Photo of Anne Margaret Baxley

Anne Margaret Baxley

Associate Professor of Philosophy
PhD, University of California, San Diego
research interests:
  • Kant's Ethics
  • History of Ethics
    View All People

    contact info:

    mailing address:

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

    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.

    in the news:

    Anne Margaret Baxley Interview with Cliff Sosis

    Anne Margaret Baxley Interview with Cliff Sosis

    Read more news
    Kant's Theory of Virtue

    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.