ABSTRACT
In the Kantian ethics the doctrine of Formalism accompanies that of transcendental subjectivism. According to Kant, a genuine moral commandment, a categorical and autonomous imperative, can be only a formal law. Behind the formalism of the Kantian ethics stands the still more extended formalism of general philosophy—and, again, behind this, reaching back to Aristotle, a very ancient prejudice of traditional metaphysics in favour of pure form. Scheler's criticism of Formalism applies—a criticism which of course had its predecessors, but which, in its complete universality, could not be made without the implements of Phenomenology. The aprioristic is indeed always universally valid, the aposterioristic is not. But universality as such is not something formal. In the problem of the apriorical it is subjectivism which favours ethical formalism.
