The Metaphysics of Morals is Kant's major work in applied moral philosophy in which he deals with the basic principles of rights and of virtues. It comprises two parts: the 'Doctrine of Right', which deals with the rights which people have or can acquire, and the 'Doctrine of Virtue', which deals with the virtues they ought to acquire. Mary Gregor's translation, revised for publication in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series, is the only complete translation of the (...) whole text, and includes extensive annotation on Kant's difficult and sometimes unfamiliar vocabulary. A new introduction by Roger Sullivan sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. This volume will be of wide interest to students of ethics and of legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

Transcendental pragmatics is the attempt to make Kants transcendental philosophy philosophically defensible by means of a reconstruction in terms of semiotics and the theory of communication. The central theses of transcendental pragmatics are: philosophical final justification is possible. The claim of radical fallibilism: "all propositions are fallible, therefore final justification is impossible" is false. Both theses are defended against H. Keuths critique, recently published in this journal. Radical fallibilism, which admits the application of the principle of fallibility to itself entangles (...) itself pecisely for this reason in a whole raw of contradictions. Keuths objections rest upon a misunderstanding. His critique does not demonstrate the invalidity of reflexive final justification arguments because he misses the essential feature of such arguments namely that they are intended as strictly reflexive arguments. (shrink)

Attempts to justify statements or norms lead into the well-known trilemma infinite regress, circular reasoning, dogmatism. Apel's transformed transcendental philosophy is to avoid this problem. A recent version of it is examined. It admits fallibilism to be valid with empirical hypotheses but claims it to be contradictory if applied to philosophical theses on conditions of the possibility of knowledge and argumentation. This claim is refuted. The proposed "final justification" is to start not with what is certain but with doubt. Reflection (...) on the conditions of the possibility of meaningful doubting is to show a borderline beyond which undoubtable certainties are to be found. Such certainties are the rules of argumentation. Whoever utters "The rules of argumentation are not valid in my case" is said to make a necessarily false statement. This line of argument is even carried over to the justification of absolutely binding metanorms of a normative ethics of communication. The whole procedure of "final justification" is shown to be faulty. (shrink)

Is morality rational? In this book Gauthier argues that moral principles are principles of rational choice. He proposes a principle whereby choice is made on an agreed basis of cooperation, rather than according to what would give an individual the greatest expectation of value. He shows that such a principle not only ensures mutual benefit and fairness, thus satisfying the standards of morality, but also that each person may actually expect greater utility by adhering to morality, even though the choice (...) did not have that end primarily in view. In resolving what may appear to be a paradox, the author establishes morals on the firm foundation of reason. Gauthier's argument includes an account of value, linking it to preference and utility; a discussion of the curcumstances in which morality is unnecessary; and an application of morals by agreement to relations between peoples at different levels of development and different generations. Finally, he reflects on the assumptions about individuality and community made by his account of rationality and morality. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions about practical reason or practical rationality invoke four competing views which can be named as follows by reference to their historical models: Aristotelian, Hobbesian, Kantian and Nietzschean. The subject-matter of this article is a defence of the Kantian conception of practical rationality in the interpretation of discourse theory. At the heart, lies the justification and the application of the rules of discourse. An argument consisting of three parts is pre sented to justify the rules of discourse. The three (...) parts are as follows: a transcen dental-pragmatic argument; an argument which takes account of the maximisation of individual utility and an empirical premise about an interest in correctness. Within the framework of the problem of application, the article outlines a justification of human rights and of the basic institutions of the democratic constitutional state on the basis of discourse theory. (shrink)

Der kommunikativen Alltagspraxis müssen kognitive Deutungen, moralische Erwartungen, Expressionen und Wertungen einander durchdringen. Die Verständigungsprozesse der Lebenswelt bedürfen deshalb einer kulturellen Überlieferung auf ganzer Breite, nicht nur der Segnungen von Wissenschaft und Technik. So könnte die Philosophie ihren Bezug zur Totalität in einer der Lebenswelt zugewandten Interpretenrolle aktualisieren. Sie könnte mindestens dabei helfen, das stillgestellte Zusammenspiel des Kognitiv-Instrumentellen mit dem Moralisch-Praktischen und dem Ästhetisch-Expressiven wie ein Mobile, das sich hartnäckig verhakt hat, wieder in Bewegung zu setzen.

Bd. 1. Sprachanalytik, Semiotik, Hermeneutik. Bd. 2. Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft.

The original edition of Kant: Political Writings was first published in 1970, and has long been established as the principal English-language edition of this important body of writing. In this new, expanded edition two important texts illustrating Kant's view of history are included for the first time, his reviews of Herder's Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind and Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History, as well as the essay What is Orientation in Thinking?. In addition to (...) a general introduction assessing Kant's political thought in terms of his fundamental principles of politics, this edition also contains such useful student aids as notes on the texts, a comprehensive bibliogaphy and a new postscript, looking at some of the principal issues in Kantian scholarship that have arisen since the first edition. (shrink)

Employing the techniques of modern economic analysis, Professor Buchanan reveals the conceptual basis of an individual's social rights by examining the ...

Now in a new edition, this volume updates Davidson's exceptional Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (1984), which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. The original volume remains a central point of reference, and a focus of controversy, with its impact extending into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. Addressing a central question--what it is for words to mean what they do--and featuring a previously uncollected, additional essay, this work will appeal to a wide audience of philosophers, linguists, (...) and psychologists. (shrink)