Kantian Deeds

Henrik Joker Bjerre is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

• Introduction ;1. The Starry Heavens Above and the Moral Law Within; 2. The Structure of Moral Revolutions; 3. The Other Side of Inference; 4. As if...; 5. Surplus Experiences; 6. Self-inflicted Immaturity; 7. Traces of the Unconditional; 8. On the Prohibition of Contemporary Wonders; Bibliography; Index.

"The main threat to Kant's legacy are today liberal Kantians themselves, from Jurgen Habermas to Robert Brandom. Against these revisionists who reduce Kant to a benign discourse-ethics, Bjerre's book triumphantly reasserts the unbearable real core of Kant 's ethical thought. Bjerre does not treat Kant as an interesting thinker from the past, but as an actual presence - no wonder his book is full of contemporary examples, anecdotes, and jokes. Arguably this is the most important book on ethics in the last decade - a book needed like daily bread!"- Slavoj Zizek "Henrik Bjerre's Kantian Deeds is definitely among the best studies of Kant - and of ethics in general - that I've read in many years. Not only it is well founded in close and extensive knowledge of Kantian philosophy and contemporary research in Kantian ethics, it is particularly remarkable for the courage and imagination with which it is written, the qualities sadly lacking in large part of academic research. The basic distinction that Bjerre draws between 'normal' moral acts and the moral deeds pertaining to 'extra-morality' is most forceful and productive, enabling the author to scrutinize and sort out a whole array of problems concerning the rigorous Kantian position in ethics. Not fearing or avoiding the (often radical) political edge of ethics, Bjerre's book represents a most valuable contribution to, and intervention into, the contemporary 'ethics and politics' debate." - Alenka Zupanck