Abstract

The first section of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals contains a teleological argument, the aim of which is to show that the natural purpose of human reason lies not in securing happiness but in morality. While the teleological argument is widely considered to be digressive and unconvincing in the secondary literature, in this article I attempt to show that the argument is neither digressive nor unconvincing. I argue that it fulfills an important synthetic task in the Groundwork (even if in a preliminary manner), that it is consistent with Kant’s views on natural teleology at the time, and that the criticism of happiness contained therein is as convincing as Kant’s criticism of happiness in the rest of the treatise.