The Development of Kant's View of Ethics

'Most aids to the study of Kantian ethics concentrate on the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. Most of them emphasise the formal, deontological aspect of his thought. He is often presented as quite inhumanly and absurdly formalist. Keith Ward sets out deliberately to counter this interpretation, which in his view is narrow and one-sided. He argues firstly that Kant never attained the monolithic consistency in his ethics that is often ascribed to him. Secondly his ethical system was in a constant state of development right up to the end of his life. Thirdly, in the course of this development there was a constant interplay between formal and material elements — between considerations of pure law and considerations of human fulfilment and happiness.

'Mr Ward's treatment of the pre-critical writings is particularly useful. Few people have time or opportunity to read these early works for themselves. In opposition to Paul Schlipp he finds evidence of strong influence on the early Kant by the British 'moral sense' theorists who sought the basis of morality in feeling. This influence was at variance with the tradition of Wolffian rationalism which was the main philosophical legacy which Kant had received from the past. Tensions of this kind were the life-blood of his early ethical thinking. 'Far from conforming to the popular caricature of a pedantic and rationalistic scholar who had little appreciation of the human sentiments, Kant always asserted that morality is closely bound up with a certain complex of feeling for human nature' (p. 23).'

- from a review by A.D. Galloway, Scottish Journal of Theology (1973), pp. 492-3.