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Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant introduces many of the arguments that he would present more fully in his Critique of Practical Reason in 1788. “Metaphysics” is a field of philosopy focused on the study of pure concepts as they relate to moral or physical experience. Kant’s goal for Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals was to develop a clearer understanding of moral principles, so that people may better avert distractions. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals represents a characteristic quality of Enlightenment era thinking: an immense confidence in “reason”—that is, in humanity's ability to solve problems through logical analysis. Kant’s philosophical goal was to use logical analysis to understand reason itself. Before we go about analyzing our world, Kant argued, we must understand the mental tools we will be using.
Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Critique of Practical Reason presents Kant’s Doctrine of Elements, containing the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason and the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason. The Analytic contains the arguments for the categorical imperative as the one true moral principle and for the identity of morality and freedom while the Dialectic exposes the primary error of all previous ethicists and proposes the postulates of pure practical reason. Critique of Practical Reason concludes with the Doctrine of Method, in which Kant proposes a new method for moral education.
Critique of Judgment (1790)
Kant’s Critique of Judgment, often called the “third critique,” does not have as clear a focus as the first two critiques. In broad outline, Kant sets about examining our faculty of judgment, which leads him down a number of divergent paths. While Critique of Judgment deals with matters related to science and teleology, it is most remembered for what Kant has to say about aesthetics. While much of what Kant writes about aesthetics might strike us now as a bit dated, his work is historically very significant. Kant’s “third critique” is one of the early works in the field of aesthetics and one of the most important treatises on the subject ever written.
Critique of Judgment is the subject of a single-section Summary & Analysis in the SparkNotes guide Selected Works of Immanuel Kant.
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793)
Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a philosophical work written by German philosopher Immanuel Kant and published in 1793. Like Kant’s better-known Critique of Pure Reason—which asks us to set aside questions that we have no chance of adequately answering—it represents an ingenious attempt to address a difficult philosophical problem concerning the nature of faith and religious obligation. In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant asks us not to give up questions about God, but rather to give up religious practices that are unnecessary for true moral conduct.
