Founder of a Metaphysics
of Morals (i 784-1787)
Working on the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
(1784): "Philosophy ... in a Precarious Position"K
ANT SENT the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals to the pub¬
lisher at the beginning of September 1784.' The book appeared only
eight months later, in April of 1785. But it was actually longer in coming
than that, being rooted in concerns that Kant had first formulated twenty
years earlier, and that had been on his mind ever since.^2 He began to tackle
those concerns directly toward the end of 1781 or the beginning of 1782. As
early as May 7, 1781, Hamann asked Hartknoch, the publisher of the first
Critique, to prod Kant to publish his metaphysics of nature and morals.
Hartknoch suggested this to Kant in November of the same year, and
Hamann could tell Hartknoch at the beginning of 1782 that Kant was in¬
deed working on the Metaphysics of Morals, though he could not tell him
whether Kant would publish it with Hartknoch.^3 Yet it took Kant another
three years to finish a work on the metaphysics of morals, and what he pub¬
lished was not the Metaphysics of Morals itself, but a preliminary investi¬
gation toward such a Metaphysics.
There were many reasons for the delay. First, the task of producing a
popular short version of the Critique, the Prolegomena, got in the way. Sec¬
ondly, Kant's personal life intruded. Buying and renovating his house was
particularly distracting. Though he was confident in the summer of 1783
that he would finish something on moral philosophy during the winter, it
still took almost another year for him to finish the Groundwork.* In any
case, it is far from clear that what Kant was working on during this time
was the Groundwork. His letter to Mendelssohn of August 1783 suggests
that it was something else, namely "a textbook of metaphysics in accordance
with the... critical principles, compressed for the purpose of academic
277