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Title: Kant's Ethical Thought by Allen Wood ISBN: 0-521-64836-X Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (2 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Ethnocentrism is still alive in Kantland
Comment: I read this book as a student who had read nearly everything Kant had written to try to undestand why exactly Kant was such a dogmatic reactionary and an unabashed white supremacist. Wood's book, more than any other Kant book I have read seems little more than Kantian apologetics. Wood is (as Kant was) dismissive rather than engaging to Kant's critiques and in general is arrogant and snobbish. There is little evidence that Wood has considered anything more than a carricature of opposition to Kant's philosophy.
I don't think his emphasis on the 2nd formulation is anything groundbreaking since Kant scholars have been harping on it forever. What I find interesting (and the one reason you should look into the book) is the weight Wood places on Kant's ethnocentric anthropology and history. I think Wood is right to do this, but he seems to be attached to a colonial view of culture as a set of beliefs that get tacked onto a universal rationalism and that some sort of civilizing project is requried to make savages moral (since Enlightenment is spread through teaching, and Europeans have already gone through the Enlightenment process). He never fully advocates this view, but it's certainly hinted at. Moreover, besides a brief brush off in the introduction, Wood mentions nothing of the role that race plays in his anthropology. In a book supposedly about how Kant thought all human beings should be treated equally, Wood reviews works in which Kant gives advice on how to beat African slaves most effectively, but mentions NOTHING about how these passages should be read. This is intellectually dishonest and misleading about the meaning of Kant's philosophy, since that philosophy is compatible (in Kant's mind) with enslaving entire races of people.
This book is a great proof that Kantians are serious in including only "rational" people (read as goal-pursuing, individualistic Cartesian dualists) in the moral community, at the exclusion of really anbody but adult Europeans. It's interesting on a purely historical basis, but Wood's book provides a good reason to read one of the numerous more tenable accounts of ethics that have been produced since Kant's day.
Rating: 4
Summary: If youre into Kant....
Comment: Well obviously if youre into Kant you have to buy this book. Allen Wood (I took two courses with him last year) is perhaps The Kant Scholar alive today (him and Paul Guyer). Hes a really interesting guy to talk to as well: quite a radical, Marxist I think, and hes got a deep and I mean DEEP commitment to egalitarianism. This said his book which I bought last year was very interesting. Basically Wood tries to paint Kants ethical thought more attractively than most of us have usually seen it as. Some things I liked about the book were that he really proved his point about an overemphasis on the Formula of Universal Law, and his contention that Kant's ethical thought really is deeply rooted in his somewhat pessimistic realistic view of human nature. I think however that Wood often dismisses criticism or alternative viewpoints far too quickly and unconvincingly. This would be I think the main detraction in his work. Also the tone of the book at times is somewhat arrogant. Buy the book though. Very interesting reading, a bit dry at times, but in general a must read for someone interested in Kant.
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Title: Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness by Paul Guyer ISBN: 0521654211 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 13 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Practical Philosophy by Immanuel Kant, Mary J. Gregor, Allen W. Wood ISBN: 0521654084 Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Lectures on Ethics by Immanuel Kant, Peter Heath, J. B. Schneewind ISBN: 0521788048 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 19 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory by Roger J. Sullivan ISBN: 0521369088 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 24 February, 1989 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Creating the Kingdom of Ends by Christine M. Korsgaard ISBN: 0521499623 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 28 July, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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