Ethical theories may be said to be "Kantian" if they take their inspiration or focus from themes in the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant, while attempting something other than interpretation, development, or defense of Kant's own ethical theory. This is not a hard and fast distinction: What appears the right way to defend some thesis of Kant's to one may appear to another to be a complete departure from the crucial components of Kant's critical ethics. Moreover, some, like scholars Onora O'Neill (1975), Marcia Baron (1996), and Barbara Herman (1993), may see their work as exploring and defending the essential elements of Kant's moral theory, rather than developing an alternative theory inspired by him, even though they do not accept the metaphysical picture Kant thought crucial to his account. Many defenders of Kant's own account see the austere picture sometimes drawn of his ethics—as based on a rigoristic...