This book joins the contemporary recovery of Kant’s empirical works to highlight the relevance of his concept of culture for understanding the sources of various characteristic modern dilemmas, such as the tension between culture and happiness, the morally ambivalent nature of cultural progress, or the existing conflicts between a factual plurality of cultures and the historical forces pressing toward a universal civilization. The book will be of special interest for Kantian scholars, moral and political philosophers, as well as philosophers of culture.

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.

This book analyses Kant’s assumptions about happiness and the implications they have for his moral, political, and legal thought. It provides a “map” of the different areas in which the concept of happiness appears in his practical philosophy and examines how it relates to the main themes of his practical philosophy.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Kant's treatment of happiness in ethics. It considers the definition of happiness and the possible roles happiness may serve in ethics. It argues against critics who maintain that Kant's deontological ethic rejects happiness and against critics who assert that Kant's ethic is, in fact, consequential and concerned above all with ends such as happiness. By pointing to a system that organizes Kant's various claims about happiness, the book supports the view that happiness has positive roles to play in Kant's ethic.

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (1788) is one of his most important works and a key text to understanding Kant’s philosophy and it the impact it had on later developments of moral philosophy and ethics.

Kant's early defense of the contemplative life -- The two vocations of humanity in Kant's anthropology -- The worthlessness of human life -- Kant's genealogy of morality -- Kant's view of the meaning of life -- The purposes of politics (1) : culture -- The purposes of politics (2) : civilization -- The purposes of politics (3) : right -- Kant's perfectionist liberalism -- Kant's political liberalism -- The meaningfulness of the liberal project.

It is the purpose of these essays to commemorate the one hundredth birthday of the philosopher Max Scheler. On this centennial occasion it may be appropriate to recall the first two major works of the philosopher's life. Scheler is known mostly as the author of a monumental work on ethics, entitled: Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values), which is the only existing foundation of ethics written by a European philosopher in this century. Although its two parts were published separately (1913/1916) because of circumstances during World War I, all manuscripts had been finished by Scheler prior to the outbreak of the war. His ethics has been translated into various languages, including a recent translation in English. In the same year (1913) Scheler also published another major work which dealt with the phenomenology of sympathetic feelings, and which is translated into English under the title of the enlarged second and following editions: The Nature of Sympathy.