First developed in the 1780s and 90s, Immanuel Kant’s ethics of autonomy is still considered a live option by moral philosophers today.
Foundational questions
- How do moral imperatives differ from other kinds of practical norms?
- What is the source of moral principles? What kind of justification do they require?
- How should a Kantian ethical theory be classified? How does it differ from other ethical theories?
- How does Kantian autonomy relate to modern conceptions of personal autonomy?
- How does Kantian ethics relate to ordinary, pre-philosophical moral thought, e.g. principles of fairness or the Golden Rule?
Philosophy of action and moral psychology
- What does it mean for a duty to be authoritative for us?
- What is the nature of subjective principles or ‘maxims’?
- What does it take for an action to be morally good?
- How do agents acquire and strengthen virtue in the course of a lifetime?
First-order Kantian ethics
- What is the difference between different strict and wide duties?
- Can we make sense of Kantian ‘duties to self’?
- To what extent can moral requirements conflict? How are such conflicts to be resolved?
Ethics and legal philosophy
- What is the foundation of Kantian state authority? To what extent does it rely on Kantian ethics?
- How does a Kantian moral philosophy deal with questions of guilt, punishment, forgiveness and pardon?
- What kind of international peace order is suggested by Kantian moral philosophy?
People
- Jens Timmermann (Philosophy), Project Leader
- Jacob Librizzi (Philosophy)
Publications
JT, What’s Wrong with Deontology, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115 (2015).
JT, Kant’s Will at the Crossroads (Oxford UP, 2025)
JT, Kant and the Supposed Right to Lie (Cambridge UP, 2025)
JT, Kant and the Supposed Right of Necessity (Cambridge UP, 2026, forthcoming)
Events
- The Kant Reading Party
- The St Andrews Kant Colloquium
- The Paton Lectures and Colloquium
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