UNDERSTANDING Immanuel Kant's moral theory can be a daunting task. Although Kant tried very hard to write clearly, even some of his contemporaries had difficulty figuring out what he was trying to say. In the following pages I have adopted a strategy that has not been commonly used by commentators but has proved extraordinarily helpful to my students in illuminating just those parts of Kant's moral theory that are usually the hardest for them to comprehend and appreciate.

Today we tend to approach the study of ethics from the point of view of the individual, with each person having her or his own special personal interests and relationships. Many of us, therefore, may feel more at home with a moral theory like that proposed by Sartre or Nietzsche, in which moral choices apparently cannot escape subjectivity; or with a moral theory like Aristotle's, which begins in the Nicomachean Ethics with the moral development of the individual person and the personal and private relationships of friends and family and only then, in the Politics, extends outward to the public order.

Kant's moral philosophy has also often been read (and with good reason) as concerned mainly with the moral character of individuals and of their actions. But if we approach it from that point of view, we may not have much sympathy for many of his claims, especially his insistence that our fundamental moral rules may override our personal concerns and cares. If, however, we begin with his political theory, we are better positioned to appreciate how his moral philosophy provides theunderlying conceptual structure for a community life that can be shared by everyone.