Feb 23, 2004 · This is the second reason Kant held that fundamental issues in ethics must be addressed with an a priori method: The ultimate subject matter of ethics is the nature and content of the principles that necessarily determine a rational will.

Feb 23, 2004 · The first is that, as Kant and others have conceives of it, ethics initially requires an analysis of our moral concepts. We must understand the concepts of a ‘good will’, ‘obligation’, ‘duty’ and so on, as well as their logical relationships to one another, before we can determine whether our use of these concepts is justified.

May 20, 2010 · Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is the central figure in modern philosophy. He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields.

Nov 21, 2007 · Indeed, each of the branches of deontological ethics—the agent-centered, the patient-centered, and the contractualist—can lay claim to being Kantian. The agent-centered deontologist can cite Kant’s locating the moral quality of acts in the principles or maxims on which the agent acts and not primarily in those acts’ effects on others.

Jun 22, 2004 · Within Kant circles, they are best known for the so-called “Conundrum” interpretation of Kant’s Religion, where these authors protest that Kant’s venture into philosophical theology is not only inconsistent with the epistemic strictures of Transcendental Idealism (Wolterstorff 1998), but also is internally inconsistent in virtue of the ...

Mar 26, 2008 · Kant’s notion of autonomy is one of the more central, distinctive, and influential aspects of his ethics. He defines autonomy as “the property of the will by which it is a law to itself (independently of any property of the objects of volition)” (G 4:440).

Sep 12, 2008 · This is not simply a rhetorical point, since many of Kant’s predecessors had tried to do exactly this—Spinoza’s Ethics is one example, Christian Wolff’s philosophy another (see Gava 2018).

Apr 13, 2019 · A person can, for example, act wrongly in Kant’s view by expressing contempt for another, even if she is not using him at all (Kant 1797: 462–464). She would be acting wrongly by failing to treat the other as an end in himself, rather than by treating him merely as a means.

Jul 24, 2007 · In the Groundwork Kant distinguishes the ethics of autonomy, in which the will (Wille, or practical reason itself) is the basis of its own law, from the ethics of heteronomy, in which something independent of the will, such as happiness, is the basis of moral law (4:440–41).

Jul 18, 2003 · In what follows we sketch four distinct forms taken by contemporary virtue ethics, namely, a) eudaimonist virtue ethics, b) agent-based and exemplarist virtue ethics, c) target-centered virtue ethics, and d) Platonistic virtue ethics.