Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

by Paul Guyer

Kant is probably the philosopher who best typifies the thought and ideals of the Enlightenment. He was influenced by the modern physics of Newton, the rationalist perfectionism of Leibniz and Wolff, the critical empiricism of Locke and Hume, and Rousseau's celebration of liberty and individualism, and his work can be seen partly as an attempt to combine and synthesize these various ideas. In moral philosophy, he developed a radical and radically new conception of the unconditional value of human autonomy, which he opposed to both theological and utilitarian conceptions of moral value. He first expounded his moral vision in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), the seminal work of modern moral philosophy in which he introduced his infamous 'categorical imperative'. Paul Guyer's Reader's Guide will help readers find their way in this brilliant but dense and sometimes baffling work.

Genres: Philosophy

186 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2007

About the author

Paul Guyer is an American philosopher. He is a leading scholar of Immanuel Kant and of aesthetics and has served as Jonathan Nelson Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Brown University since 2012.

Guyer has written nine books on Kant and Kantian themes, and has edited and translated a number of Kant's works into English. In addition to his work on Kant, Guyer has published on many other figures in the history of philosophy, including Locke, Hume, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and others. Guyer's Kant and The Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press) is widely considered to be one of the most significant works in Kant scholarship. Recent works by Guyer include Knowledge, Reason, and Taste: Kant's Response to Hume (Princeton University Press), and The Cambridge Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press).

His other areas of specialty include the history of philosophy and aesthetics. His three-volume work A History of Modern Aesthetics was published by Cambridge University Press in February 2014. Guyer was President of the American Society for Aesthetics in 2011–13. Guyer was also President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2011-12.

Reviews

[مجید اسطیری · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتاب بسیار دقیق و خوبی بود که خواندنش قبل و بعد از مطالعه کتاب کانت واجب است. نمیتوانم چندان گزارش مبسوطی از این کتاب بدهم فقط تجربه خودم را میگویم. بهترین آورده این کتاب برایم این بود که سه ضابطه فلسفی مهم را به شکل واضح مطرح کرد.

ضابطه قانون کلی: تنها بر اساس قانونی عمل کن که بتواند بدل به قانونی عام شود
ضابطه قانون طبیعت: چنان عمل کن که گویی بناست رفتار تو یکی از قوانین طبیعت شود
ضابطه غایت فی نفسه: چنان رفتار کن تا بشریت را چه در شخص خود و چه در شخص دیگری همیشه به عنوان یک غایت به شمار آوری و نه هرگز همچون وسیله ای

محاجه کانت با کسانی که به دنبال فلسفه مردم پسند هستند را خیلی خوب باز کرده و سختگیری کانت در بیرون کردن "تجربه" و "تمایل" از حوضه دریافت فلسفی را کاملا تشریح کرده. آخرش هم نگاه کانت به آزادی را تعریف کرده. جذاب ترین بخش کتاب (چه در متن کانت چه اینجا) مربوط به بحث درباره وظایف اخلاقی کامل و ناقص و چهار مثالی است که کانت زده: خودکشی کرد، وعده دروغ دادن، نیکوکاری کردن و پرورش استعدادها.

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guyer's approach is pretty solid: he tries to show that Kant's argument in the Groundwork is connected with some of Kant's earlier writings on morality, where freedom plays a central role. The account of the preface and §1 are clear and helpful, and he puts the Groundwork in the context of Kant's larger project, but Guyer's account of §2 doesn't really make it much clearer how all the different formulations of the categorical imperative are supposed to be different formulations of the very same law. He has a useful section on how all of the different duties are supposed to be derived from the categorical imperative.