Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals is the standard older English translation of Immanuel Kant’s Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, first published in German in 1785. Modern English translations more typically render the title as Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, but the older translation has remained in print and continues to be widely read. The book is one of the central texts in modern moral philosophy and is the work in which Kant set out the foundations of his ethical system.

Kant, who lived from 1724 to 1804, was the leading German philosopher of the late eighteenth century and one of the central figures in the history of Western philosophy. His ethical work belongs to the larger critical philosophy that he developed across the major works of his mature career, including the Critique of Pure Reason of 1781 and the Critique of Practical Reason of 1788. The Groundwork is the briefer and more accessible statement of his ethical position that the longer Critique of Practical Reason would develop in more technical detail.

The central argument of the book is the famous Categorical Imperative, which Kant presents in several different formulations. The most quoted is the universal law formulation. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. The book also presents the humanity formulation, which directs the reader to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means. These formulations are meant to capture what Kant believed to be the actual structure of genuine moral reasoning as opposed to the various pseudo moral motives that he believed actually drive most human conduct.

The argument is carried out at a high level of abstraction throughout, in the technical philosophical German that Kant had developed for the critical works. The Groundwork is the most accessible point of entry into Kant’s ethics but it still requires substantial patience and concentration from the reader. For readers approaching Kant for the first time, this is the recommended starting point in his ethical work. It pairs naturally with the Critique of Practical Reason and with the Metaphysics of Morals that completed his ethical system.