Preface

Summary

The ideas for this book were already taking shape in the 1980s, while I was at work on Hegel's Ethical Thought. There I tried to present Hegel's critique of Kant in a way that was accurate and fair to both philosophers, but as the work progressed I became increasingly aware how difficult this would be. I realized from the beginning that Hegel's criticisms of the Kantian principle of morality do not entirely succeed because, like most of Kant's readers, Hegel attended exclusively to the Formula of Universal Law, ignoring the other formulations, which are more adequate statements of the principle. I also began to see that on the deeper issues that separate the two philosophers, Kant's position is grounded on a distinctive theory of human nature and history, whose importance for Kant's ethics has seldom been appreciated. In some ways this theory anticipates Hegel's own philosophy of history, but it also provides a compelling explanation for Kant's notorious view that natural inclinations are a “counterweight” to moral reason (G 4:405) rather than being (as Hegel thinks) an expression of reason. I decided to write a book on Kant's ethical thought when I realized that along with the overemphasis on the Formula of Universal Law, the neglect of Kant's empirical theory of human nature and history is responsible for most of the misunderstandings of Kant's ethical thought that prevail among its supporters as well as its critics.