My research elaborates and defends the significance of oft-neglected features of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).  Properly understood, Kant’s seemingly obscure distinctions between, for example, the legislation and authorship of the moral law or between the predispositions to humanity and to personality make an important difference in the interpretation of his moral philosophy.  Just as studies of Kant’s “lectures” and Reflexionen on metaphysics have made a significant contribution to recent discussions of his theoretical philosophy, my examination of Kant’s “lectures” and Reflexionen on ethics, anthropology, metaphysics, and religion help to clarify misunderstood aspects of Kant’s practical philosophy and illuminate Kant’s place in the history of moral philosophy.  Since Kant’s time, many of his friends and foes have contended that Kant broke with the predecessors to conceive of the moral law as a human creation and to present moral philosophy as a discipline remarkably free of metaphysics, anthropology, and other disciplines.  I contend that Kant’s “lectures,” Reflexionen, and contributions in less studied disciplines reveal deeper connections between Kant’s moral philosophy and other disciplines, and allow us to identify several respects in which Kant’s conception of practical philosophy was innovative, yet less revolutionary and more plausible, than the received interpretation would suggest.

Based upon examinations of Kant’s famous conception of moral “self-legislation” (which he distinguishes from “authorship”) and on his analysis of moral motivation, I have argued that, on Kant’s theory, moral obligation (and more generally, moral normativity) must be grounded “in the nature of things,” first and most radically, in the nature of our own free or autonomous rational agency.[10]  This theory precludes theological voluntarist and eudaimonist conceptions of morality, yet entails a more realist, less “constructivist” theory of normativity and value than previously recognized.[7, 8, 9, 10]  Although Kant’s theory focuses on the foundational role of our rational agency (and the fundamental value of rational agents), his moral philosophy leaves room for Kant’s account of non-moral prudential value and prudential rationality (which is deeply endebted to Kant’s anthropology).[1, 11, 12, 13]  It also involves genuine metaphysical and religious commitments to transcendental freedom and the reality of God. [7, 9] The status of the supersensibles within Kant’s epistemology is tied to Kant’s conception of practical cognition, and his distinction between practical knowledge and practical belief, which depends upon an analogy between the “fact of reason” and intuition, which is essential to theoretical cognition.[5]

Another set of connections between Kant’s moral philosophy and his metaphysical, anthropological, biological and psychological theories emerges from an investigation of Kant’s defense of the claim that all biological human beings possess dignity and moral status.[6]  Drawing on material in Kant’s (still unpublished) “lectures” on physical geography and extending my analysis of Kant’s account of human moral status, I have argued for a new interpretation of Kant’s account of human obligations regarding non-human animals.[4]

In work currently in progress, I examine Kant’s oft-ignored conception of divine freedom and its implications for his theory of value and account of freedom more generally.[2]  I am working on a new paper about Kant’s anthropology.[3]

I have also begun work on a book length study entitled Kant’s Moral Realism and the Limits of Autonomy.  This historical and systematic study builds upon, synthesizes, and extends my previous work, identifying and defending Kant’s innovative yet metaphysically realist conception of moral autonomy and showing how it coheres with and genuinely relies upon the results of other intellectual disciplines (including biology and anthropology).  This study will clarify and advance both classic and contemporary debates about the nature of Kantian moral autonomy, shed light on the relationship between those debates, and develop their implications for a range of philosophical and specifically ethical issues.