Objective imperatives : an exploration of Kant's moral philosophy / Ralph C.S. Walker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walker, Ralph (Ralph Charles Sutherland), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.

Kant, Immanuel.

Ethics.

Liberty--Moral and ethical aspects.

Liberty.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 192 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Exploration of Kant's moral philosophy

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2022.

Summary:

Kant held the moral law to be an objective imperative, an entity in its own right. It carries with it prescriptive force, in parallel to other principles of pure reason, like those of logic and mathematics. Objective imperatives therefore do not derive their authority from any other source, such as common consensus or the will of God. In this book, Ralph C.S. Walker seeks to show that this is a highly defensible view: Kant's Categorical Imperative, properly understood, is broadly right. The key to it is rationality, and not universality, which functions only as an approximate test. Often, Kant sets the matter out badly, and most of the common objections to him can be shown to be due to misunderstandings. A morality that gives us an objective imperative does appear incompatible with the determinism to which Kant commits himself, but Walker argues that this appearance is misleading.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Objective Imperatives

1.1 The Need to Reconsider Kant's Moral Philosophy

1.2 The Moral Law Is an Imperative of Pure Practical Reason

1.3 Kant's Case Against His Opponents

2. The Categorical Imperative

2.1 Introductory

2.2 The Rational Will

2.3 The Inseparability of Form and Matter

2.4 Understanding the Four Examples

2.5 Ends in Themselves and Apparent Rigorism

2.6 The Kingdom of Ends and the Concept of Autonomy

2.7 Maxims

3. Duty, Virtue and Feeling

3.1 How Feeling and Duty Can Work Together

3.2 Training that Can Lead to Duty

3.3 The Need for Sympathetic Feeling

3.4 Moral Progress and the Change of Heart

3.5 Limitations on Freedom

4. The Need for Freedom

4.1 The Apparent Contradiction: The Groundwork

4.2 The Critique of Practical Reason: An Advance?

4.3 Causality and teleology

4.4 Towards a Case for Free Will

5. The Case for Freedom

5.1 Transcendental Idealism as Offering a Solution

5.2 'Truth' Within the World as We Know It

5.3 Kant's Concern about Theories

5.4 'Timeless' Experience: McTaggart

5.5 Freedom as Assured by the Fact of Pure Reason

5.6 The Consistency of Free Will and 'Determinism'

6. The Strengths of Kant's Position

6.1 How Far Kant Is Right

6.2 A More Defensible Transcendental Idealism?

6.3 Induction, Evolution, and Non-cognitivism.

Notes:

This edition also issued in print: 2022.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on November 1, 2022).

Other Format:

Print version: Walker, Ralph C. S. Objective Imperatives

ISBN:

0-19-194786-5

0-19-267122-7

0-19-267123-5