Precursors to Kant

Abstract

Although Kant is often thought of as the first significant moral apologist, hints and intimations of the moral argument can be found before him. Plato’s conception of the Good has been thought congenial to a theistic conception, and Aristotle’s robust teleological conception of reality and sturdy commitment to final causes resounded with much of the later Judeo-Christian tradition. Augustine and Aquinas, in particular, were committed religious believers and thinkers who forged clear connections between their theism and key moral ideas found among such Greek thinkers as Plato and Aristotle. The contemporary Frenchmen René Descartes and Blaise Pascal both saw the relevance of the afterlife to fundamental questions of the moral quest. John Locke and Thomas Reid were both drawn to an early version of the “coincidence thesis,” according to which well-being and virtue go together. In all of these ways the stage was set for Kant’s landmark work.