The version of Kantian ethics that Robert Hanna develops in Kantian Ethics and Human Existence is “existential” in four senses of that term. First, it’s a specifically anthropocentric, humane version of Kantian ethics, that takes philosophical anthropology fully seriously for the purposes of ethical theory, and not as an inessential add-on or mere elaboration. Second, it’s a non-reductively naturalistic and organicist Kantian ethics, in that it is fully embedded in the complex dynamic, purposively biological, neurobiological lives of rational human animals or real human persons, even though the guiding principles of choice and action in those lives are categorical, non-instrumental imperatives. Third, it’s an applied and situated Kantian ethics, in that it is specifically intended to apply to real-life, real-world, “human, all too human” moral issues under thoroughly nonideal natural and social conditions. And fourth, it’s a Kantian ethics that is significantly informed by writings in the post-Kantian tradition of philosophical and literary Existentialism—as well, of course, as being significantly informed by recent and contemporary ethical theory. Morality according to Existential Kantian Ethics, is specifically about the highest or supreme values, ideals, and normative standards of real human persons—that is, the highest or supreme ends-in-themselves, and the highest or supreme practical reasons of rational human life. It is also about the obligations and principles of choice and conduct that flow from these highest or supreme values, which thereby in turn constitute a set of low-bar, minimal, or nonideal standards of rational normativity to go along with the corresponding high-bar, maximal, or ideal standards.
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