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In this comprehensive assessment of Kant's metaethics, Frederick Rauscher shows that Kant is a moral idealist rather than a moral realist and argues that Kant's ethics does not require metaphysical commitments that go beyond nature. Rauscher frames the argument in the context of Kant's non-naturalistic philosophical method and the character of practical reason as action-oriented. Reason operates entirely within nature, and apparently non-natural claims - God, free choice, and value - are shown to be heuristic and to reflect reason's ordering of nature. The book shows how Kant hesitates between a transcendental moral idealism with an empirical moral realism and a complete moral idealism. Examining every aspect of Kant's ethics, from the categorical imperative to freedom and value, this volume argues that Kant's focus on human moral agency explains morality as a part of nature. It will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, German idealism and intellectual history.
List of contents
Citations of Kant's writings; Introduction; Part I. Laying the Ground: 1. Moral realism and naturalism; 2. The place of ethics in Kant's philosophy; Part II. Practical Reason in Nature: 3. The priority of the practical and the fact of reason; 4. The transcendental status of empirical reason; Part III. Morality beyond Nature?: 5. 'God' without God: the status of the postulates; 6. From many to one to none: non-natural free choice; 7. Value and the inexplicability of the practical; Postscript: Kant's naturalist moral idealism; Works cited; Index.
About the author
Frederick Rauscher is Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. He is the editor and co-translator of Kant: Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy (with Kenneth R. Westphal, Cambridge, 2015), co-translator of Notes and Fragments (with Paul Guyer and Curtis Bowman, Cambridge, 2005), and editor of Kant in Brazil (2012).
Summary
This book is the first detailed analysis of Kant's ethics as anti-realist and idealist, arguing that Kant's ethics does not require non-natural metaphysics. It will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, German idealism and intellectual history.
