Abstract
The question “Was Kant a moral realist?” is sharpened by the two-level account provided in theoretical philosophy between the transcendental conditions for possible experience and actual empirical experience. In moral philosophy, at the transcendental level one determines the conditions for the possibility of moral agency as such, which for Kant includes: a free will, reason that provides universal law, an ability to choose ends, and an identification of absolute value. A moral realist holds that some conditions are independent of the conception of the moral agent, an idealist that all conditions are dependent. The empirical level refers to the realization of these conditions in actual individuals, and the dependence is upon the actual moral agent. Using this distinction, one might call Kant a transcendental realist but an empirical idealist about, e.g., the moral law, since it depends upon the rational moral agent as such, independent of particular moral agents.
