Relativism and the return of the moral self

pp. 133-157

in: Ian Ward, Kantianism, postmodernism and critical legal thought, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

It was Ernst Cassirer who redefined Kantianism for the contemporary audience. The previous four chapters have sought to trace the genealogy of an alternative Kantianism, developed from the third Critique. That which is alternative to is the more orthodox neo-Kantian relativist and formalist variants, as articulated by Cassirer and then by such as Gustav Radbruch and Ernest Weinrib. Whereas the postmodern variants hope to effect a renewed postmodern political ethics, relativist and formalist variants decry such metaphysical ambitions. Cassirer, Radbruch and Weinrib have relatively less to say about ethics, but a great deal to say about the form of Kantian legal thought. The ethics of neo-Kantianism has only re-emerged with a renewed interest in jurisprudential philosophies of the moral self, most recently articulated by Ronald Dworkin. We will turn to Dworkin in the second part of this chapter.