Journal of the History of Philosophy

The Importance and Function of Kant's Highest Good R. Z. FRIEDMAN 1 THE IMPORTANCE OF KANT'S CONCEPT of the highest complete good is a controversial point among Kant scholars and those with an interest in the relationship between morality and religion. An assessment of the importance of the highest good is related to an understanding of its role or function in Kant's interpretation of morality. Silber argues that the highest good obligates one "to strive for the realization of happiness in proportion to virtue in the lives of all men, ''* to, as Wood puts it, "establish a good world. ''~ In this view, the highest good represents Kant's attempt to go beyond the formal injunctions of the moral law to the inclusion of a material content, to, in other words, complete the analysis of morality of which the moral law is the first and merely formal part. The concept of the highest good, in this view, is of central importance in Kant's analysis. Beck, on the other hand, argues that the highest good does not command us to do anything that we are not already commanded to do by the moral law? This view understands the highest good to offer no enlargement of one's moral responsibilities beyond those which are expressed in the moral law. It is judged, therefore, that the highest good is of no importance in Kant's analysis of morality for it neither extends the sphere of moral obligation nor clarifies the structure of moral reasoning. In this view, recently ' John Silber, "The Importance of the Highest Good in Kant's Ethics," Ethics 73 (1962-63): 179-95. See also Silber, "Kant's Conception of the Highest Good as Immanent and Transcendent ," Philosophical Review 68 (1959): 469-92 and Silber, "The Copernican Revolution in Ethics: The Good Re-examined," Kant-Studien 51 (1959-6o): 85-1 o 1. Allen W. Wood, Kant's Moral Religion (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 197o), 156. Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 196o), 244-45. [325] 3~6 THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 22:3 JULY t98 4 argued by Thomas Auxter, the highest good is something of an "extramoral " theological intrusion into Kant's analysis of morality.~ The position to be developed in the course of this paper is that the concept of the highest good does not represent an attempt on Kant's part to enlarge the sphere of moral obligation by providing a content to complement the formal character of the moral law. From the standpoint of the question, What ought I to do? Kant's analysis can provide only a partial and formal answer: Do what is not deemed unacceptable by the standard of the moral law. Although this severely limits the Kantian position, it is nevertheless quite consistent with the intent and program of Kant's philosophical endeavor for which moral worthiness, and not good actions, is the focal point of concern and analysis. In this regard I am in agreement with Beck and Auxter. However, I do not share their conclusion that the highest good is therefore unimportant. I believe that it is an important concept, although not for the reasons which Silber and Wood advance. The highest good is, as Kant tells us, the necessary object of the subject obligated to the moral law. The inability to demonstrate the possibility of the highest good must undermine the objective status of the moral law. However , the possibility of the highest good itself rests on the existence of God and hence where the law requires the good, the good requires God. The highest good, then, is the condition of the possibility of the moral law and the lynch pin of the argument that links the moral law with the existence of God. It is in this function that its importance is to be found. The connection between the highest good and the existence of God is not much in dispute. If it is necessary to accept the connection between virtue and happiness which is the highest good, then it is necessary to accept that condition...