Kant's derivation of the moral "ought" from a metaphysical "is"

Marshall, Colin. "Kant's derivation of the moral 'ought' from a metaphysical 'is.'" In The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds, edited by Nicholas Stang and Karl Schafer. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

Perhaps the most widely accepted claim in contemporary metaethics is that there is an important ‘gap’ between facts or judgments about what is and facts or judgments about what ought to be, though there is little agreement about the nature of this gap. Most of Kant’s readers have taken him to have recognized the gap and to have incorporated it into his metaethical views. My aim in this paper is to argue that there is a defensible reading of Kant according to which Kant rejected the gap in the strongest possible terms: taking “ought” judgments to follow analytically from certain “is” judgments (and vice-versa).

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Forthcoming
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