12 - Kant's Tugendlehre as normative ethics

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In The Metaphysics of Morals, especially the Tugendlehre or Doctrine of Virtue, Kant clarifies, develops, and extends ideas that he presented in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. These earlier works attempt to articulate and defend the fundamental moral law, and they argue that all previous moral theories fail to appreciate the autonomy of will that we must attribute to ourselves as rational moral agents. They provide only a few brief examples of how this supreme principle can guide moral deliberation, a task that the Groundwork explicitly postpones for a later “metaphysics of ­morals” (G 4:391). Kant published a two-part work of this title late in his life (1797–98), and it is here that we find his fullest official presentation of his normative ethical theory (or here “normative ethics”).

My plan is to review and highlight certain features of Kant's normative ethics as I understand it. My focus will be primarily on general features, especially its aim and structure, rather than on specific first-order duties. The discussion will be wide-ranging, though not comprehensive. The interpretations that I propose may be controversial at points, but I shall not defend them here. My hope is that together they present the Tugendlehre as a normative ethics that is coherent and contrasts with other normative ethical theories in interesting ways.