Note 11 — Chapter I · ETHICS AND ITS PROBLEMS.

The difference between Aristotle and Kant in ethics is sometimes expressed (see Trendelenburg, Hist. Beiträge zur Phil., iii. 171 ff.) as if it consisted in the fact that the former investigated human nature in order to find its τέλος (~telos~), whereas the latter sought the standard of action in a transcendental ground. There is reason for this distinction in Kant's manner of statement. But both may be regarded as investigating human nature. Their difference rather consists in the different position and function assigned to reason in man. It is because Kant is for the moment looking upon reason as something distinct from human nature that he says that "the ground of obligation is to be sought, not in the nature of man or in the circumstances in the world in which he is placed, but à priori simply in the notions of pure reason" (Werke, iv. 237). His "metaphysical" view of ethics, however, follows from the rational constitution of the human subject and his experience, and does not depend on any source that really "transcends" the reason of man.