Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

⚖The case for it

The complaints are fair, and the third section really does trail off into a proof nobody defends. Even so, you still have a test you can run on any decision you have ever fudged: could you honestly want everyone to do this? Kant says no to borrowing money you cannot repay, and the excuse you were building collapses on the spot. He also insists a person is never a tool for someone else's plan, a sentence the last two centuries of rights talk keep circling back to. Ethics after 1785 argues with him or borrows from him. Slow going, but the difficulty is the thinking, not decoration.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Seventy pages that read like seven hundred. Kant's prose is a thicket of subordinate clauses, his four worked examples wobble under inspection (the false-promise case does most of the work), and the third section's proof of freedom is the part even devoted Kantians quietly abandon. Expect to read every paragraph twice.

— the honest librarian