Publisher Description

Is it possible for ethical thinking to be grounded in pure reason? In this bold and innovative new work, A.W. Moore takes a refreshing and challenging look at Kant's moral and religious philosophy and uses it to arrive at a distinctive way of understanding and answering this question. Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty identifies three Kantian themes - morality, freedom, and religion - and presents variations on each of these themes in turn. Moore concedes that there are difficulties with the Kantian view that morality can be governed by 'pure' reason, but defends a closely related view involving a notion of reason as socially and culturally conditioned. In the course of doing this, Moore considers in detail ideas at the heart of Kant's thought, such as the categorical imperative, free will, evil, hope, eternal life, and God. He also makes creative use of ideas in contemporary philosophy, both within the analytic tradition and outside it, such as 'thick' ethical concepts, forms of life, and 'becoming those that we are'. Throughout the book, a guiding precept is that to be rational is to make sense, and that nothing is of greater value to us than making sense.Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty is essential reading for all those interested in Kant, ethics, and the philosophy of religion.

Author Biography

A.W. Moore is Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at St Hugh's College, Oxford. He is the author of The Infinite (2nd edition, Routledge, 2001) and Points of View.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 First theme: morality; Chapter 3 First set of variations; Chapter 4 Second theme: freedom; Chapter 5 Second set of variations; Chapter 6 Third theme: religion; Chapter 7 Third set of variations;

Review

'An original contribution to the ethical discussin of our time, giving a voice to a modest Kantian view that deserves to be heard.' I Manfred Kuehn, Marberg University 'Worthwhile and interesting, in particular the mix of Kantian rationalism and Wittgenstein themes.' I Jacqueline Marina, Purdue University 'An interesting reconstruction of Kant's view... [it] deeply engages some of the most important pieces of Kant's moral and religious thinking.' I Philip Rossi, Marquette University

Long Description

In this bold and innovative new work, Adrian Moore provides a refreshing but challenging new interpretation of Kant's moral philosophy and argues that it can enrich our understanding of a central problem in contemporary ethical debate: the problem of rationality. "Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty" is essential reading for all those interested in Kant, ethics and philosophy of religion.

Review Quote

"Moore mines Kant for ethical insight with a sensibility informed by a wide range of recent and contemporary philosophers, from Ludwig Wittgenstein through Bernard Williams and Gilles Deleuze... a particularly helpful account of Kant's philosophy of religion..." - Paul Guyer, in Times Literary Supplement "...clearly written... numerous provocative insights... readers will benefit from the way in which familiar themes have been deployed and reconfigured for the sake of a fairly audacious result. Moore derives something like a substitute for postmodernity's lost sense of a grounding metanarrative from the human capacity for sense making... [His] project might... be viewed as the effort to infuse our very tendency towards sense making with renewed dignity." - Gordon E. Michalson, in Kantian Review

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