Abstract
<jats:p>In a 2018 text, Pauline Kleingeld points out the quasi-disappearance of the concept of autonomy in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue (1797), and offers an evolutionary explanation for it, arguing that Kant understands moral autonomy in analogy with political sovereignty and that, at the time of the Grundlegung, this would imply a maxim that is universalizable in that it could work for all rational agents, while, in later works, Kant would have postulated that the law requires actual consent via parliamentary representation, making impertinent the analogy behind the moral notion of autonomy. The goal of this article is to defend, instead of such evolutionary perspective, a systematic explanation: in the Doctrine of Virtue the notion of autonomy appears minimally due to the location of this text in the architecture of Kant’s practical philosophy. In Tugendlehre the corresponding term is autocracy, since, at this level of development of the system of duties, what is relevant is not to establish the moral principle, but rather its application.</jats:p>