Perfection and morality: a commentary on Baumgarten's Ethica Philosophica and its relevance to Kantian ethics

Baumgarten's Ethica Philosophica (first ed. 1740) exerted significant influence on the development of Kant's moral philosophy. However, the extent of this influence often remains unnoticed, since this book has never been translated into a modern language. This thesis seeks to explore this influence. The first part reconstructs the historical and philosophical framework within which Baumgarten's ethics developed, with chapters on the historical background, Leibniz, and Wolff. The last chapter of this first part closes the framework by sketching Kant's transformation of the relation between faith and reason, philosophy and natural theology, a relation central in Baumgarten's ethics. The second part provides a thorough commentary of Ethica, showing the ways in which Kant continued to depend on the metaphysical apparatuses and indeed many of the central ethical concepts inherited from his predecessor, at the same as he altered them radically.