Kant’s Analytic Method and the Argument of _Groundwork I_

In the famous first section of the _Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals_, Kant sets out to identify the principle of morality, but each of the main steps of his argument has been said to encounter serious difficulties. In this essay, I argue that most of these difficulties can be resolved by reading Kant’s argument in light of his views on philosophi- cal method. Using his description of the ‘analytic method’, I reconstruct the steps leading to the identification of the moral principle and show that they form a chain of what he calls ‘regressive’ reasoning. This reconstruction offers solutions to the three main difficulties diagnosed in the literature, although several unclarities remain.