Kant desenvolve a indicação ao final da crítica da razão pura (sua obra prima) de que a liberdade diferenciaria o humano quanto à sua redutibilidade ao mundo natural, colocando o também sob a égide de um mundo inteligível, onde o que vale são a esfera das razões. Aqui na fundamentação são exploradas as consequências dessa colocação, de modo a fundar a racionalidade prática na sua ligação com a moralidade e a liberdade, no estabelecimento firme da vontade como autônoma e assim legisladora. Com um texto muito mais envolvente do que a crítica da razão prática (que corrige e desenvolve alguns pontos daqui, mas perde-se em aspectos técnicos e não invoca a emoção das máximas e imperativos categóricos), desenvolve argumentos analíticos da boa vontade à moralidade e depois da moralidade popular a esta última, que se mostra destituída do empírico (no qual não apenas os humanos, mas todos os possíveis sapientes são irmãos), para terminar com um desenvolvimento dito "sintético" da liberdade (negativa da não determinação pela causalidade mecânica) e positiva (envolvendo a autonomia da vontade) até a defensibilidade da pressuposição desta em sua ligação com o reino dos fins e o respeito à razão e aos outros sapientes. Grande livro! ( )

I shamefully do not have the time to write an elaborate review, since I have to do an exam and essay on this very book, but let my quickly put down some thoughts:

On the edition - This edition is handsdown the best one around. The German-English lay out is perfect for scholars who are not satisfied with accepting the interpretation of the translator. Especially in Groundwork III there are some mistakes in the English translation, and the German version helps clarify what Kant means.

On the book - Kant's moral system is impressive. Though I think it has been fairly successfully undermined by later philosophers, it is still worth plunging into its depths. However, the first two parts of the Groundwork are pretty weak. Kant begins building his system by following what he thinks are moral intuitions beyond doubt. It all starts with examples and arguments based on common-sense. It is only in the Groundwork III (and the end of II) that Kant starts building his system and giving it its place within Reason. For those interested in Kantian ethics: this book is a good intro due to its common-sense method. However, in the Second Critique, Kant answers questions of a deeper nature in a more thorough way. ( )

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So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case at the same time as an end, never as a means only.

A virtuosic display of intellect as is typical of Kant. He teeters on the verge of mysticism sometimes in his adulation of reason and desire to strip inclination and the empirical world from morality. The problem is that it results in a pure morality that rests on an assumption both of free will and unknowable noumena (and yet somehow it affects the sensible world?). I don't dare say I understand the Groundwork enough to truly address its plausibility, but I urge anyone interested in moral realism and ethical theory to take the time to process his ideas. This is the second translation I've dealt with, and its impeccable. I can't vouch for the consistency of the terminology because my Kantian German is zero, but it's highly readable and has a number of helpful appendices. ( )

It's a shame that this is the most famous of Kant's works, since its central argument is probably the weakest and wishy-washiest. It's less systematic and well argued and hence more confusing than the (albeit initially more difficult) Critique of Practical Reason.

As Kant points out in the Critique of Pure Reason, "if the size of a book were measured not by the number of its pages but by the time required to understand it [and the reasoning behind it], then we could say about many books that they would be much shorter if they were not so short." (A xix) Hear hear! ( )