Kant’s critique of perfectionism in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals launches lively debate on the limits of coercion and the requisites for free action, foundational for post-Kantian perfectionism. The Critique of Practical Reason reformulates the Leibnizian concept of spontaneity as a ‘true apology for Leibniz’, salvaging what is most vital in his thought. Spontaneous freedom does not externalise a unique content, as in Leibniz, but now conceived as negative liberty, signifies the will’s ability to abstract from external causes or to admit them selectively according to rational criteria. Spontaneity is the condition for an order of right, as the sphere of compatible external actions among juridical subjects. Here Kant effects a second modification of Leibniz, in the idea of mutual causality or reciprocity. The Metaphysics of Morals of 1797 elaborates the distinction between pure and empirical practical reason, freedom and happiness, and delineates the sphere of rightful interaction. Neither happiness nor virtue are subject to constraint, but in the sphere of right coercion or mutual limitation is the condition that assures and generalises freedom.

Adam Smith ridicules the Stoics for neglecting the objects of virtuous choice. They think of life, he says, as a kind of game, the point of which is not winning but playing well, playing fairly and playing skillfully. The Stoics thus misrepresent what is at stake in our lives. This chapter discusses the difference between Kantian and Stoic ethics by focusing on questions raised by Smith’s analogy: Should the Stoics be troubled by his critique? Can the same criticism be leveled against Kantian ethics? How does the Kantian category of conditional goodness differ from the Stoic category of moral indifferents? And is Kant’s anti-eudaimonism – his insistence that virtue does not coincide with happiness – as significant a departure from Stoicism as he would have us believe?

Popular minimalist and moderate liberal interpreters suggest that, both in the 1780s and in the more fully developed political works of the 1790s, Kant adopts a narrow and skeptical approach to state-sponsored efforts addressing social welfare. Interpreted with due attention to context, however, relevant passages from Kant’s 1784 lectures in political philosophy—the Naturrecht Feyerabend—suggest no necessarily narrow commitments in the realm of social supports. Read in conjunction with his Feyerabend discussion of innate right, meanwhile, the contemporaneous essay on enlightenment provides us reasons (including an active conception of civic agency and a positive understanding of the state’s role) to conclude that the account of justice that Kant’s early works advance indeed could support a rich menu of such programs. Publications from the 1790s might, of course, take a contrary stance. It falls to those who favor a more conservative reading, however, to prove that Kant altered an earlier, agency-oriented position friendly to state-sponsored supports.

This chapter considers the presentation of virtue and happiness in the Meditations and asks how far this matches the distinctive features of Stoic thinking on these topics. The main topics considered are (1) the virtue–indifferents distinction, (2) the presentation of the virtues as forming groups or as unified in some way, (3) the virtue-happiness relationship and the idea of happiness as ‘the life according to nature’, meaning according to human or universal nature (or both). Overall, it is suggested that, although Marcus’s focus in the work is on the contribution of these ideas to his overall project of ethical self-improvement, his presentation largely reflects the ideas and connections between them that we find in the standard ancient accounts of Stoic ethics.

Chapter 8 focuses on how the strand of legal argument traced in Chapter 7 was deployed by a number of pro-imperialist writers in England in reply to Price, Paine and the American colonists in 1776. The first to take up the claim that liberty is nothing other than absence of restraint were the lawyers John Lind and Richard Hey, and they were soon followed by a large number of other critics of Price, among whom the most prominent were Adam Ferguson, John Welsey and later William Paley. The chapter focuses in particular on three objections generally raised against Price’s account of liberty. The first was that his definition confuses the state of being unfree with that of merely lacking security for the liberty you possess. The second was that he connects liberty with an unviable concept of inalienable natural rights. The third was that, by defining liberty as absence of dependence, and then equating dependence with slavery, he commits himself to a morally indefensible definition of slavery. He forgets that slaves are not merely subject to the will of their masters, but that the chief horror of slavery is that they are also regarded as being their master’s property.

Chapter 4 examines the body of Whig propaganda in which the government was congratulated for having succeeded in establishing a free civil society within a free state. A large number of Anglican writers joined the spokesmen for the government in arguing that Britain had by now established a constitution that made her the envy of Europe. Everyone was now equally subject to the law; the law alone ruled, with no incursions of arbitrary power; and the law was at last being expertly administered, without any corruption or incompetence. As a result, the life, liberty and property of every subject was now fully secure, including the property that (as Locke had said) everyone may be said to possess in their own person. No one is any longer condemned to live in a state of subjection to the mere will and power of anyone else. The consequence is said to be a civil society in which everyone can hope to find their own pathway to prosperity and happiness. The chapter concludes with an examination of Whig celebrations of urban life as the best setting in which to lead a flourishing and happy life.

The last major chapter of the book reflects on the question of ‘happiness’ as discussed by Popper, Hayek, and Neurath, but also presents a case study of how Neurath not only theorized on such matters but also sought to make a practical difference by collaboration in planning projects. He became a consultant for the redevelopment of Bilston, a small town blighted by the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. In discussion with town councillors and architects, he steered plans by taking into account the needs of residents, seeking to represent those whose voice was generally not heard. This finally led to Neurath being interviewed in the mainstream media, marking acceptance and respect for Neurath in British culture. He did not want to use his broad learning to set himself apart as an intellectual but instead to articulate the needs of ordinary people.

Ostensibly, Hume’s Essays do not have much to say about religion. ‘Of Superstition and Enthusiasm’ (1741) may contain an incisive treatment of the psychological origins of religious error and its ecclesiastical and political consequences, but it was the one Essay dedicated to religion published in Hume’s lifetime. But when the topic of religion does come up in the Essays, as it frequently does in examples, asides and footnotes, we find Hume doing two things: outlining the character and dangers of institutional religion on individual happiness and social stability and doing so in a neutral manner characteristic of his wider ‘science of man’. He brought religious belief and priestly power down to the level of another aspect of human life, comparable to the other themes discussed in this guide, and which could subject to ‘scientific’ observation that led to identification of general principles. Piecing together the various discussions of religion, we find Hume articulating a strong anticlericalism in which religion is understood to be a natural propensity of human nature, exploited by priesthoods claiming power over others, but which could be managed through increased scepticism about clerical claims amongst the citizenry and the subordination of church to state.