Grounding for the Metaphysics of Mora..., Immanuel Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Mora..., Immanuel Kant
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Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

Author: Immanuel Kant

Narrator: John Riddle

Unabridged: 6 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2020

Categories: Nonfiction, Philosophy


Synopsis

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785; German: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; also known as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and remains one of the most influential in the field. Kant conceives his investigation as a work of foundational ethics—one that clears the ground for future research by explaining the core concepts and principles of moral theory, and showing that they are normative for rational agents.

Kant purposes to lay bare the fundamental principle of morality and show that it applies to us. Central to the work is the role of what Kant refers to as the categorical imperative, the concept that one must act only according to that precept which he or she would will to become a universal law. He provides a groundbreaking argument that the rightness of an action is determined by the principle that a person chooses to act upon. This stands in stark contrast to the moral sense theories and teleological moral theories that dominated moral philosophy at the time of Kant's career.

The Groundwork is broken into a preface, followed by three sections. Kant's argument works from common reason up to the supreme unconditional law, in order to identify its existence. He then works backwards from there to prove the relevance and weight of the moral law. The book is famously obscure, and it is partly because of this that Kant later, in 1788, decided to publish the Critique of Practical Reason.

About Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a Prussian philosopher whose best-known works include the Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Critique of Judgment, and the Metaphysics of Morals. The fourth of eleven children, he attended the University of Königsberg beginning in 1740, where he later became a professor of philosophy. A central figure in moral philosphy, Kant's doctrines rely upon the principles of human autonomy and rationality. His work influenced-either as a foundation or a point of opposition-such later philosophers as Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Foucault, and his ideas have affected fields ranging from metaphysics and ethics to epistemology and political philosophy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Roy on June 02, 2016

Confession of Stupidity: Lately, I’ve been had long and agonizing conversation with my friend about the categorical imperative. I was insisting that it didn’t make sense; my friend insisted that it did, and that I merely misunderstood it. After much deliberation, I found to my embarrassment that......more

Goodreads review by Joshua Nomen-Mutatio on January 23, 2010

I was the annoying guy in class who kept insisting that the categorical imperative was the Golden Rule with a thick, convoluted veneer of the most difficult writing in philosophical history slathered all over it. Of course it is slightly different than the Golden Rule, but I'd say only trivially so.......more

Goodreads review by Orhan on September 11, 2023

Happiness is not the central character or aim in Kant's ethics, as is the case with most ethical theories, nor is happiness the ideal state of the mind. Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) is more focused on presenting the core principles of morality derived from a priori pure ideas......more

Goodreads review by Jon on March 20, 2023

There is a joke in German...the German philosophy student who learns English because Kant was too hard to understand in German(!) The hardest book I have ever read...99% went over my head...Kant was a genius - I am not. Just the right book to take you down a notch; but I will keep trying to understa......more