Description: Paul Guyer, winner of the 2024 International Kant Prize, is one of the world's leading Kant scholars. This volume collects twelve of his essays on Kant's philosophy of Right, his political-legal philosophy, published since 2009. The essays definitely establish the foundation of Kant's philosophy of Right in his moral philosophy, and demonstrate the continuing need for motivation by respect for the moral law on the part of both those in positions of power and ordinary citizens in any government that aspires to the ideal of justice. The volume examines Kant's contribution to specific issues such as the separation of powers in a constitutional democracy and the separation of church and state, and concludes with two essays showing how John Rawls's well-known theory of justice is grounded on Kant's moral philosophy but could have benefited by attention to Kant's own doctrine of Right.
Brief description: Paul Guyer is Jonathan Nelson Professor emeritus in Humanities and Philosophy at Brown University and Florence R. C. Murray Professor in the Humanities emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of more than thirty books and three hundred articles, General Co-Editor of Cambridge Edition of Kant and co-translator of Kant's first and third Critiques and Notes and Fragments.
Review Quotes: 'This volume of essays is a pleasure to read: building on decades of path-breaking work across the whole of Kant's corpus, the essays guide the reader through a series of key themes in Kant's political philosophy: the basis of right and political obligation in morality and, ultimately, in freedom; the need for moral rulers even as we work for better institutions; the tension between sovereignty and dispersion of power across state functions; and finally, freedom of religion. Applying these Kantian lessons to the present day, Guyer offers all-too-timely moral-political critique, for example of legislators who allow their executive counterpart to gain excessive, dangerous power.', Lisa Ellis, University of Otago