Kant on Persons and Agency

Today we consider ourselves to be free and equal persons, capable of acting rationally and autonomously in both practical (moral) and theoretical (scientific) contexts. The essays in this volume show how this conception was first articulated in a fully systematic fashion by Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Twelve leading scholars shed new light on Kant's philosophy, with each devoting particular attention to at least one of three aspects of this conception: autonomy, freedom, and personhood. Some focus on clarifying the philosophical content of Kant's position, while others consider how his views on these issues cohere with his other distinctive doctrines, and yet others focus on the historical impact that these doctrines had on his immediate successors and on our present thought. Their essays offer important new perspectives on some of the most fundamental issues that we continue to confront in modern society.

Introduction Eric Watkins; Part I. Autonomy: 1. The unconditioned goodness of the good will Eric Watkins; 2. Universal law Allen Wood; 3. Understanding autonomy: form and content of practical knowledge Stephen Engstrom; 4. The principle of autonomy in Kant's moral theory: its rise and fall Pauline Kleingeld; Part II. Freedom: 5. Evil and practical reason Lucy Allais; 6. Freedom as a postulate Marcus Willaschek; 7. Kant's struggle for freedom: freedom of will in Kant and Reinhold Paul Guyer; 8. The practice of self-consciousness: Kant on nature, freedom, and morality Dieter Sturma; Part III. Persons: 9. Kant's multiple concepts of person Béatrice Longuenesse; 10. We are not alone: a place for animals in Kant's ethics Barbara Herman; 11. The dynamism of reason in Kant and Hegel Robert Pippin; Part IV. Conclusion: 12. Once again: the end of all things Karl Ameriks.

Eric Watkins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (Cambridge, 2005) and the editor of several books including Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials (Cambridge, 2009) and Immanuel Kant: Natural Science (Cambridge, 2011).