The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy - Schneewind, J. B. (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1998)
J.B. Schneewind's remarkable book is the most comprehensive study ever written of the history of moral philosophy. Its aim is to set Kant's still influential ethics in its historical context by showing in detail what the central questions in moral philosophy were for him and how he arrived at his own distinctive ethical views. In its range, analyses, and discussion of the subtle interweaving of religious and political thought with moral philosophy, this is an unprecedented account of the evolution of Kant's ethics.The Invention of Autonomy is divided into four main parts. In the first part, Schneewind discusses the natural-law theory of morality, as classically expounded by St. Thomas Aquinas, and traces its rise and fall by considering the works of Luther, Calvin, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Charron, Suarez, Grotius, Hobbes, Cumberland, Pufendorf, Locke, and Thomasius. The second part deals with perfectionist approaches, as exemplified by Herbert of Cherbury, Descartes, the Cambridge Platonists, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz. The third part looks at moral philosophers who, by and large, are inclined to regard morality as independent of God's ongoing cooperation. Most of the canonical British moralists, from Shaftesbury, Clarke, and Mandeville to Hume, Reid, and Bentham, are included. Finally, in the fourth part, Schneewind examines anticipations of Kant's invention (or, perhaps, discovery) of autonomy in the works of Wolff, Crusius, the French philosophes, and Rousseau. He then skillfully relates Kant's moral thought to the rich tradition preceding it.
Keywords: Past; Philosophy; History; Europe