We are generally forced to choose one way or the other of distancing ourselves from Kant. I suppose I tend to choose the irreligious way. But I regret that Kant's path has not been followed.

From the beginning, there has been a tension in the reception of the Kantian idea of autonomy. If you emphasize the 'nomos' (the law), then you get one picture: the objectivity of ethics. If you emphasize the 'autos' - the self - you get the idea that we make the law. Kant never hesitated in his choice between the two emphases. He emphasizes the nomos (the universal and objective validity of the law).

Those who see Smith as a defender of capitalism - as it existed in Marx's day, or as it exists today - show above all that they are not living in the real world. They are behaving as though the undeveloped form of capitalism Smith studied is still with us.

What Smith and Marx have in common is that they were both philosophers of great vision and perceptiveness, deep humanity, and a sense of social reality that has been lost in the abstractly formalistic economic theories that have dominated the field since the last third of the nineteenth century.

Kant attempted to work out a view of religion and religious belief according to which existing religions could be brought into harmony with modernity, science and reason.

In general, those who defend capitalism are basically out of touch with reality.

My own view is that Kant's conception of the duality of the good (morality and happiness, the good of our person and the good of our state or condition) is a distinctively modern view.