There is no author or legislator of the moral law. It is simply valid in itself in the nature or essence of things. We become autonomous only when we obey it, because then our will aligns itself with the objectively valid law, and our choice follows the same law as that we give ourselves. We can think of rational faculty (or the idea - the pure rational concept, not exhibitable in experience) as the legislator or author of the law because reason recognizes an objective standard, and to that extent is already aligned with objective moral truth.

There is a lot in Adam Smith that reflects the insights of Rousseau and anticipates those of Marx.

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.

One rational standard of action is how well it promotes the end it seeks. Another standard is whether it aims at ends which are good. Both of these, but especially the former, depend on judgments of fact.

That Hegel's theory is derivative from Fichte's does not prevent it from being strikingly original and of independent value.

I am a one-trick pony. But I have worked hard at something I would have liked to do even if I weren't paid a penny for it, and made a good living at it. You can't be luckier than that in this life, no matter who you are or what you do.

As long as the Republican party exists in its present form, our nation cannot endure as a free society. Still worse, under their policies the human race is being rapidly propelled toward its extinction.