Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

⚖The case for it

Kant's ethics in concentrated form: the categorical imperative, duty, moral law. 'Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it should become a universal law.' Cold? Maybe. But this is the most rigorous attempt to ground morality in reason alone, without God, without consequences, without sentiment. You don't have to agree. You do have to reckon with it.

— the canon

✕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