Kant can provide, and has provided, a good model for philosophers to think about the relation of metaphysics to science and scientific methodology.

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?

I think it is clear that what we ought to do has to be independent of our decisions about what to do, and independent of any procedures we might use in making such decisions.

Kant can provide, and has provided, a good model for philosophers to think about the relation of metaphysics to science and scientific methodology.

Consequentialist theories pretend that we can set some great big ends (the general happiness, human flourishing), provide ourselves with definite enough conceptions of them to make them the objects of instrumental reasoning, and then obtain enough reliable information about what actions will best promote them that we could regulate our conduct by these considerations alone.

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

Kant says that we may regard ourselves as legislator of the moral law, and consider ourselves as its author, but not that we are legislators or authors of the law.