Stefano Bacin

The book presents a reconstruction of the development of Kant’s ethical thought from the 1760s till the "Metaphysics of Morals" of 1797 with a focus on the evolution of Kant’s overall project in practical philosophy. The main steps in the development of his practical philosophy are interpreted as successive attempts to connect normative ethics with an innovative preliminary descriptive inquiry. The book reconstructs the different ways in which Kant focuses this plan, stressing both the unity and the breaks in Kant’s development. I thus distinguish three main phases, characterised by a different systematic project. The first part is devoted to Kant’s work on moral theory up to 1769. The second part examines Kant’s new ethical project from 1770 to 1785, while the third part considers the further developments from the second "Critique" to the "Metaphysics of Morals".

The chapter first discusses the general meaning of a 'doctrine of method' in Kant’s work, as well as the specific goals of the Doctrine of Method of the second Critique. The central section, then, focuses on the notion of 'receptivity to morality', which here has a central role and a quite distinct meaning. I argue that Kant’s main point in his account of how to 'make objective practical reason subjectively practical' (5:151) is that one ought to lead the individual agent to become aware of his own dignity as a moral being. In Kant’s view, recognition of this point is relevant to the overall aim of the second Critique – to show that pure reason is practical – and of moral theory itself. The task of the Doctrine of Method is to show how it is possible to make agents aware of their basic moral capacities, and through that awareness to instil genuine moral dispositions. Accordingly, the Doctrine of Method is the completion of the Critique, confirming the conclusions of the Analytic through the common use of pure practical reason and connecting them with the experience of every moral agent.

In this work, Fichte's high school years in Schulpforta are reconstructed for the first time, building on sources never considered before and throwing new light on this first phase of his intellectual biography and on his reception of the work of important figures of the Enlightenment such as Lessing, Herder, Gottsched, Gellert, and Rosseau. – The volume also includes the most important contemporary documents on Schulpforta and Fichte's texts from those years. Among these, the most relevant is his Latin speech concerning the use of rules in poetry and rhetoric. In this volume, Fichte's speech is newly translated and annotated for the first time, to provide the rich historical background.