The Concept of Imputation in Immanuel Kant’s “Philosophia practica universalis”

Abstract

The notion of moral imputation has so far received little attention in the reception of the Kantian work. Owing to a traceable reduction in the literal meaning of the notion of deed (“factum”), a concept which is vital for the operation of imputation, resulting in the modern notion of fact (“facticity”), it was so far overseen, that the notion of freedom, which is already presupposed as determining factor in the Kantian notion of imputation, is itself based on a relation of imputation that goes by the name of the famous “factum of reason”. In the light of the above, this article examines the notion of imputation as it is established more closely in the introduction of the “Metaphysics of Morals” (1797) by Immanuel Kant.

Keywords

imputation | freedom | causation | action | blame | Immanuel Kant | Zurechnung | Freiheit | Kausalität | Handlung | Verschulden | Immanuel Kant

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