in morality; the move from rationalism to analytic method 26

2.3 The stages of Kant's early philosophical development 30

2.4 Fragment (I764); Announcement of Lectures (I765); Kant's uneasy acceptance of moral sense theories 32

Three: The Dreams of Metaphysics

3·I Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (I766); the influence of Swedenborg 34

3.2 The visionary metaphysics of the Dreams; morality as the appearance of an intelligible commerce of spiritual beings; the influence of Rousseau; the origin of the formula of the categorical imperative 37

3·3 Metaphysical scepticism; the primacy of moral action 40

3·4 Inaugural Dissertation (1770); the return to rationalism; intellect and sensibility 42

3·5 The discovery of the mathematical antinomies; the doctrine of transcendental idealism 44

3.6 Morality as known by pure intellect 46

3·7 The collapse of the Dissertation view; its failure to account for Newtonian science; the distinction of reason and intellect 47

3.8 The visionary and dogmatic origins of the Critical view of ethics 50

Four: The Lectures on Ethics

4.1 Lectures on Ethics (I775-81); the early formulation of the Critical view; duty, perfection and happiness 52

4.2 Fragment (circa I775); virtue as the a priori form of happiness 56

4·3 Happiness and belief in God as motives to morality 58

4·4 Morality and religion (I): God, revelation and duty 61

4·5 Letters to J. C. Lavater (1755); morality and religion (2): religion as helping men's moral deficiencies and assuring final fulfilment 63

4.6 The importance of the Lectures 67

Five: The Critical Doctrines of God and The Self

5.I Paralogisms (1781 and 1787); the doctrine of the self (I): the rejection of spiritualism and materialism 69

5.2 Third Antinomy (1781 and 1787); the doctrine of the self (2): the noumenal freedom of the self 75

5·3 Transcendental Dialectic, ch. 3; Fourth Antinomy (I78I and I787); the doctrine of God (I): God as the ideal of reason; necessary being; intellectual intuition; the author of nature 77

5 ·4 The doctrine of God (2): the regulative use of ideas 80

Six: The Postulates of Practical Reason

6.I Critique of Practical Reason, Dialectic (I788); Critique of Teleological Judgment, Appendix (I790); the postulates (I): the summum bonum 84

6.2 The postulates (2): the relation of happiness and morality 88

6.3 The postulates (3): the union of reason and sensibility 91

6.4 The teleological nature of Kant's ethics 95

Seven: The Supreme Principle of Morality

7.I Groundwork (I785); Metaphysic of Morals (I797); the derivation of duties from the categorical imperative 99

7.2 Reason and the ends of nature 107

7·3 The principle of universalisability I I3

7·+ The principle of humanity II8

7·5 The nature of the supreme principle of morality I24

Eight: Nature and Purpose

8.1 Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (1790); beauty as a symbol of morality; sublimity as pointing to a supersensible ground of the unity of reason and nature 131

8.2 Critique of Teleological Judgment (1790); the regulative principle of teleology in biology; the notion of God I 34

8.3 The historical purpose of nature; through struggle to culture and a world-federation 137

8.4 Idea for a Universal History (1784); On the Conjectural Beginning of Human History (1786); Strife of the Faculties (1798); Perpetual Peace (1795); the evolutionary and purposive view of nature; its final subordination to the moral individual 139

Nine: Morality and Religion

9.1 Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793); the doctrine of innate evil 144

9.2 The necessity of noumenal conversion 147

9·3 Religious symbols; the 'mysteries' of religion 151

9·4 Ecclesiastical and moral faith; the idea of God 155

Ten: The Final View of Ethics

10.1 Opus Postumum (1790-1803); Kant's final metaphysical views 160

10.2 The identification of God and practical reason 164

10.3 Conclusion: the metaphysical context of Kant's ethics 166

10.4 The conflict of rationalism and individualism; wille and willkur 168

10.5 The failure of voluntarism to provide a via media 171

Appendix: Schilpp's Kant's Pre-Critical Ethics 175

Bibliography 178

Index of Names 180

Index of Subjects 182