​Anne Margaret Baxley

Associate Professor of Philosophy
Director of Undergraduate Studies in Philosophy
PhD, University of California, San Diego
research interests:
  • Kant's Ethics
  • History of Ethics
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contact info:

mailing address:

  • Washington University
    CB 1073
    One Brookings Drive
    St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Anne Margaret Baxley's research interests are primarily in Kant's ethics and the history of ethics. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the American Philosophical Society.

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WashU Philosophers at the 2024 Central APA

Anne Margaret Baxley Interview with Cliff Sosis

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Kant's Theory of Virtue

By ​Anne Margaret Baxley

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics.