“Those of us who are sympathetic to Kantian ethics usually are so because we regard it as an ethics of autonomy, based on respect for the human capacity to govern our own lives according to rational principles. Kantian ethical theory is grounded on the idea that the moral law is binding on me only because it is regarded as proceeding from my own will.”

Kantian Ethics (2008)

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 6, A New Understanding Of Ethics, p. 149

Additional remarks about the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, Address to the Editors' Forum, Suva, 27 July 2005

Attributed in American Quotations (1992) by Gorton Carruth and Eugene H. Ehrlich, p. 149
1990s

Source: Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen (1971), p. 122

"An Exposition of the Mission of England: Addressed to the Peoples of Europe" in The Reasoner, Vol. 3, No. 54 (1847), p. 321
Context: It is not, happily, within our power thus to work destruction in the universal womb of things; still within the sphere of human influence — which extends to the uttermost limit of our world's circumambient atmosphere — we can, and do, modify all nature's kingdom; bending towards good or ill, health or disease, harmony or discord, each part, each unit of the universal plan. Upon our just or erroneous comprehension then, of the laws of nature, must depend our adaptation of art for the right improvement or for the ignorant deterioration of Nature's works. And moreover, upon our just or erroneous interpretation of these in the first division of truth — the physical — will depend our interpretation of them in the intellectual and in the moral; from all which it follows, that our system of human economy will present, even as it has ever presented, a practical exhibition of that of the universe. There is more consistency in the human mind, as in the course of events, than is supposed. In both, the first link in the chain decides the last. Man hath ever made a cosmogony in keeping with his views in physics; a scheme of government in keeping with his cosmogony; a theory of ethics in keeping with his government, and a code of law and theology in keeping with his ethics. Every perception of the human mind modifies human practice. Science is but the theory of art.

Kantian Ethics (2008)

“Liberalism and its Discontents,” p. 20.
Outside Ethics (2005)

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3
Context: Temperament refers to the mode of reaction and is constitutional and not changeable; character is essentially formed by a person’s experiences, especially of those in early life, and changeable, to some extent, by insights and new kinds of experiences. If a person has a choleric temperament, for instance, his mode of reaction is "quick and strong.” But what he is quick or strong about depends on his kind of relatedness, his character. If he is a productive, just, loving person he will react quickly and strongly when he loves, when he is enraged by injustice, and when he is impressed by a new idea. If he is a destructive or sadistic character, he will be quick and strong in his destructiveness or in his cruelty. The confusion between temperament and character has had serious consequences for ethical theory. Preferences with regard to differences in temperament are mere matters of subjective taste. But differences in character are ethically of the most fundamental importance.