Online research in philosophy

Before and in the Groundwork, Kant argues as follows for the validity of the moral law: we want to be free. Following the moral law is the only way to be free. So we should follow the moral law.1 The first premise of this syllogism is treated differently before and in the Groundwork. First Kant thought it an empirical fact that men want to be free and want it more than anything else.2 Later he sought an a priori argument showing that we ought to want to be free and are right in thinking it good.3 The former justification of the moral law is superior. When we look to "salvage the normative core of Kantian moral philosophy" (Guyer 445), we should turn to it. - So far Paul Guyer. It is evident that Guyer fails to describe Kant's thought in the Groundwork. It is equally clear that Kant never held the position Guyer claims he held before the Groundwork. (The quotations Guyer gives in support of his claim show this.) Therefore I shall not discuss Guyer's interpretation of Kant. Instead I shall consider the philosophical merits of the position he ascribes to the pre-critical Kant, and which he recommends as superior. We shall see that that position makes no sense. This indirectly addresses the interpretive question, as it is a reason against ascribing it to Kant.

Before and in the Groundwork , Kant argues as follows for the validity of the moral law: we want to be free. Following the moral law is the only way to be free. So we should follow the moral law.1 The first premise of this syllogism is treated differently before and in the Groundwork . First Kant thought it an empirical fact that men want to be free and want it more than anything else.2 Later he sought an a priori argument showing that we ought to want to be free and are right in thinking it good.3 The former justification of the moral law is superior. When we look to “salvage the normative core of Kantian moral philosophy” (Guyer 445), we should turn to it. - So far Paul Guyer. It is evident that Guyer fails to describe Kant's thought in the Groundwork . It is equally clear that Kant never held the position Guyer claims he held before the Groundwork . (The quotations Guyer gives in support of his claim show this.) Therefore I shall not discuss Guyer's interpretation of Kant. Instead I shall consider the philosophical merits of the position he ascribes to the pre-critical Kant, and which he recommends as superior. We shall see that that position makes no sense. This indirectly addresses the interpretive question, as it is a reason against ascribing it to Kant.

This paper discusses Kant’s problematic attempts to come to grips with the question of meaning. The first section sets out the problem as Kant discovers it, under the idea of a ‘Categorical Imperative.’ The second looks directly at his thoughts on the question of meaning, in connection with individual dignity, personal fulfilment and hope for our common future. Third, I examine inadequacies in Kant’s account, while the fourth part suggests that these arise through a lack of faith in the practical fruits of reason. In conclusion I raise a lasting concern belonging to post-Kantian philosophy, whether Kant’s equation of autonomy with ‘the moral law’ may not threaten both freedom and meaning in human affairs.

The term freedom appears in many contexts in Kant's work, ranging from the cosmological to the moral to the theological. Can the diverse meanings Kant gave to the term be ordered systematically? To ask that question is to test the consistency and coherence of Kant's thought in its entirety. Widely praised when first published in France, The Coherence of Kant's Doctrine of Freedom articulates and interrelates the disparate senses of freedom in Kant's work. Bernard Carnois organizes all Kant's usages into a logical "grammar," isolating and defining the individual meanings and pointing out their implications and limits. In a first step, he shows how Kant's notion of intelligible character makes possible a synthesis of transcendental freedom, as a problematic concept of theoretical reason, and practical freedom, as a fact demonstrated by experience. He then develops the concept of freedom under the rubric of the will's autonomy in the context of the moral law. And finally, Carnois persistently explores the role of negativity in Kant's idea of freedom. For within the magisterial coherence of the system the imperfection of human finitude is inscribed. This introduces the "history" of our freedom--a freedom which posits itself, but then inevitably denies itself, even while preserving the possibility of its regeneration. The only work in English to consider in detail all of Kant's writings on freedom, this book also introduces French Kant scholars whose works have often been unavailable to English-speaking readers. As both an interpretation of Kant and a trenchant analysis of the relationship between ethical commitments and metaphysical assumptions, it will be a useful addition to moral, religious, and political philosophy as well as to Kant scholarship.

In his early writings, Kant says that the solution to the puzzle of how morality can serve as a motivating force in human life is nothing less than the “philosophers’ stone.” In this dissertation I show that for years Kant searched for the philosophers’ stone in the concept of “respect” (Achtung), which he understood as the complex effect practical reason has on feeling. I sketch the history of that search in Chapters 1-2. In Chapter 3 I show that Kant’s analysis in Groundwork I is incomplete because it does not explain how respect functions as a feeling in motivating choice. In Chapter 4 I argue that Kant’s subsequent attempt to sidestep this explanation in Groundwork III is unsuccessful, and that his position remains open to a skeptical threat. The argument in the second Critique, which I reconstruct in Chapters 5-6, overcomes this threat, and in doing so explains how the feeling of respect is both painful and pleasurable.

In the course of defending these claims, I provide an alternative reading of the shift in Kant’s ethical project from the Groundwork of 1785 to the second Critique of 1788 Against a common view in the literature, I argue that the shift does not concern the direction of Kant’s deduction (from freedom to morality, or morality to freedom); rather, it concerns his view of human sensibility and the resources he thinks we have to make our practical self-understanding intelligible. In the second Critique, I argue, Kant develops a novel approach to moral feeling from the perspective of the human agent; and this in turn clears room in his ethics for a new kind of a priori knowledge—namely, knowledge of what the activity of practical reason must feel like. By way of conclusion, I offer a few reasons for why the form of Kant’s argument in the second Critique is still relevant today, as it shows why we can only address moral skepticism from a first-personal perspective.

During the 1760s and 1770s, Kant entertained a naturalistic approach to ethics based on the supposed psychological fact of a human love for freedom. During the critical period, especially in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant clearly rejected such an approach. But his attempt at a metaphysical foundation for ethics in section III of the Groundwork was equally clearly a failure. Kant recognized this in his appeal to the "fact of reason" argument in the Critique of Practical Reason, but thereby gave up on any attempt to ground the fundamental principle of morality at all. So it is of interest to see how far we might now proceed along the lines of his original naturalistic approach.

Kant’s claims about supersensible objects, and his account of the epistemic status of such claims, remain poorly understood, to the detriment of our understanding of Kant’s metaphysical and epistemological system. In the Critique of Practical Reason, and again in the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that we have practical cognition (Erkenntnis) and knowledge (Wissen) of the moral law and of our supersensible freedom; that this cognition and knowledge cohere with, yet go beyond the limits of, our theoretical cognition; and that this knowledge grounds rational belief (Vernunftglaube) in the existence of God, the immortality of our soul, and the real possibility of the “highest good.” This essay untangles some of these claims about practical cognition, practical knowledge, and practical belief and their relation to Kant’s account of theoretical cognition and theoretical knowledge. There is a core conception of cognition and knowledge underlying the accounts of theoretical cognition and practical cognition, which allows for a principled distinction between cases of practical knowledge and practical belief. Kant’s doctrine of the “fact of reason” turns out to be crucial to his claims about legitimacy of and distinction between the two forms of practical cognition, one which constitutes knowledge and another which cannot.

Paul Guyer’s Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness is a collection of essays written over a period of ten years on the roles of freedom, reason, law, and happiness in Kant’s practical philosophy. The centrality of these concepts has always been acknowledged, but Guyer proposes a different way to understand their interconnections. Kant extols respect for moral law and conformity to moral principle for its own sake while at the same time celebrating the value of human freedom and autonomy. Guyer sees tensions between these two poles of Kant’s practical philosophy—obedience to law and the value of freedom. He argues: “A profound paradox can be avoided only if it can be shown that Kant intended obedience to universal law to be mandatory solely as the necessary condition for the realization of human freedom and through that freedom a systematic and unselfish distribution of happiness among all persons” and that “the sheer fact of adherence to universal law is not an end in itself but is rather the means to the realization of the human potential for autonomy or freedom in both choice and action” (p. 1). One guiding theme of Guyer’s book is that Kant’s practical philosophy is based on the fundamental, and hence indemonstrable, intrinsic value of freedom, which Guyer understands as a value that is prior to the moral law, providing both an end to be realized through conformity to universal law and the basis of the authority of moral principles. Conformity to universal law has no intrinsic value in itself; it is the means to the preservation, enhancement, and full realization of human freedom, and is required because of its instrumental connection to the prior value of freedom. As he says, “freedom of choice and its natural expression in action are what human beings value most, and the fundamental principle of morality and the rules for both po-.

In his new book the eminent Kant scholar Henry Allison provides an innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom. The author analyzes the concept and discusses the role it plays in Kant's moral philosophy and psychology. He also considers in full detail the critical literature on the subject from Kant's own time to the present day. In the first part Professor Allison argues that at the center of the Critique of Pure Reason there is the foundation for a coherent general theory of rational agency. The second part employs this account of rational agency as a key to understanding Kant's concept of moral agency and associated moral psychology. The third part focuses on Kant's attempt to ground both moral law and freedom in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. This is a major contribution to the interpretation of Kant which will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students of Kant's moral theory.

This work offers a new understanding of Kant on the freedom of the will. Voeller looks in detail at the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason against the background of Kant's critical philosophy as a whole. Voeller's book is essential reading for those interested in moral philosophy, Kant, philosophy of religion, philosophy of action and freedom of the will.