Rescuing Autonomy from Kant: A Marxist Critique of Kant's Ethics

In Rescuing Autonomy from Kant, James Furner convincingly argues that Marxism should be deeply interested in Immanuel Kant’s ethics, but on a critical basis. Although Kant's formulas of the categorical imperative presuppose a belief in God that Kant cannot motivate, his insistence on autonomy is not only compatible with Marxism, but can be rescued from his idealism by grounding it in an antinomy in capitalism's basic structure. In Furner’s account, this move helps form the basis for a Marxist ethic that commits us to socialism.