A Lawful Freedom: Kant’s Practical Refutation of Noumenal Chance

Kant Studies Online (1):149-177 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper asks how Kant’s mature theory of freedom handles an objection pertaining to chance. This question is significant given that Kant raises this criticism against libertarianism in his early writings on freedom before coming to adopt a libertarian view of freedom in the Critical period. After motivating the problem of how Kant can hold that the free actions of human beings lack determining grounds while at the same maintain that these are not the result of ‘blind chance,’ I argue that Kant’s Critical doctrine of transcendental idealism, while creating the conceptual space’ for libertarian freedom, is not intended to provide an answer to the problem of chance with respect to our free agency. I go on to show how the resources for a refutation of chance only come about in the practical philosophy. In the 2nd Critique, Kant famously argues for the reality of freedom on the basis of our consciousness of the moral law as the law of a free will. However, Kant also comes to build into his account of the will a genuine power of choice, which involves the capacity to deviate from the moral law. I conclude by showing that this apparent tension can be resolved by turning to his argument for the impossibility of a diabolical will. This involves a consideration of the distinct kind of grounding relationship that practical laws have to the human will, as well as the way that transcendental idealism makes this possible.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kant on Freedom.Owen Ware - 2023 - Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Kant and the Problem of Recognition: Freedom, Transcendental Idealism, and the Third-Person.Joe Saunders - 2016 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 24 (2):164-182.
Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency.Markus Kohl - 2023 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Die „consequente Denkungsart der speculativen Kritik“.Bernd Ludwig - 2010 - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58 (4):595-628.
Moral Education and Transcendental Idealism.Joe Saunders & Martin Sticker - 2020 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102 (4):646-673.
Bolstering the Keystone: Kant on the Incomprehensibility of Freedom.Timothy Aylsworth - 2020 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102 (2):261-298.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-10-17

Downloads
233 (#99,879)

6 months
55 (#94,005)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Nicholas Dunn
Okanagan University College

Citations of this work

Kant on Freedom.Owen Ware - 2023 - Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Add more references