The aim of this text is to set Kant's ethics in its historical context by showing in detail what the central questions in moral philosophy were for him and how he arrived at his own distinctive ethical views. The book is organized into four main sections, each exploring moral philosophy by discussing the work of many influential philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries. In an epilogue the author discusses Kant's view of his own historicity, and of the aims of moral philosophy. In its range, in its analyzes of many philosophers and in revealing the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy offers an account of the evolution of Kant's ethics.
