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Kant’s solution for the problem of freedom of the will rests on his transcendental idealism and its differentiation of appearances and things in themselves. Human beings, with their bodies and observable inner and outer activities, are objects of perception (empirical intuition) and therefore appearances. These are only the appearances of their noumenal selves. Human beings are determined by laws of nature in all their perceivable alterations which include all their actions, but their noumenal selves, not being in time, are not determined by the necessity of causal laws of nature, but can be determined by the moral law of their pure practical reason which they give to themselves. The actions of the will, observable volitions and external actions, can therefore, at the same time, be under the necessitating law of nature, i.e. be unfree, and, as appearances of the self-determination of their noumenal will (by fulfilling the demands of the moral law), be free. Two professors of Jena University, Ulrich and Schmid, accept part of Kant’s transcendental idealism but contend that the many transgressions of the moral law in human acting must have their noumenal reason in the agent’s intelligible character or in the intelligible substrate of nature. This theory is called “intelligible fatalism”.

Despite the popularity of many of Kant’s ethical notions, such as autonomy, dignity and respect for persons, there is a perception, even among Kant scholars themselves, that one cannot reliably derive concrete duties from Kant’s moral philosophy. Against this, I shall argue that — properly understood — Kant’s ethics is of prime importance even today. I shall argue that Kant’s preferred procedure is actually the way we develop new ethical rules during the recent Coronavirus pandemic. In order to demonstrate this, I shall first reflect on how we came up with ethical rules such as keeping six feet of distance, wearing a mask, or restricting the number of people who can occupy a room at the same time. I shall then give the reasons why I do not follow the standard interpretations of how one derives concrete duties from Kant’s main formulation of the Categorical Imperative or the Formula of Humanity. Finally, I shall present the textual evidence that Kant proposes a method like the one we use today during a pandemic, and argue that this alternative interpretation can deal much better with the main objections that are commonly levelled against the standard interpretation of Kant’s procedure to derive concrete duties from the Categorical Imperative.

According to the positive duties objection, it is not possible to derive positive duties from Kant’s Formula of Universal Law (FUL). However, in his recent “Deriving Positive Duties from Kant’s Formula of Universal Law”, Guus Duindam tries to answer this objection. More specifically, Duindam tries to show how both a duty of benevolence and a duty of self-perfection can be derived from the FUL. I critically examine Duindam’s arguments. I maintain that Duindam’s argument for the positive duty of benevolence is ambiguous and that this ambiguity exposes him to a fatal dilemma: on one horn, Duindam faces the same objection that he concedes to be effective against other attempts to answer the positive duties objection; on the other horn, the procedure he recommends cannot be based on the FUL (because it does not evaluate actions on the basis of their corresponding maxims). In addition, I maintain that Duindam’s benevolence argument rests on a procedure that is, in general, intractable and, in this particular case, foredoomed (because it can be shown that there are no positive duties of the kind he tries to derive). From there, I turn to Duindam’s argument for the positive duty of self-perfection. I explain that Duindam’s derivation of the duty of self-perfection, even if successful, does not answer the positive duties objection. This is because Duindam never appeals to the FUL in his derivation of the duty of self-perfection (the derivation is based, rather, on instrumental reasoning from the second-order end to accomplish our first-order ends). I elaborate on this by comparing and contrasting Duindam’s argument with Oliver Sensen’s interpretation of how to apply the FUL in the latter’s recent “Universal Law and Poverty Relief”.

Community as a Form of Thinking. How One Turns Kant Towards Social Philosophy with Fink, Nancy, and Esposito - In the times of nihilism, it is necessary to recall, with Roberto Esposito, the fact that, strictly speaking, in philosophy and its history, there is no other subject than community, insofar as everything that becomes the subject of philosophy can only become so because of the fact that there is community. That communality is a form of thinking or that the latter is constitutively communal, is another way of expressing what Emmanuel Levinas once put in the more succinct phrase that in consciousness one is always in two, even if one is alone. In order to explain the implications of this, I draw a line in my essay from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (specifically, its “positive” definition of being as “merely the position of a thing” [B 626], which receives much less attention than its negative aspect emphasized in the same passage, according to which being is not a real predicate) to the readings of Kant by Eugen Fink, Jean-Luc Nancy, and the aforementioned Roberto Esposito, in order to arrive at an understanding of being as an exposition of the disposition of things in us, i.e., as community.

The authors of the idea of a “new Enlightenment”, Ernst von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman, in their 2018 report to the Club of Rome analyse the causes of the explosive development of science and technology in the Modern period and come to the conclusion that their triumph and existential threats stem in many ways from the ideals of Enlightenment, so that the future of humankind depends crucially on an ideological rethinking of man’s status in the world. They stress the need to enhance the responsibility of the individual so that each individual becomes conscious of sharing the destiny of the whole of mankind and the world. I argue that in the framework of Enlightenment 2.0 the Kantian concept of social development, which is closely linked with the moral ideal — the kingdom of ends — may form the basis of the concept of society in which individual freedom and social development are interconnected and the mutually determining elements of the human being in whom freedom can be exercised only if it contributes to social good. The Kantian interpretation of social development as the human being forming the sphere of free being can be the basis of a critical assessment of the content of video games in terms of their media impact on the shaping of the ideology of modern society. I show that the boundaries of the exercise of freedom in a video game, supported by artificial intelligence, influence the way an individual perceives society and his/her place in it. I come to the conclusion that video games, which express a certain idea about society, can contribute to or impede the formation of a new ideological foundation of society whose aim, according to Enlightenment 2.0, should be overcoming the antagonism between the individual and the collective.

Copyright of Kant-Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the key ethical debates in Russian religious thought, initiated by Leo Tolstoy, concerned the question of nonresistance to evil by force. The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of Kant’s ethics and philosophy of religion on the course of this debate and to determine the place and significance of the arguments and considerations expressed on this issue by Semyon Frank in the early and late periods (1908 and 1940s) of his work. To this end I reconstruct the general course of the debate, notably the positions and arguments of Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Solovyov, Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev. Beginning with Tolstoy, Russ­ian thinkers introduced the original ethical content of the idea of nonresistance derived from the Gospel into the ethics of duty borrowed from Kant. The Tolstoy version of this idea was challenged mainly from two directions: from the Kantian grounding of the legitimacy of coercion and attempts to bring in styles of moral thinking other than the ethic of duty. Ilyin’s apolo­gia for the use of force in the struggle against evil prompted Russian émigré thinkers to take a closer look at Tolstoy’s ethical concept and pay attention to its positive content. On this basis Berdyaev and especially Frank create their version of the Christ-centered ethic of salvation which, in the perspective of “protecting the world against evil” includes the ethic of duty and links it with the possibility of using force, always a wrongful act, but one justified “in a situation of extreme need”.

Two issues are at the core of a seemingly never-ending debate about Groundwork III: First, does Kant in GMS III still think he has to deduce the moral law partly from non-moral presuppositions by making a transition from theoretical to practical freedom, as Schönecker argues? Or does Kant already regard the categorical imperative as grounded in a fact of reason, as Puls argues? It is, secondly, no less unclear what exactly is meant by the "deduction" Kant mentions in three places in GMS III. While Puls claims that Kant is referring to the deduction of the idea of freedom from the unquestionable consciousness of pure practical reason, Schönecker contends that GMS III is ultimately about the deduction of the categorical imperative. Schönecker takes issue with Puls's position as developed, and Puls replies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of whether an artificial moral agent (AMA) is possible implies discussion of a whole range of problems raised by Kant within the framework of practical philosophy that have not exhausted their heuris­tic potential to this day. First, I show the significance of the correlation between moral law and freedom. Since a rational being believes that his/her will is independent of external influences, the will turns out to be governed by the moral law and is autonomous. Morality and freedom are correlated through independence from the external. Accordingly, if the actions of artificial intelligence (AI) are determined by something or someone external to it (by a human), then it does not act morally and freely, but heteronomously. As a consequence of AI’s lack of autonomy, and thus lack of access to the moral law, it does not and cannot have a moral understanding that proceeds from the moral law. Another consequence is that it has no sense of duty, which would follow from the moral law. Thus, moral action becomes impossible for the AMA because it lacks autonomy and moral law, moral understanding and sense of duty. It is concluded that, first, AMA not only cannot be moral, but should not be that, since the inclusion of any moral principle would imply the necessity for the individual to choose it, making the choice of the principle itself immoral. Second, although AI has no will as such, which prima facie makes not only moral but also legal action impossible, it can still act legally in the sense of conforming to legal law, since AI carries a quasi-human will. Thus, it is necessary that the creation of AI should be based not on moral principles, but on legal law that prioritises human freedom and rights.

The Russian intuitivist philosopher Nikolay Lossky repeatedly admitted Kant’s substantial formative influence on him as a scholar. Moreover, Lossky was a disciple of the Russian Kantian Aleksander Vvedensky, and was one of the most successful translators of the first Critique. However, his own philosophical project is rather the opposite of the critical programme. While in the framework of Lossky’s epistemology the specificities of his reading of Kant have received a fair amount of attention in Russian scholarship, in the ethical field the Russian philosopher’s comments on Kant have passed largely unnoticed. My task is to reveal the link between Kant’s practical philosophy and Lossky’s ethics. A demonstration of the degree of Kant’s influence in this field will enlarge and concretise the current thinking about Lossky’s perception of Kant. We are looking at a whole range of parallels and borrowings. My comparative analysis focuses on the following aspects: 1) definition and uses of the term “categorical imperative”, 2) free will as the condition of the possibility of moral action, 3) the cause of moral evil, 4) the role of the idea of God in ethics. As a result, I reveal how Lossky used elements of Kant’s practical philosophy as conceptual, terminological and rhetorical resources in his theonomic ethics, and how the Russian philosopher interpreted them in line with his own doctrine. I argue that Lossky’s use of the Kantian moral terminology is incautious and debatable and point out several intersections of ethical argumentations in the light of its projection on radically different ontological and epistemological principles.

Some ideas expressed in the collective monograph Universality in Morality (2020), edited by Ruben Apressyan, are here critically examined. The book is based on the results of a large-scale study by professional ethical philosophers devoted to the question of the nature of universality in morality and the mechanisms of universalisation of individual maxims and norms from antiquity to modern ethical theories, represented above all by the analytical tradition in philosophy. Of great interest is the analysis of related phenomena in morality, which makes it possible to determine the causes and nature of the transformation of morality in different eras and the accompanying change in the terminological apparatus of absolute ethical universalism, considered to be the starting point in the analysis of key modern concepts of moral universality. The article also suggests possible avenues for continued research in this area which could prompt modifications not only to the history of the concept of universality in morality, but also to our assessment of the contribution of individual authors and entire eras to the progress of human civilisation. This concerns above all the moral theory of contractarianism and the Enlightenment. Focus on their ideas goes a long way to determining the direction of current historical-philosophical research that reconstructs the history of ethical teachings and individual concepts. The importance attached today to a new view of the theory of the social contract, considered not only from socio-political but also from moral positions, forces us to approach in a new way the question concerning the universality of the key philosophical categories developed within this theory throughout its history. Elaborating the ideas set forth in the monograph, the author also stresses the relevance of the problem of justifying the thesis about the moral law as an analogue of the universal law of nature in the modern context.

The third formulation of the Categorical Imperative rarely receives the attention devoted to its predecessors. This paper aims to develop a naturalistic approach to morality inspired by Kant’s conception of moral agents as legislating in a Kingdom of Ends. Positions derived from the third formulation, John Rawls’s Kantian Constructivism and T. M. Scanlon’s Contractualism, cleave closely to Kant in idealising the process of legislation. For Rawls, the citizens of the Kantian Reich can be reduced to one, a representative of all, who deliberates behind the veil of ignorance using minimax reasoning. Scanlon includes other lawmakers, but any potential diversity among them is overridden by trans­historical canons of reason. By contrast, I view morality as developing historically through the interactions among people with different views and conflicting aims. The task of moral theory is to construct an appropriate methodology to govern their deliberations. My naturalised Kant takes the first steps. Morality arises from the recognition of problematic situations, identified first by listening to the complaints of actual people, by judging whether they are warranted, and by seeking to amend them when the warrant is confirmed. Societies (and individuals) make moral progress when they deliberate (or simulate deliberations) in accordance with three norms. All those potentially affected should be included; the best available information should be used; and participants should aim for an outcome all can accept. How far is naturalised Kant from the great philosopher? I leave the answer to the scholars.

In the second section of the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant introduces the concept of an end in itself and defines it as something whose existence has an absolute value. He continues with the assertion that the ground of a possible categorical imperative lies solely in this end in itself. Now Kant, in his remarks on the realm of ends, also operates with the notions of an end in itself and absolute value — seemingly in a different way, however. Thus, in the remarks on the realm of ends, the rational being becomes an end in itself through its real moral willing and acting, both of which presuppose the validity of the categorical imperative. Basically, the difference in the ways of using the concepts of absolute value and an end in itself consists in the fact that in the first case both serve as precondition for the categorical imperative’s validity, whereas in the passages concerning the realm of ends both are a consequence of its validity. At first glance we therefore must register an inconsistent use of both terms. In what follows, I aim to show that the assumption of such a putative inconsistency expresses a misleading understanding of the internal structure of the end in itself rather than a real problem in Kant’s way of arguing. The present study tries to solve this supposed problem of inconsistency by sketching a more appropriate understanding of the internal structure of the end in itself.

In his popular 1806 lectures on religion Fichte considered five possible worldviews in the second of which, “the standpoint of legality”, one can readily recognise the ethics of law of the Stoical and Kantian type. Fichte stresses that in his youth he himself shared this worldview. However, he hastens to adduce a series of original arguments to show that this position is essentially incapable of delivering a pure and higher moral doctrine. I examine the substance of these critical arguments in the context of his later metaphysics. Fichte maintains that in the “second type” of worldview man himself feels and understands, respects and loves himself only as a subject of unconditional law, therefore the pathos and “affection of law” pervades all his assessments and motivations. This affects the impartiality of moral assessment if the requirements of the law are diverged from. The “man of law”, the Stoic and Kantian who is not conscious of direct violations of the law, can at most not despise himself, but he cannot, according to Fichte, positively respect himself: that would require surpassing the requirement of the law through action. Meanwhile the affection of the self-sufficient law conceals even this impossibility from such a person. Finally, I show that the ethics of the Stoical and Kantian type retains, according to Fichte’s diagnosis, a refined interest in preserving and indulging the sensual self and hence the idea of God as the warrantor of empirical happiness / bliss. Accordingly, the “overturn in the state of mind” sought by the Kantian himself implies “the highest act of freedom”, which is inaccessible to him and beyond which the perspective of the world as law is replaced for the subject by the perspective of the Kingdom of the Spirit in which the “selfhood” of each moral agent is practically overcome.

This review presents the discussion on “Freedom and Arbitrariness. The Relevance of Kant’s Ethics and the Modern World”, which took place at the 16th Philosophical Workshop “I. Kant and the Current Problems of Modern Philosophy” held in Saratov on 14 May 2019. The discussion was organised by the Department of Ethics and Esthetics at the Philosophical Faculty of the N. G. Chernyshevsky Saratov State University and the Department of Ontology and Epistemology of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (Moscow). The discussion of Kant’s treatment of the problem of freedom was prompted by the historical and philosophical context of the perception of his ideas by German and Russian Neo-Kantians as reflected in the presentations and interventions during the course of the discussion.

Heiko Puls’ work Sittliches Bewusstsein und Kategorischer Imperativ in Kants Grundlegung: Ein Kommentar zum dritten Abschnitt, presents an attempt to show that, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s argumentation for the objective value of the categorical imperative is almost based upon the same principle as the one presented in the second Critique. More precisely, Puls claims that, like in the Critique of Practical Reason, the Groundwork operates with some kind of fact of reason-theory, which means that our consciousness of the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of our freedom of will. Accordingly, there is no conclusion from a kind of non-moral consciousness of freedom to the freedom of will and from here to the objective value of the categorical imperative, as many interpreters assume. Due to the ambitiousness of his main thesis and his detailed and subtle way of arguing, Puls’ work represents an important and innovative contribution to recent research on Kant’s Groundwork. Nevertheless, his interpretations sometimes seem to favour analysis of loose philological relationships over closer looks on the contexts of passages. Or he focuses excessively on isolated textual evidences for his readings without appropriately recognising the various other evidences against it. In what follows, I give examples for this criticism.

This interview explores the extent to which Kant’s philosophy, which postulates certain moral principles categorically, has influenced the contemporary theory of justice. Many academics believe such principles to be relative and emphasise that justice lies beyond the remit of science. Otfried Höffe is convinced that categorical legal principles remain a valid subject for an academic discussion. In his works, he often appeals to Kantian philosophy. In the interview, Prof. Dr. О. Höffe refers to such famous German Neo-Kantian philosophers of law as R. Stammler and G. Radbruch. He also mentions J. Rawls and J. Habermas — self-confessed adherents of the Kantian tradition in moral philosophy. Prof. Dr. Höffe expounds his views on the problems discussed by these authors. He dismisses G. W. F. Hegel’s criticism of Kant and denies the dependence of the fundamental principles of justice on the Zeitgeist and the opinions of the masses. The interviewee calls freedom the supreme human value, advocates the idea of a democratic constitutional state (he considers the principles of a social state as a mission of the state rather than a subjective right of citizens), and argues that dictatorship and tyranny deserve resistance. Prof. Dr. Höffe gives detailed definitions of the notions of transcendental exchange, categorical legal principles, enlightened liberal democracy, and a world republic. This interview will supplement the body of Prof. Dr. Höffe’s works that have already been translated into Russian.

This article focuses on the problem of reconciling a priori and empirical dimensions of freedom, will, and action as the crucial point for understanding the relationship between theoretical and practical reason in Kant’s and Husserl’s practical philosophy. Relying on the explanation of the relationship between transcendental and practical freedom given in Kant's practical philosophy, the author problematizes Kant’s thesis about the primacy of practical reason. This is the starting point and leitmotif in analysing the nature of revision of Kant’s ideas, premises, and problems in the first draft of Husserl’s practical philosophy (scientific ethics). Comparative analysis reveals terminological and conceptual similarities and differences between Kant’s and Husserl’s practical philosophies. Another important result is identifying the principles and departure point ideas for both thinkers. These are a shared understanding of the relationship between theoretical and practical reason, the principle of the ‘purity’ of moral motives and compulsoriness of the a priori, the idea of parallelism between logic and ethics, the interaction between will and mind, and the determining role of the categorical imperative. The author stresses that an adequate understanding of the thinkers’ positions requires distinguishing between Kant’s transcendentalist perspective and Husserl’s phenomenological descriptive perspective, between the a priori of pure reason and the material a priori, between good will as a duty and the thetic acts of will, and between the absolute and relative compulsoriness of the categorical imperative. At the same time, the possibility of reconciling the obligatory and a priori greatest good with a concrete, practical situation of choice remains an open question.

Natural Law Notes of Feyerabend is one of the most important sources by the research of ethical and juridical views of Kant. Dating back to 1784 they distinctly demonstrate that the basic principles of Kant’s philosophy of right are not a late production of the philosopher, but they have been formed already in the middle of 80’s of 18th century. Therewith we can use this lectures notes for the studies of Kant’s moral philosophy too, because of their closeness to the Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals, what can help us to understand some not clear aspects of Kant’s ethical thought. One of such questions is the question of moral motivation, and namely how we can not only know, what we have to do according to the moral law, but also actually want do it? As in his published writings Kant concludes in the Introduction of Natural Law Notes that human will itself can not be in complete agreement with the moral law, because objective motive (that is the moral law alone) for this will isn’t identical with subjective ones (that are maxims of action). That is why it must be forced to follow the moral law and its commandments are for it imperatives. But in order not to distort autonomy of will, this force should come from the will itself. Such a force according to Kant is possible, if the will would force itself to action with an idea of an complete good will (what means such a will which is always in accordance with the moral law), which is inherent in God alone. With the article is enclosed the translation of a small fragment of Introduction to the Natural Law Feyerabend.

This article aims to demonstrate the centrality of Kant’s and Fichte’s ethics to the development of Schopenhauer’s ideas of 1811—1813. The author proves the following theses based on the philosopher’s manuscripts and the first edition of his dissertation. Firstly, for a long time, Kant’s ‘moral law’ was a major element of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, whereas the regulatory power of ethics supported its claim as a means to cognise the supersensible. Secondly, the dichotomy between the noumenal and the phenomenal encouraged him to develop a dualistic ontology. Thirdly, the emergence of the central concept of his early works — the ‘better consciousness’ — was strongly influenced by Fichte’s lectures attended by Schopenhauer. Fourthly, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of liberating the better consciousness from all the individual and earthly is also rooted in Fichte’s practical philosophy. Fifthly, Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and Fichte’s System of Ethnics contributed to Schopenhauer’s understanding of will as the primary essence of all things and the idea of its absolute and unconditional nature and its primacy over cognition. Sixthly, some of the key aspects of Schopenhauer’s pessimism are rooted in Fichte’s philosophy. Seventhly, in the first edition of his dissertation, Schopenhauer advocated Kant’s ethics and formulated the supremacy of the better consciousness over the empirical as noumenal freedom and truly moral behavior and defined the category of negation as its opposite. Later, these ideas, altered and expanded u

The concept of human dignity is relatively new in international and domestic constitutional law. Dignity is protected as a value or a right, or both, in international law and many domestic jurisdictions. It is difficult to define human dignity in a legal context, as the concept is not defined in the first international document which recognizes inherent human dignity and the protection thereof, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1946) and many international (and national) documents enacted thereafter. Despite dissensus regarding the widespread use of the concept, dignity has come to display three elements in constitutional adjudication post World War Two: the ontological element which entails that human beings have equal inherent human dignity that cannot be waived or diminished; the second element being the claim that inherent human dignity has to be recognised and respected; and the limited-state claim as the third element which entails that states have a positive obligation to progressively realise human dignity through the mechanism of socio-economic rights. It is widely accepted that these elements root in Kantian moral ethics which holds that man's autonomy is based upon universal dignity, as a result of which man should never be used as a means to an end, but only as a means in himself. Kant expressed this idea through formulation of a categorical imperative, namely that everyone's inherent human dignity has to be respected and protected universally. The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1946), article 1(1) of the German Basic Law and section 10 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 embody the elements of Kant's categorical imperative. As a result, the three elements are applied as a definitional term of human dignity in German and South African constitutional adjudication. Based on these elements, it can be argued that the current idea of universal inherent dignity, at least in German and South African law, comports with Kant's ideal that man should never be used as a means to an end.

Calling Kant a liberal philosopher requires important qualifications. Much like his theoretical philosophy, his political transcendentalism was and remains a great enterprise of navigating between the extremes of liberalism and conservatism, of balancing the “empirical” and the “pure” in human society, as well as in human mind. Of all the attempts to enlist Kant among the classics of liberalism, John Rawls’ is the most impressive and thorough. However, it is hardly a success. The reason for this lies in a profound difference in their answering the fundamental (and therefore vague) question “What is Man?”. This paper is an attempt to revise the debate about the extent of Rawls’ Kantianism and to compare the meanings of basic concepts of what could be called “pure political anthropology” in Kant and in Rawls.

Robert Nozik's political theory contains an attempt to utilize Kant's notion of individual freedom and the second formula of his categorical imperative (“the principle of humanity as an end in itself”) for the justification of his libertarian “minimal state”. This article analyses and criticizes this attempt on the following grounds: a) the anthropological models of Kant's and Nozik's theories are incommensurable; b) different notions of human nature result in different understandings of freedom — for Nozik it is the basic property of human nature, for Kant it is the result of entering the civil condition; c) the incommensurability of anthropological presuppositions and basic notions distorts the meaning of Kantian formula of categorical imperative when transplanted into an alien philosophical context.

This article focuses on the analysis of the problem of evil in Kant’s works. The author attempts at reconstructing the key stages of Kant’s logic of ethics and, on this basis, reconstructs his idea of evil. Of special importance is the analysis and criticism of the anthropology-focused study of the sources of good and evil in the work Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. The author sees the key to understanding Kant’s approach to the problem of evil in the differentiation of the levels of the existing and the due in his theory. The article has the following structure: first, the author emphasis that, for Kant, evil is a practical moral phenomenon unlike, for example, metaphysically interpreted evil. It is shown that the problem of evil is closely connected to that of the nature or essence of a human being. The article presents an analysis of Kant’s notion of human ‘nature’. It is emphasised that Kant understands ‘human nature’ as mere “subjective grounds” of the exercise of freedom. Further, the author analyses the factors determining the actions of humans as moral beings. First, the article addresses the “predispositions to the good”, which describes a human being as a natural being, cultural being, and a personality. In this connection, different types of reason identified by Kant are stressed and the features of “pure practical reason” as a necessary condition of human morality are analysed. Further, the article considers Kant’s definition of evil as a deviation of rules regulating the actions of a human being from their principle of morality. The author analyses the factors underlying the “predisposition” to evil. It is emphasised that Kant measures wickedness not by deeds but solely by the way of thinking. The author discusses the question as to whether the intelligible good, i. e. the critical verification of rules regulating the actions against the categorical imperative, necessarily entail the empirically good. The conclusion is made that, in Kant’s works, the problem of evil is transferred from the empirical to noumenal sphere, from the real to intelligible world. Since Kant formulates the problem of evil in relation not to the empirical but the “intelligible character”, his solution proves to be idealistic. The next step is an analysis of Kant’s notion of “radical evil” and its causes. Since Kant sees the source of radical evil in the wrong subordination of motives dictated by sensibility and reason when choosing rules for actions, which Kant calls the “reversal of incentives”, there arises the question as to the role of sensibility in justifying morals. It is emphasised that, on the one hand, sensibility — as well as reason — is a necessary element constructing the being of humans. In this context, it is interpreted as either ethically indifferent or even a “predisposition to the good”. On the other hand, he sees sensibility as a ground for “self-love” or striving for happiness despite the moral requirements. The author analyses the reasons behind Kant’s exclusion of sensibility as a possible ground for morals relating to its subjectivity. The negative effect of sensibility of human behaviour emphasised by Kant is critically analysed. When choosing between subjective and material sensibility and objective and formal reason, Kant gives preference to reason as the ground for morals. In this function, reason should be necessarily interpreted as reason connected with good will. The consideration of this principle of Kant’s ethical theory concludes the article. The author makes an assumption that the creation of a moral world based on the principle of the free legislation of reason, which consists in that the criteria for the significance of provisions of such legislation is the possibility of transforming them into a universal law, is possible only under the condition that the notion of freedom as relating to practical reason is necessarily understood as freedom aimed at the good. In the sphere of the ideal, i. e. the sphere of logical bases of ethics, there should be no freedom aimed at evil; such freedom exists only in the real, empirical world. One can assume that the notion of freedom of will as freedom aimed at the good, being a condition for the possibility of morals, relates to the notion of a sentient being in general, including the notion of ‘human being’, whereas the notion of freedom as freedom of choice relates to a real human individual. However, the latter is capable of moral improvement through a “revolution in the disposition” and can correspond to the human determination — the ideal — despite one’s weaknesses.

The subject matter of the article is the problem of justification of punishment within Kant’s practical philosophy. Modern interpretations tend to reduce this problem to the issue of “retributivism”: To what extent is Kant’s theory of punishment to be regarded as retributivist? While acknowledging the significance of this question the author stresses a more fundamental one lying behind it: Is a non-contradictory theory of punishment conceivable at all within Kant’s philosophy? It is demonstrated that a solution of this question largely determines a justification of the doctrine of right as such as well as a solution of the problem of relation between right and ethics in Kantian philosophy. Some recent interpretations of Kant’s theory of punishment are examined, particularly those by O. Hoeffe and B. Byrd. It is demonstrated that neither is actually compatible with Kant’s statement that punishment is a categorical imperative. Futhermore, it is shown that this statement is crucial and necessary for Kant’s universalist project of justification of right. At the same time, it is shown that it is the universalism of Kant’s practical philosophy that leads to a kind of paradox of punishment: the categorical imperative of punishment might well demand those very actions which the categorical imperative as we know it from the “Groundwork” seems to forbid. It is proposed to see this paradox as another antinomy of practical reason. The hypothesis is offered that the separation of the principles of virtue directed to an individual will and right covering the public sphere can be considered as an attempt to solve this very antinomy.

John Rawls’s interpretation of Kant’s categorical imperative is reviewed, some significant aspects of Rawls’ treatment of key notions of rationality, interests and ends are revealed, which limit the possibilities of application of Kantian ethics within Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism.

This article offers a comparison of certain fundamental ethical ideas of Eastern philosophical traditions with Kant's categorical imperative aiming to corroborate the thesis about the moral unity of humanity and give a moral assessment of the state of Russian society.

This essay discusses the foundation of educational theory by means of the comparison with centrals principles of Kant’s ethical.

This paper will confront two possible conceptions of Imamanuel Kant’s practical philosophy based on two different possible understandings of categorical imperative. The first conception sees the categorical imperative as prescribing a form for the maxime under which a subject is to act if his actions are to be taken as moral. This conception is shown to be conservative as it preserves the existing moral norms of a society. This way of functioning of categorical imperative is shown to be homologuous to the logic of desiare as described by the french psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and as incapable of providing a basis for ascribing responsibility to a subject for his acts. Another conception will be offered as an alternative: on that conception the categorical imeprative prescribes a manner of willing any maxime which is shown to be analoguous to the logic of the death drive. It’s ethical and revolutionary character are elucidated towards the end of the paper.

The paper considers the issue of moral motivation in light of recent construals and accounts of Freud’s views. It attempts to show the merits of taking some Freudian claims, especially those concerning the development of superego, as giving a plausible naturalistic picture of dynamic process of assimilation of Kantian categorical imperative. In the course of this attempt the views of such philosophers as R. Wollheim, J. Lear, and D. Velleman are being invoked and discussed.

This article offers a comparative analysis of Kant's moral philosophy and the philosophy of Sade revealing the paradoxes of the categorical imperative. The satisfaction of the requirement of the categorical imperative is, on the one hand, a single and unique act and, on the other hand, a permanent and universal one. Although the familiarity with the categorical imperative does not always result in a moral action, the familiarity itself alongside the idea of forgiveness may be considered as a manifestation of morality and freedom.

This article considers the correlation between the historical Christianity and the pure religion of reason, the figure of the biblical Christ of Nazareth and Kant's interpretation of his personality. The author focuses on the question, whether the Biblical Christ, as a real historical person, is the personification of the idea of the absolute good and moral perfection.

The lecture intends to face the question about the ground of political community in Kant, discussing mainly the concept of place. In order to accomplish this task, we’ll cover synthetically the effective inquiry about this question in the kantian works’ corpus, namely, the place or the places of this research. Such a path intends to analyse the subject of the ground of political community, that is, of politics in a large sense, which has a paradigmatical context of development in the Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, which position inside the kantian “system” has often been misunderstood and undervalued. We’ll analyse in this work especially the concept of the kingdom of ends [Reich der Zwecke]. Through an analytical exam of the terminological and conceptual elements that make it up, we expect to frame this notion as an accomplished ground of political community, which goes beyond every physical place and simultaneously opens every possible moral field, as field of both ethical and juridical regulation, and grounds every possible political action that doesn’t try to escape of the pure practical reason’s imperative.

The article “From the Russian studying of Kant’s philosophy. Kharkov’s philosophical school of the first part of the XIX century” is devoted to the studying of Kant’s philosophy in the Kharkov’s University at the first decades of XIX century. The importance of Kant’s philosophy in the professional philosophical sphere and influence on the development of motherland philosophical thought has been examined

Although similar in some respects, Rawls' and Kant' visions of world order fall apart on the question of sovereignty. Rawls never advocates of an international single state with international authority. Kant, on the other hand, inspired by the project of Enlightenment, as a final form of international sovereignty sees federative state of states as a provider for eternal peace among peoples.

The thesis that Kant's ''Rechtslehre'' is entirely independent of his transcendental idealism is simply not correct. In fact: the material contents of the ''Rechtslehre'' follow analytically from the logical explication of the empirical concept of external freedom, whereas the absolute practical validity (''Verbindlichkeit'') of the imperative and of the imperatives of right is based exclusively on the categorical imperative and therefore ultimately on transcendental idealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]