Redemption and the commandment to love the neighbour. Rosenzweig’s critique to Kantian ethics

Rosenzweig shares two Kantian theoretical moves: ethics should be detached from metaphysics. But ethics is also able, for its part, to ground a new metaphysics, rooted in the idea of man as a finite being. Despite this general affinity with Kant, in the pages of the third book of the second part of The Star of Redemption Rosenzweig introduces a critique to Kantian ethics and especially to its formalistic character. To avoid ambiguity, ethics must have a content. This content is love for the neighbour. Rosenzweig’s critique can be seen as one that focuses the decisive point in Kantian moral philosophy: its formalism. However, an interpretation of Kant is possible that permits him to be brought closer to Rosenzweig even on this point of apparent distance and contrast. It is actually possible to read the Kantian categorical imperative as grounded on the principle of intersubjectivity. This intersubjectivity would consequently allow love of neighbour to be taken as an adequate formulation of the categorical imperative.