Immanuel Kant

Kant is the towering representative of metaphysical ethics, the tradition that tries to derive ethical truths from metaphysical ones — a move Moore considers as fallacious as deriving them from natural facts. Yet Moore's relationship to Kant is not simple dismissal: he explicitly models his project on Kant's 'Prolegomena,' writing a 'Prolegomena to any future Ethics that can possibly pretend to be scientific.' Kant matters to the middle chapters because his categorical imperative, with its implied heteronomy objection, forces Moore to clarify what he means by calling ethical propositions 'Intuitions' — and what he emphatically does not mean.