When teaching historical texts I encourage students always to ask what is right, rather than ridiculous, about a thinker’s perspective. We look for insights that might be reworked, refined or elaborated as part of what I consider collaboration with great authors. Michael Cholbi has written a guide to Kant’s ethics that is deeply informed by this pedagogical principle, as well as by the author’s own frustrations and gratifications as a student and teacher of Kant’s writing. Throughout the book, Cholbi focuses the reader on what he sees as best and most worth defending in Kant’s moral theory, such that the student may better understand not just what Kant said, but ‘why what he said matters’ (p. 5). Cholbi aims to reduce the time and effort required to properly understand Kant’s ethics while clarifying why it is worth the investment of significant time and effort.

Cholbi describes his work as an ‘opinionated analytical introduction’ designed to prevent common misunderstandings of Kant’s ethical theory by interpreting key concepts and arguments from the Groundwork in relation to Kant’s sophisticated moral psychology and the detailed system of ethical duties presented in the Metaphysics of Morals. This introduction addresses a fundamental challenge that teachers of Kant’s ethics face: there are so many elements of Kant’s practical philosophy that are not represented in the Groundwork, but you have to start somewhere and you can’t teach everything. Cholbi’s strategy for communicating nuance without leading new readers of Kant into unmanageable complexity is to focus on Kant’s value theory and its relation to the Categorical Imperative.

Cholbi does not attempt to address Kant’s political philosophy, anthropology or the Religion, with its intensely puzzling accounts of evil and moral progress. The limited scope prevents the book from becoming unwieldy for lower level students and it also plays to Cholbi’s interests and strengths, as he integrates accessible commentary on applied issues with his presentation of theoretical positions. But, yes, this introduction is opinionated and thus to some extent its usefulness for instructors will depend on whether or not one agrees with Cholbi’s interpretations of Kant and his independent philosophical views. Most notably, Cholbi chooses to discuss the Formula of Humanity before the Formula of Universal Law in order to foreground rational agency as the fundamental value in Kant’s ethics. Echoing Barbara Herman’s essay ‘Leaving Deontology Behind’ Cholbi writes, ‘Morality exists because value exists. If there were nothing of value, morality would have no subject matter’ (p. 35).Footnote ¹ The advantage of this approach is that the FH is more easily grasped than the FUL and treating it first pre-empts the charge of empty formalism. One drawback, even for someone who is happy with the reading of Kant, is that discussion of maxims gets delayed, which somewhat constrains Cholbi’s explanations of perfect and imperfect duties. In what follows I offer further thoughts on where the book succeeds in helping readers understand Kant’s ethical thought and where it could potentially cause confusion.

Part I covers the project of the Groundwork, Kant’s rationalism, the Categorical Imperative, dignity and respect. Here Cholbi reconstructs Kant’s arguments, stepping away from the text to explain central concepts and claims, provide examples and concisely respond to the most familiar distortions of Kant’s positions. Particularly useful is chapter 1, which is organized as an extended answer to the question ‘What criteria does the supreme principle of morality need to meet?’ and concludes with a tidy list of the five criteria. Cholbi effectively creates a framework within which readers may structure their encounters with the text and he decodes Kant alongside accessible lessons on basic ethical theory.

Weaker aspects of Part I include Cholbi’s attempt to connect his account of the Formula of Universal Law to Kant’s value theory and his handling of Kant on virtue and positive morality. Cholbi rejects the ‘logical impossibility’ and ‘self-defeat’ interpretations of the Formula of Universal Law in favour of an analysis of how willing bad maxims involves the agent in ‘rational contradiction’ (p. 91). He charts out a five-step procedure for evaluating maxims of action and highlights that the issue is not the bad hypothetical consequences of universalizing the maxim. So far so good. But although Cholbi notes that ‘“Rational” is one of the trickiest of philosophical concepts’, he makes this concept unnecessarily tricky in his explanation of how willing universalizable maxims ‘manifests’ rational agency (p. 99). Cholbi writes:

I suspect that there is a typographical error in the first sentence of this passage because I doubt that Cholbi intended to claim that acting immorally is a way of valuing rational agency. It is an unfortunate place for an error. Additional confusion is made likely by Cholbi’s employment of two senses of rationality. When he says that in immoral action ‘the rationality of our action depends on others not sharing our maxims with us’ he means that the instrumental rationality of our action depends on others not sharing our maxim (p. 99). I worry that few students will remember the principle of instrumental rationality mentioned eight pages earlier and I expect that those who do may still wonder why instrumental rationality is not rationality enough. Cholbi does go on to say more about what it means to be ‘fully rational’, stressing the need to justify our actions to other rational agents.

I was somewhat disappointed by Cholbi’s overview of Kantian virtue given the care he takes to avoid oversimplification with respect to other topics. He incorrectly claims that all imperfect duties to oneself fall under the duty of natural self-perfection and omits the duty of moral self-perfection from the chart summarizing Kant’s taxonomy of duties, though ‘integrity in self-examination’ is included as a perfect duty to self. Whereas Kant urges ‘be holy’, ‘be perfect’ and ‘If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, strive for it’ (Doctrine of Virtue, 6: 446), Cholbi lets us off the hook: ‘Morality acts as a constraint on the pursuit of our happiness, but morality itself need not be the most central concern of human life’ (p. 218). Although he emphasizes that imperfect duties require commitment to moral ends, he does not seem to think that developing and sustaining this commitment is particularly demanding or ‘front and center’ for the Kantian agent. Nevertheless, Cholbi does usefully address Kant’s views on the dangers of self-deception and difficulties of self-knowledge in his chapter 6 response to the worry that it is impossible to know one’s own maxims (pp. 145–51). He also gives moral improvement the last word in the book’s conclusion.

Part II defends, and in some cases revises, Kant’s ethical theory in response to objections to the Formula of Universal Law, controversial claims Kant makes about the content of specific duties, and Kant’s position on the role of emotions and happiness in moral life. Cholbi gives examples of criticisms of Kant that are based on misunderstandings (e.g. it is cold, unfeeling and absolutist), but also examples of where Kant’s theory needs to be amended in response to well-founded criticisms (e.g. duties to animals and the problem of false negatives in the CI test). His basic message is that ‘we can salvage the heart of Kantian ethics without endorsing the conclusions Kant himself advocated’ (p. 198).

Cholbi’s analysis of Kant’s position on duties to animals nicely demonstrates how such a salvage project may be accomplished. On the other hand, his argument for the moral permissibility of ‘nihilistic suicide’ shows how the ‘heart’ may get corrupted in the process. Cholbi argues that if an agent totally gives up on having ends, then in committing suicide she would not be prioritizing her contingent ends over her rational agency and thus such a suicide does not treat humanity merely as a means to happiness. He goes on to claim, pace Kant, that rational agency has dignity only for beings that have contingent ends (p. 190). The argument seems to depend on a kind of bait and switch: we are to imagine an agent who has no ends, but it turns out that this agent sets the end of dying.Footnote ² It is hard for me to see how students new to Kant would profit from studying this argument. I should note, however, that Cholbi presents his positions in a way that invites critical engagement and he includes a well-chosen list of further readings that include contrasting views at the end of each chapter.

A highlight of Part II is chapter 8’s section on special relationships. Fans of Barbara Herman’s work will appreciate Cholbi’s discussion of the development of rational agency and his attention to the ethical significance of trust, vulnerability, dependence and finitude. This is one of many sections that support Cholbi’s claim to having written a ‘spirited’ and ‘fair-minded’ defence of Kant’s ethics (p. 4).

I would recommend Understanding Kant’s Ethics to non-specialists who want to teach Kant more accurately as well as for use in courses in which students may be expected to digest and debate a range of views on the primary texts. Cholbi’s introduction is the work of a thoughtful teacher: he gives his readers resources needed to grasp difficult material and he encourages them to think for themselves.