This chapter suggests two sorts of objections that mere outward conformity of a person's action with general principles of justice is all that can be required by justice even if not by ethics. It engages with both these objections, though pays more attention to the first and flags the second objection. The chapter sets out the systematic objection to the possible inclusion of Kant's philosophy of Right in his moral philosophy. It also argues that if one starts from central concerns of the Doctrine of Right, the text's distinctly public morality comes into focus. This chapter draws on Kant's late Wille/Willkr distinction in order to tease out the distinctive nature of public juridical willing: surprisingly, in the political context, autonomy as self-legislation is simply irrelevant. It explores how individual political judgment relates to public willing; and discovers crucial differences between Kant's political morality and Kant-inspired current liberalism.

Immanuel Kant's late work, The Metaphysics of Morals, is treated as a kind of retreat from the critical self-limitation to a formal ethics that characterises the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant made it clear that the idea of a metaphysics of morals represents a Platonism of practical reason. In this chapter, the author focuses on the Preface and on one or two specific passages from the main text of the Groundwork that expressly pursue the argument in the Preface concerning the necessity for such metaphysics. Kant's speculative arguments concern the systematic structure of philosophy and the articulated presentation of its relevant objects. His arguments concern the way in which Kant's position coincides with the understanding that everyone already possesses concerning morality. The author elucidates these arguments and questions whether it is really necessary to provide a metaphysical grounding of ethics at all.