Force and Freedom

Force and Freedom
Author: Arthur Ripstein
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2010-02-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674054512

In this masterful work, both an illumination of Kant’s thought and an important contribution to contemporary legal and political theory, Arthur Ripstein gives a comprehensive yet accessible account of Kant’s political philosophy. Ripstein shows that Kant’s thought is organized around two central claims: first, that legal institutions are not simply responses to human limitations or circumstances; indeed the requirements of justice can be articulated without recourse to views about human inclinations and vulnerabilities. Second, Kant argues for a distinctive moral principle, which restricts the legitimate use of force to the creation of a system of equal freedom. Ripstein’s description of the unity and philosophical plausibility of this dimension of Kant’s thought will be a revelation to political and legal scholars. In addition to providing a clear and coherent statement of the most misunderstood of Kant’s ideas, Ripstein also shows that Kant’s views remain conceptually powerful and morally appealing today. Ripstein defends the idea of equal freedom by examining several substantive areas of law—private rights, constitutional law, police powers, and punishment—and by demonstrating the compelling advantages of the Kantian framework over competing approaches.

Kant's Conception of Freedom

Kant's Conception of Freedom
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 557
Release: 2020-01-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107145112

Traces the development of Kant's views on free will from earlier writings through the three Critiques and beyond.

Kant's Theory of Taste

Kant's Theory of Taste
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2001-03-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139428683

This book constitutes one of the most important contributions to recent Kant scholarship. In it, one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Kant, Henry Allison, offers a comprehensive, systematic, and philosophically astute account of all aspects of Kant's views on aesthetics. The first part of the book analyses Kant's conception of reflective judgment and its connections with both empirical knowledge and judgments of taste. The second and third parts treat two questions that Allison insists must be kept distinct: the normativity of pure judgments of taste, and the moral and systematic significance of taste. The fourth part considers two important topics often neglected in the study of Kant's aesthetics: his conceptions of fine art, and the sublime.

Kant's Theory of Freedom

Kant's Theory of Freedom
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 1990-09-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521387088

An innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom analyzes the role it plays in his moral philosophy and psychology and considers critical literature on the subject.

Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard

Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard
Author: Michelle Kosch
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2006-05-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199289115

This book traces a complex of issues surrounding moral agency from Kant through Schelling to Kierkegaard.

The Virtues of Freedom

The Virtues of Freedom
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 512
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191072265

The essays collected in this volume by Paul Guyer, one of the world's foremost Kant scholars, explore Kant's attempt to develop a morality grounded on the intrinsic and unconditional value of the human freedom to set our own ends. When regulated by the principle that the freedom of all is equally valuable, the freedom to set our own ends -- what Kant calls "humanity" - becomes what he calls autonomy. These essays explore Kant's strategies for establishing the premise that freedom is the inner worth of the world or the essential end of humankind, as he says, and for deriving the specific duties that fundamental principle of morality generates in the empirical circumstances of human existence. The Virtues of Freedom further investigates Kant's attempts to prove that we are always free to live up to this moral ideal, that is, that we have free will no matter what, as well as his more successful explorations of the ways in which our natural tendencies to be moral -- dispositions to the feeling of respect and more specific feelings such as love and self-esteem -- can and must be cultivated and educated. Guyer finally examines the various models of human community that Kant develops from his premise that our associations must be based on the value of freedom for all. The contrasts but also similarities of Kant's moral philosophy to that of David Hume but many of his other predecessors and contemporaries, such as Stoics and Epicureans, Pufendorf and Wolff, Hutcheson, Kames, and Smith, are also explored.

Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity

Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity
Author: Kate A. Moran
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2018-09-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107125936

A collection of essays on the foundational themes of freedom and spontaneity in Immanuel Kant's philosophy.

Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness

Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2000-02-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521654210

Kant is often portrayed as the author of a rigid system of ethics in which adherence to a formal and universal principle of morality - the famous categorical imperative - is an end itself, and any concern for human goals and happiness a strictly secondary and subordinate matter. Such a theory seems to suit perfectly rational beings but not human beings. The twelve essays in this collection by one of the world's preeminent Kant scholars argue for a radically different account of Kant's ethics. They explore an interpretation of the moral philosophy according to which freedom is the fundamental end of human action, but an end that can only be preserved and promoted by adherence to moral law. By radically revising the traditional interpretation of Kant's moral and political philosophy and by showing how Kant's coherent liberalism can guide us in current debates, Paul Guyer will find an audience across moral and political philosophy, intellectual history, and political science.

Kant’s Moral Metaphysics

Kant’s Moral Metaphysics
Author: Benjamin Bruxvoort Lipscomb
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2010-06-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110220040

Morality has traditionally been understood to be tied to certain metaphysical beliefs: notably, in the freedom of human persons (to choose right or wrong courses of action), in a god (or gods) who serve(s) as judge(s) of moral character, and in an afterlife as the locus of a “final judgment” on individual behavior. Some scholars read the history of moral philosophy as a gradual disentangling of our moral commitments from such beliefs. Kant is often given an important place in their narratives, despite the fact that Kant himself asserts that some of such beliefs are necessary (necessary, at least, from the practical point of view). Many contemporary neo-Kantian moral philosophers have embraced these “disentangling” narratives or, at any rate, have minimized the connection of Kant’s practical philosophy with controversial metaphysical commitments ‐ even with Kant’s transcendental idealism. This volume re-evaluates those interpretations. It is arguably the first collection to systematically explore the metaphysical commitments central to Kant’s practical philosophy, and thus the connections between Kantian ethics, his philosophy of religion, and his epistemological claims concerning our knowledge of the supersensible.