Ward Keith - The Development of Kants View of Ethics

KEITH WARD

Basil Blackwell 1972 republished as a digital edition in 2019 John Wiley & Sons Limited.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of John Wiley & Sons Limited.

ISBN 0 631 14200 2

This is not a general introduction to Kants ethics; it is not primarily concerned with expounding the Groundwork, the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason or the Metaphysic of Morals; excellent commentaries now exist on all those central ethical works. I have written for the reader or student who has some knowledge of Kants ethical doctrine, as it can be found in one or more of the texts mentioned, but who has not the time to read all those other works in Kants voluminous output which are relevant to and often of great importance for his view of ethics. My aim is to put the well-known doctrines in the overall context of Kants developing philosophy. And I am concerned, not so much with the ethical doctrines themselves, as with Kants view of the nature of moralitywhat he took morality to beas it developed throughout his life. If to put something in context is to understand it better, then such a programme will help in attaining a general view of Kants concerns in ethics; and it may well hold some surprises for those whose Kantian diet has been confined, say, to the Groundwork.

I think it is true to say that general verdicts on Kants ethics are still common which such a fuller view shows to be quite inaccuratefor instance, that he was not concerned with ends of action, or that the postulates of practical reason are irrelevant additions to his central doctrines, or that he is the stern prophet of duty for dutys sake, without regard to considerations of human fulfilment or happiness. Such mistaken views are less common in Britain now than they used to be; but there is still widespread lack of knowledge of many of Kants writings which are important for his ethical views, such as the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and the essays on history. This book deals with most of Kants published writings, in so far as they are relevant to ethics, and so it provides a general view of the origins, development and metaphysical context of his ethical theory.

It is probable that many readers will wish to study what I have to say on specific topics in Kant, without having to consider material which is of secondary importance for their purposes. Consequently, I have divided the text into numbered sections with appropriate headings, and have included an analytical table of contents in which the various main topics are listed.

Finally, it should be noted that I have consistently used the word metaphysics in a non-Kantian sensei.e. to mean, not a priori elements of knowledge, but a general speculative account of the nature of reality, derived from whatever source. I have found it convenient to use the word in this sense; and, as long as it is remembered that it is a non-Kantian sense, it should cause no confusion.

I should like to thank the editor of the Philosophical Quarterly for permission to use material from Kants Teleological Ethics (1971). I am also grateful to Leslie Stevenson and those who read the manuscript for my publishers, who made very helpful comments.

To avoid frequent use of footnotes, I have put all references to Kants works in the text. I have first put the page number of the English translation, where there is one; followed by the page number of the German text, thus:

(0, 61; Ber. 2, 218.)

Almost all references to the German text are to the edition issued by the Royal Prussian Academy, now the German Academy of Sciences, in Berlin (published from 1902 onwards). This is abbreviated as Ber., followed by the volume and page number. An exception is Eine Vorlesung Kants uber Ethik, ed. Menzer (Pan Verlag Rolf Heise, Berlin, 1924), which is abbreviated as Vor.

In quoting from the Critique of Pure Reason, I have followed the traditional practice of citing page numbers from both the 1781 () edition and the 1787 () edition, thus:

(A. 561; B. 589.)

The abbreviations for the English translations I have used are listed below, in order of their appearance in the text: