SOURCE: "Autonomy, Obligation, and Virtue: An Overview of Kant's Moral Philosophy," in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, edited by Paul Guyer, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 309-41.

In the following essay, Schneewind discusses Kant's conception of autonomy and the moral agent, and the ground of his obligation to the moral law.

Kant invented a new way of understanding morality and ourselves as moral agents. The originality and profundity of his moral philosophy have long been recognized. It was widely discussed during his own lifetime, and there has been an almost continuous stream of explanation and criticism of it ever since. Its importance has not diminished with time. The quality and variety of current defenses and developments of his basic outlook and the sophistication and range of criticism of it give in a central place in contemporary ethics.¹ In the present essay I offer a general survey of the main...