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Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

Immanuel Kant

  • Essays
  • Book language: English
  • 79 pages

Immanuel Kant's 1785 philosophical treatise lays the groundwork for a metaphysics of morals. In clear, demanding prose, it asks what makes an action morally good and develops the idea of a universal moral law grounded in reason. It rewards listeners seeking a rigorous introduction to modern ethical thought.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF

THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS

By Immanuel Kant

1785

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics, and logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature of the thing; and the only improvement that can be made in it is to add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly the necessary subdivisions.

All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former

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Contents

  1. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
  2. 1785
  3. PREFACE
  4. FIRST SECTION—TRANSITION FROM THE COMMON RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MORALITY TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL
  5. SECOND SECTION—TRANSITION FROM POPULAR MORAL PHILOSOPHY TO THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS
  6. The Autonomy of the Will as the Supreme Principle of Morality
  7. Heteronomy of the Will as the Source of all spurious Principles of Morality
  8. Classification of all Principles of Morality which can be founded on the Conception of Heteronomy
  9. THIRD SECTION—TRANSITION FROM THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS TO THE CRITIQUE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON
  10. The Concept of Freedom is the Key that explains the Autonomy of the Will
  11. Freedom must be presupposed as a Property of the Will of all Rational Beings
  12. Of the Interest attaching to the Ideas of Morality
  13. How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?
  14. Of the Extreme Limits of all Practical Philosophy.
  15. CONCLUDING REMARK
  16. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

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