Heidi M. Ravven, professor of religious studies, recently published an essay titled “Maimonides’ Non-Kantian Moral Psychology: Maimonides and Kant on the Garden of Eden.” The essay appears in a volume of The Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy devoted to “The Kant-Maimonides Constellation” (volume 20, number 2, 2012).
While many thinkers have tried to argue for the proto-Kantian character of Maimonides’ philosophy, Ravven argues that this view of Maimonides is glaringly false. Maimonides is an Aristotelian and particularly his moral theory is very far from the Kantian. Contra Kant, Maimonides rejects free will as anti-scientific, espouses an account of the conventionality of morals, and regards the highest fulfillment of human potential to be in the contemplative life of the theoretical philosopher-scientist. The essay is published in volume 20, number 2, 2012 of the journal.
