Possession, Property and Contract

Abstract

The treatment of the nature of evil brought us to the very edge of the critical treatment of practical philosophy that has been sketched thus far. Now I want to turn to the work that Kant wished for the longest time to produce arid which was the crowning of his practical philosophy: The Metaphysics of Morals. There are four distinct problems that have to be addressed in interpreting this work. First, how does the Doctrine of Right relate to the critical treatment of morality? Second, how does the Doctrine of Virtue provide us with the means for connecting the moral law to ethical situations? Third, what is the unity of the whole work of which these two doctrinal treatments are both part? Fourth and finally, what is the connection between Kant’s doctrinal works in practical philosophy with his critical work in the most general ternis? These questions are all of considerable difficulty. I propose to address the overarching problem about the relationship between critical and doctrinal treatments in the last chapter where I will also give an account of how The Metaphysics of Morals is a unified work. The discussion of the Doctrine of Virtue will be undertaken in Chapter 7. In this chapter I propose therefore to undertake an overview of the Doctrine of Right with the problem of its relationship to the critical treatment of morality underpinning this interpretation.