Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
The Metaphysics of Morals
Kant's 1797 'Metaphysics of Morals' — systematic doctrine of right and doctrine of virtue
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Metaphysics of Morals (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Metaphysics of Morals
1797 (with 1798 second edition adding the response to Friedrich Schlegel). Kant was 73 and increasingly frail; this is his last major systematic work.
Space
The Metaphysics of Morals
Königsberg — Kant's permanent residence. The applied-ethical examples reflect late-eighteenth-century Prussian legal-social conditions (marriage law, military service, capital punishment as practised, etc.).
Matter
The Metaphysics of Morals
Two-part systematic moral-philosophical treatise. The Doctrine of Right runs to ~150 pages; the Doctrine of Virtue to ~120 pages.
Observer
The Metaphysics of Morals
Late Kant. The observer-philosopher is positioned at the end of a fifty-year philosophical career, completing the systematic moral edifice that the Groundwork and the second Critique had announced.
Energy
The Metaphysics of Morals
Late-systematic Critical-philosophical energies. The book is Kant's most architecturally-systematic work after the first Critique — a building completed to the foundations laid earlier.
Information
The Metaphysics of Morals
Single large volume with two parts. The internal structure is divisional-systematic: each part is divided into Introduction, Elements, and (for the Doctrine of Right) Public Right; each Element into theorems and corollaries.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Kant's full systematic ethics; together with the Groundwork and the second Critique, the canonical Kantian moral philosophy. The contemporary Kant-revival (Korsgaard, Herman, O'Neill, Wood, Hill) draws particularly on the applied-ethical material in the Doctrine of Virtue; the Doctrine of Right has been central to recent debates on Kant's political philosophy (Rawls, Pogge, Ripstein).