The Test

Every driving direction hides an if: if you want Madison Avenue, go east. Paul Guyer starts among commands like that, the ones Immanuel Kant says we can take or leave, and clears a path to the one command that never asks what we want. Then a man borrows money on a promise he knows is false, and Kant asks what a world full of that promise would be worth. Guyer shows what the test measures, answers a charge that has trailed Kant since Schopenhauer and Mill, and takes on the ethics classroom's oldest trick, a maxim with your name in it. He catches Kant smuggling something in, too.