This volume presents a selection of Robert Stern's work on the theme of Kantian ethics. It begins by focusing on the relation between Kant's account of obligation and his view of autonomy, arguing that this leaves room for Kant to be a realist about value. Stern then considers where this places Kant in relation to the question of moral scepticism, and in relation to the principle of 'ought implies can', and examines this principle in its own right. The papers then move beyond Kant himself to his wider influence and to critics of his work, including Hegel, the British Idealists, and the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup, while also offering a comparison with William James's arguments for freedom. The collection concludes with a consideration of a broadly Kantian critique of divine command ethics offered by Stephen Darwall, arguing that the critique does not succeed. General themes considered in this volume therefore include value, perfectionism, agency, autonomy, moral motivation, moral scepticism, and obligation, as well as the historical place of Kant's ethics and its influence on thinkers up to the present day.

I. Themes from Kant's Ethics1: Kant, Moral Obligation, and the Holy Will2: Constructivism and the Argument from Autonomy3: The Value of Humanity: Reflections on Korsgaard's Transcendental Argument4: Moral Scepticism and Agency: Kant and Korsgaard5: Moral Scepticism, Constructivism, and the Value of Humanity6: Does 'Ought' Imply 'Can'? And Did Kant Think It Does?7: Why Does Ought Imply Can?II. Ethics after Kant8: On Hegel's Critique of Kant's Ethics: Beyond the Empty Formalism Objection9: Does Hegelian Ethics Rest on a Mistake?10: 'My Station and its Duties': Social Role Accounts of Obligation in Green and Bradley11: The Ethics of the British Idealists: Perfectionism after Kant12: Round Kant or Through Him? On James's Arguments for Freedom, and their Relation to Kant's13: 'Duty and Virtue are Moral Introversions': On Løgstrup's Critique of Morality14: Divine Commands and Secular Demands: On Darwall on Anscombe on 'Modern Moral Philosophy'BibliographyIndex

Robert Stern, Professor of Philosophy, University of Sheffield

Robert Stern has been at the University of Sheffield since 1989, having been a graduate and Research Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. He is the author of Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object (Routledge 1990), Transcendental Arguments and Scepticism (OUP, 2000), Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit' (Routledge 2002), and Understanding Moral Obligation: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard (CUP, 2012), while a first collection of his papers was published by Oxford University Press in 2009 under the title Hegelian Metaphysics.