Immanuel kant this volume contains four versions of the lecture notes taken by kant s students of his university courses in ethics given regularly over a period of some thirty years. Kants ethics so far in our discussion of ethics we have been focusing on different versions of consequentialism the view that one is morally obliged to pursue the course of action which, of the available alternatives, will produce the best outcome. Kant started not with pain and pleasure but rather with the fact that mankinds. A critical guide, cambridge, cambridge university press, 2015 cambridge critical guides, pp. The choice between consequentialist and kantian ethics is a dif. Here kant distinguishes the moral law the categorical imperative from other rules of action, which he calls hypothetical imperatives. The metaphysics of ethics online library of liberty.
In every area of philosophy, not only in ethics, but even in theoretical. It helps in reading kant s lectures on ethics to know a little about baumgartens moral phi losophy and about the textbooks in which he expounded it. Kant groundwork for the metaphysics of morals with essays. Immanuel kant was an influential german philosopher in the age of enlightenment. Utilitarianism takes no account of integrity the accidental act or one done with evil intent if promoting good ends is the good act. The philosophy itself is a form of perfectionism, the view that the first task of rational agents is to improve themselves. The notes are very complete and expound not only kant s views on ethics but many of his opinions on life and human nature. Kants lectures on ethics, which were lecture notes taken by three of his students on the courses he gave in moral philosophy, also include. Kant may have been drawn to the subject of ethics in part by reading and reflecting on.
Read download kants lectures on ethics pdf pdf download. Although kantian ethics are usually spoken of in terms of duty and doing the right thing, kant himself thought. Kant is best known for his work in the philosophy of ethics and metaphysics, but. I would say that we can identify some important normative differences in emotion theory as it is. Kants moral philosophy stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. This volume collects kant s most important ethical and anthropological writings from the 1760s, before he developed his critical philosophy. The various lecture notes transcribed by students in kant s classroom have become an. The materials presented here range from the observations, one of kant s most elegantly written and immediately popular texts, to the accompanying remarks which kant wrote in his personal copy of the observations and which are translated here in their. This volume contains four versions of the lecture notes taken by kant s students of his university courses in ethics given regularly over a period of some thirty years.