Freedom, Equality, Individuality: Kant as Source and Resource in Paul Guyer’s Kant’s Impact on Moral Philosophy

Abstract Paul Guyer has shown us how misguided some early criticisms of Kant were, as well as how influential Kant’s views have been on contemporary moral philosophy. Here, I focus on Guyer’s summary judgements of what is of enduring value in Kantian moral philosophy. At issue are the claims that Kantian morality is affirmative of, rather than restrictive on human energy; that the conjunction of universal happiness and universal virtue, the summum bonum , was an important goal for Kant, able to guide individual and collective action; and that the enhancement of freedom, as Kant conceived it, is related to the forms of liberation that characterize contemporary conceptions of social justice and social progress. Such interpretations appear to take Kant in directions he would not himself have wanted to go.