For the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good the utilitarian adopts) and about which actions or moral rules would contribute to maximizing the good. For the rational intuitionist, there are truths about which actions should be done and not done.

The picture of Kant as the 'theological Robespierre' or the "world-crusher" was first suggested by someone with whom Kant stood in a relation of philosophical disagreement but also great mutual respect: namely, Moses Mendelssohn.

We cannot predict the effects of our actions, especially our collective actions over generations or centuries, to use instrumental reasoning toward these big final ends to tell us what we ought to do.

In the mid-1960s, as hard to believe as it may be now, choosing to go into academic philosophy was not an imprudent career choice. There were lots of academic jobs in philosophy then.

There is a tradition of "modernist" theology arising out of post-Kantian thought - Fichte was the real father of it, but Schleiermacher and others also developed it - which might have more promise if it had greater influence on popular religion.

What are we to think of the shortsightedness of the great mass of people who are content to do nothing about it, and even worse, the greed or venality of the rich and powerful who deliberately bar the way to human survival?

Kant's system of duties constitutes a Doctrine of Virtue because the duties also indicate what kinds of attitudes, dispositions and feelings are morally virtuous or vicious.