Originally issued as a two-volume edition in 1990, the anthology is now re-issued (with a new foreword) as a one-volume anthology. It is a companion to Schneewind's highly successful history of modern ethics, The Invention of Autonomy. The anthology provides many of the sources discussed in The Invention of Autonomy. The combined two volumes are an invaluable resource for the teaching of the history of modern moral philosophy. This volume contains excerpts from some thirty-two important seventeenth and eighteenth century moral philosophers. As well as well-known thinkers such as Hobbes, Hume,...

The sixteen essays in this volume confront the current debate about the relationship between philosophy and its history. On the one hand intellectual historians have commonly accused philosophers of writing bad--anachronistic--history of philosophy, and on the other, philosophers have accused intellectual historians of writing bad--antiquarian--history of philosophy. The essays here address this controversy and ask what purpose the history of philosophy should serve.

J.B. Schneewind's remarkable book is the most comprehensive study ever written of the history of moral philosophy. Its aim is to set Kant's still influential 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. In its range, analyses, and discussion of the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy, this is an unprecedented account of the evolution of Kant's ethics.

J.B. Schneewind's remarkable book is the most comprehensive study ever written of the history of moral philosophy. Its aim is to set Kant's still influential 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. In its range, analyses, and discussion of the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy, this is an unprecedented account of the evolution of Kant's ethics.