Making Sense of Kant’s Highest Good

Kant Studien 91 (3):329-355 (2000)
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Abstract

This paper explores Kant's concept of the highest good and the postulate of the existence of God arising from it. Kant has two concepts of the highest good standing in tension with one another, an immanent and a transcendent one. I provide a systematic exposition of the constituents of both variants and show how Kant’s arguments are prone to confusion through a conflation of both concepts. I argue that once these confusions are sorted out Kant’s claim regarding the need to postulate God’s existence from a moral point of view makes much more sense.

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Jacqueline Mariña
Purdue University

Citations of this work

Kant’s coherent theory of the highest good.Saniye Vatansever - 2020 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 89 (3):263-283.
The concept of the highest good in Kierkegaard and Kant.Roe Fremstedal - 2011 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (3):155-171.
The Arc of Personhood: Menkiti and Kant on Becoming and Being a Person.Katrin Flikschuh - 2016 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (3):437-455.

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References found in this work

Two conceptions of the highest good in Kant.Andrews Reath - 1988 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (4):593-619.
The unimportance of Kant's highest good.Thomas Auxter - 1979 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 17 (2):121-134.

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