Kant and the Divine Command Metaethics. Notes on a Debate within the analytic Philosophy of Religion

The command of God seems to play hardly any role in Kant's moral philosophy. Yet, in recent years, representatives of so-called Divine Command Metaethics have attempted to claim Kant for their thesis that morality depends on divine commands. Quite obviously, numerous passages from Kant's writings can be cited against this view. At the same time, however, it is possible to find arguments which suggest that Kant grants divine commands a greater function in laying the foundations of ethics than is generally assumed. The present paper examines the arguments which can be made for and against the hypothesis that Kant's moral philosophy represents a variant of Divine Command Metaethics. The result shows that in Kant's later work an attempt is made to reconcile the autonomy of moral subjects with the idea that morality has a religious basis in God's command. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.