Essays on the History of Moral Philosophy

J. B. Schneewind presents a selection of his published essays on ethics, the history of ethics and moral psychology, together with a new piece offering an intellectual autobiography. The volume ranges across the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries: it includes Schneewind''s early anti-foundationalist ''Moral Knowledge and Moral Principles'', the classic ''The Misfortunes of Virtue'', and other early essays on Kant''s relation to pre-Kantian moral philosophy; also a long piece on ''The Active Powers'', and Schneewind''s own interpretation of Kant''s moral philosophy. These writings provide excellent introductions to Schneewind''s two long books, and supplement them in important ways.