Freedom on This and the Other Side of Kant Unabridged August 2019 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Freedom Immediately after Kant
European Journal of Philosophy, 2019
Kant's effort to defend the coexistence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will-the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold's attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte's theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: The key lies in what I call Fichte's Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome.
Kant, Freedom as Independence, and Democracy
While the influence of Kant’s practical philosophy on contemporary political theory has been profound, it has its source in Kant’s autonomy-based moral philosophy rather than in his freedom-based philosophy of Right. Kant scholars have increasingly turned their attention to Kant’s Rechtslehre, but they have largely ignored its potential contribution to discussions of democracy. However, Kant’s approach to political philosophy can supply unique insights to the latter. His notion that freedom and the public legal order are co-constitutive can be developed into a freedom argument for constitutional democracy. This freedom argument goes beyond freedom as moral autonomy and a libertarian idea of freedom as non-interference to a notion of freedom as a form of standing constituted by the public legal order. The trouble with other attempts to connect freedom and democracy is that they have operated with a moral ideal that is independent of a public legal order.
Bolstering the Keystone: Kant on the Incomprehensibility of Freedom
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2020
In this paper, I give an explanation and defense of Kant's claim that we cannot comprehend how freedom is possible. I suggest that this is a significant point that has been underappreciated in the secondary literature. My conclusion has a variety of implications both for Kant scholars and for those interested in Kantian ideas more generally. Most notably, if Kant is right that there are principled reasons why freedom is beyond our comprehension, then this would lift an undesirable explanatory burden off the shoulders of his ethical and metaethical views. It would be a boon for Kantians if they could ground their lofty claims about the unique, elevated status of rational agency without committing to an implausible view of libertarian freedom. On the negative side, there are certain debates concerning moral motivation and transcendental idealism that might have to change in response to Kant's claims about the incomprehensibility of freedom.
A Critical Analysis of Immanuel Kant's Notion of Freedom
I acknowledge the help of my entire family members; firstly, my parents, Sir and Lady E.I. Adoh-Ogbuta (KSJI), who God has been using to support every aspect of my life. I also appreciate my siblings who have made impacts in my life. I specially appreciate my bishop, Most Rev. Dr. John Oke'Oghene Afareha, for his love support towards my vocation, and also my Vocations Director; Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Brume. I appreciate the Rector and seminary formation team, especially my H.O.D Philosophy Rev. Fr. Dr. Peter Egbe, with exceptional thanks to Very Rev. Fr. Dr. Anselm Ekhelar my Rector who also doubles as my moderator, your guidance, love and understanding has been the backbone of this piece. You are exceptionally great.
The Scope of Autonomy: Kant and the Morality of Freedom
Autonomy is a key concept in contemporary moral philosophy with deep roots in the history of the subject. However, there is still no agreed view about the correct way to formulate an account of autonomy that adequately captures both our capacity for self-determination and our responsiveness to reasons. In this book I develop a theory of autonomy that is Kantian in orientation but which engages closely with recent arguments about agency, morality, and practical reasoning.
Kant and the Categories of Freedom
In this paper I provide an account of Kant's categories of freedom, explaining how they fit together and what role they are supposed to play. My interpretation places particular emphasis on the structural features that the table of the categories of freedom shares with the table of judgements and the table of categories laid out by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. In this way we can identify two interpretative constraints, namely (i) that the categories falling under each heading must form a synthetic unity whereby the third one derives from the combination of the other two. and (ii) that the first two categories falling under each heading must be morally undetermined and sensibly conditioned, while the third category is sensibly unconditioned and determined only by the moral law.
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.