Categorical Principles of Law: A Counterpoint to Modernity

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In Germany, Otfried Hoeffe has been a leading contributor to debates in moral, legal, political, and social philosophy for close to three decades. Hoeffe’s work (like that of his contemporary, Jurgen Habermas), brings into relief the relevance of these German discussions to their counterparts in English-language circles.

In this book, originally published in Germany in 1990 and expanded since, Hoeffe proposes an extended and original interpretation of Kant’ philosophy of law, and social morality. Hoeffe articulates his reading of Kant in the context of an account of modernity as a polyphonous project, in which the dominant themes of pluralism and empiricism are countered by the theme of categorically binding moral principles, such as human rights. Paying equal attention to the nuances of Kant’s texts and the character of the philosophical issues in their own right, Hoeffe ends up with a Kantianism that requires, rather than precludes, a moral anthropology and that questions the fashionable juxtaposition of Kant and Aristotle as exemplars of incompatible approaches to ethical and political thought.