Introductory note: text and translation

Summary

Translators of philosophical texts inevitably obscure the author's arguments. The least they can do to lift the ‘veil of translation’ is to present text and translation side by side. In this book, this is done for Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten for the first time in its English-language history. I hope that it will encourage English speakers to study the German original, and thus bridge the divide between those working on Kant's ethics in both linguistic and philosophical traditions.

As the purpose of this volume is the clear and transparent presentation of the Groundwork itself, supplementary material has been kept to a minimum. This introduction explains the principles of the edition and the translation, particularly the constitution of the German text. In addition, the book contains a full bilingual index (which can also serve as an English–German glossary), a brief critical apparatus and editorial notes that explain matters of linguistic detail. These notes rarely stray into philosophically controversial territory. They do not serve the purpose of a guide to Kant's ethical thought. Interpretative and philosophical issues are discussed in my Kant's ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’: A Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2007), which in many ways complements this edition as its sister volume.

The German text on the left-hand side of the double page is taken from the second original edition of the Groundwork, published in Riga by Johann Friedrich Hartknoch in 1786.