The Supreme Principle of kantian Morality as Practical Knowledge

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify to what extent the principle established by Kant in the Foundation for the Metaphysics of Morals constitutes knowledge. It will be shown that, by reconstructing Kantian characterization of practical knowledge, we can then examine in what way that work is precisely about attaining that kind of knowledge. Such an investigation is justified, on one hand, because it would help to understand the systematic place of the work insofar as it contains a knowledge necessary for ethical science, and, on the other hand, it would illuminate a certain aspect of the contemporary debate as to whether Kant's moral philosophy is realist or anti-realist in any of its variants. To do so, it is necessary to begin by clarifying what Kant means by practical knowledge, and then to see how this is realized or not in said work, and finally to sketch the possible philosophical yields that this achieves in relation to other contemporary approaches to Kant's moral philosophy.