Drive, Will, and Reason: Reinhold and Schiller on Realizing Freedom after Kant (original) (raw)
Related papers
2006
Contemporary debates in moral philosophy have primarily been focused on meta-ethical questions about the justifi cation of morality, disregarding the ease with which perfectly justifi ed norms are displaced by non-moral considerations. 1 Given the scope, magnitude, and inventiveness of human wrongdoing, this philosophical trend seems utterly misguided. The challenge does not lie so much in how to justify morality, but in understanding how perfectly justifi ed judgments are so easily disregarded by self-serving calculations. 2 Kant's doctrine of radical evil has much to tell us about this. Against the widespread tendency to explain evil in terms of the pernicious power of natural inclinations, Kant believed that evil represented "an invisible enemy, one who hides behind reason and hence [is] all the more dangerous" (R 6: 57). The enemy is invisible, for "no matter how far back we direct our attention to our moral state, we fi nd that this state is no longer res integra " (R 6: 58n.). And it is exceptionally dangerous, for the corruption in question is self-imposed: "genuine evil consists in our will not to resist the inclinations when they invite transgression" (ibid.). Since this type of volition rests on a maxim, and maxim formation in Kant always takes place under the constraints of
The concept of the object of practical reason is key to the framework of Kant’s second Critique. Moral autonomy may only be justified if reason is capable of constituting of itself and a priori an object adequate to a morally determined will. Such an object is referred to as the good (das Gute). This paper comprises an argument in favour of the following two theses: (1) that there are two objects of practical reason (rather than only one), which defer to a dual order of subjective practical principles or maxims (Maxime and Gesinnung), and which depend on the two-fold level of the faculty of desire (choice and will), as well as the two senses in which Kant uses the term “practical freedom”; and (2) that the concept of the object of practical reason may only be coherently understood in relation to Kant’s thought regarding the categories of freedom and the typic of the pure practical faculty of judgment.
The Practicality of Pure Reason: Kant's Theory of Moral Motivation
The purpose of this paper is to defend the view that Kant has propounded an internalist theory of moral motivation. In particular, I shall argue that Kant’s espousal of internalism is evidenced by his claim that pure reason’s relation to the will is premised on a practical synthetic a priori proposition. What I aim to demonstrate is that Kant treated practical syntheticity as a pivotal concept for his account of what it means to be motivated by principles of pure reason. On my construal of Kant’s motivational theory, the relation between universalizable maxims and the moral interest to act upon them is necessary but non-tautological, since violations of duty are logically possible despite our having a moral reason to act. What prevents the latter argument from collapsing into a quasiexternalist account of moral motivation is that the motivational impact of law-like maxims is ultimately premised on a normative conception of ourselves as free agents.
Kant on Free Will and Theoretical Rationality
The focus of this essay is Kant’s argument in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals iii that regarding oneself as rational implies regarding oneself as free. After setting out an interpretation of how the argument is meant to go, I argue that Kant fails to show that regarding oneself as free is incompatible with accepting universal causal determinism. However, I suggest that the argument succeeds in showing that regarding oneself as rational is inconsistent with accepting universal causal determinism if one accepts a certain, plausible view of the explanation of events.
“Practical reason is not the will”: Kant and Reinhold's dilemma
European Journal of Philosophy, 2019
Contrary to Karl Leonhard Reinhold's theoretical critique of Kant's philosophy, his practical critique has been almost unknown. In my paper, I shall reconstruct Reinhold's practical philosophy after Kant. I will concentrate on the socalled Reinhold's dilemma, which concerns the problem of moral imputability in the case of immoral actions in Kant. Also, I shall explain how Reinhold tried to escape this dilemma by introducing a new action theory and by sharply distinguishing between reason and will. Finally, I shall evaluate Reinhold's practical significance by relating his conception of individual freedom to recent theories of volitional self-determination. 1 | INTRODUCTION Karl Leonhard Reinhold's philosophy is especially known as a prominent link between Kant and German idealism (Henrich, 2003). In his Elementary Philosophy (Elementarphilosophie), Reinhold attempted to give a new account of the principles of consciousness that unify Kant's entire critical philosophical system. He can be regarded as one of the first of "Kant's early critics" to develop an "idealist" conception of transcendental philosophy by means of a "systematic spirit" (Henrich, 2003, p. 127-139). But Reinhold also developed a profound practical philosophy by dealing with Kant's moral philosophy, concerning most notably his theory of practical reason, will, freedom, and autonomy. Contrary to his theoretical critique, this practical critique and its underlying action theory and theory of freedom have been neglected in scholarship. 1 Recently, however, there has been growing interest in the so-called Reinhold/ Sidgwick problem or Objection R/S, 2 which concerns our freedom to act against the moral law. Reinhold's philosophical contributions to this problem have not yet been reconstructed from a systematic point of view. What is important about Reinhold's account is that he aims to develop a positive conception of our freedom to act immorally that differs in crucial regards from Kant's asymmetrical account. For Kant's theory seems to imply that we are only free to act in a morally good way, to which Henry Allison has referred as Kant's "reciprocity thesis" (Allison, 1986). In my paper, I will shed light on Reinhold's practical philosophy after Kant and its historical and systematic significance. First, I outline Kant's conception of autonomy and the relation between the faculties of pure practical reason
In: The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy, eds. Manja Kisner and Jörg Noller. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
The concept of Triebfeder, commonly translated into English as “incentive,” plays a crucial role in Kant’s moral philosophy. In the Critique of Practical Reason, in which a whole chapter is dedicated to the Triebfedern of pure practical reason, Kant argues that the moral law is not only the objective determining ground of the will but also functions as a Triebfeder, that is, as a subjective determining ground of the will. Kant’s concept of Trieb, by contrast, is much less clearly defined, and its meaning remains in many ways ambivalent. In the second part of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, for instance, Kant refers to Blumenbach’s idea of Bildungstrieb in order to describe the unique formative powers of organic nature. This chapter offers a detailed comparison of the two etymologically related but philosophically distinct conceptions of Triebfeder and Trieb and draws special attention to the shift of focus that occurs in the third Critique.
The practicality of pure reason.: A normative defence of Kant ' s theory of moral motivation
Eidos Revista De Filosofia De La Universidad Del Norte, 2011
El propósito de este trabajo es defender la opinión que Kant ha propuesto sobre la teoría internalista de la motivación moral. En particular, argumentaré que la adopción de Kant de internalismo se evidencia en su afirmación de que la relación de la razón pura de la voluntad se basa en una práctica una proposición sintética a priori. Lo que se pretende demostrar es que Kant trata la sinteticidad práctica como un concepto fundamental para su relato de lo que significa ser motivados por los principios de la razón pura. En mi conceptuali zación de la teoría motivacional de Kant, la relación entre las máximas universalizables y el interés moral de actuar sobre ellos es necesaria pero no tautológica, ya que violaciones de los derechos son lógicamente posibles a pesar de que tengamos una razón moral de actuar. Lo que impide que este último argumento colapse en una cuenta casi externalista de la motivación moral es que el impacto de motivación de las máximas como la ley, es en última instancia, la premisa de una concepción normativa de nosotros mismos como agentes libres. p a l a b r a s c l a v e Motivación moral, juicio moral, razón pura, voluntad, autonomía. a b s T r a c T
Cambridge University Press, 2023
Kant's early critics maintained that his theory of freedom faces a dilemma: either it reduces the will's activity to strict necessity by making it subject to the causality of the moral law, or it reduces the will's activity to blind chance by liberating it from rules of any kind. This Element offers a new interpretation of Kant's theory against the backdrop of this controversy. It argues that Kant was a consistent proponent of the claim that the moral law is the causal law of a free will, and that the supposed ability of free will to choose indifferently between options is an empty concept. Freedom, for Kant, is a power to initiate action from oneself, and the only way to exercise this power is through the law of one's own will, the moral law. Immoral action is not thereby rendered impossible, but it also does not express a genuine ability.