Kant's Critique of Practical Reason
What problems of proving the moral law are overcome by the 'fact of reason' in the second critique?
This essay intends to explain how the 'fact of reason' provides a successful argument in proving the existence of a necessarily binding moral law, and subsequently the necessity in the presupposition of freedom in the will of rational beings as a result of moral law. It will proceed from a problem arising out of of an 'unconditonal law requiring uncondional obedience', and will progress from this notion as a means to analyse the arguments of freedom and the moral law in the groundwork, and more specifically, in the critique of practical reason.
An action, if it is to have moral worth, must be based on a maxim which conforms to the universal law. Therefore, the determining grounds of the will ie. the decision to act; must be brought about by pure practical reason, which excludes all matter of a maxim as being heteronomy of the will. One might state this as 'the categorical imperative commands the will of the subject in virtue of that subject's will not having a purpose to be attained by it, and only in his conscious decision to choose to act only those maxims suitable for universal law'. Nevertheless, at times the Groundwork gives the impression of a morality that requires not only unconditional, but also an 'object-less' obedience to a law, since the maxim which an action is based upon seemingly cannot have a purpose to be attained by it. If one were to remove the purpose to be attained by a maxim, the determination of the will might be viewed as having no object, and thus the determination itself would appear to arise out of nowhere. If one considers the categorical imperative in the context of duty, the response to a 'why ought I obey the law?', would be 'because I ought to'; and no other reason would have moral worth. The GW states that for a pure will an imperative would properly be an 'I will' to action which is why imperfectly rational beings can only conceive of the law as an imperative. Thus, one might conclude that the will cannot be free in its action if it is to be moral, but is determined by the same degree of unguided response as one might ascribe to the impulse ('triebfeder') of natural necessitation, in which case freedom to choose is nothing more than the freedom to choose between the necessitation of nature, or the the dicates of duty.
-metaphyiscal proof of independence from alien causes more dificult to prove. analytic reciprocty of moral law and
-the freedom in negative sense is not proves by there being obligations, because cannot be shown be experience (PpracL) only shows us practical principles in natural causlaity.
-autonomy cannot be show by merely taking up laws and thus feeling free.
-the phenomenal world are more diiffcult to prove
The Groundwork II posits the required 'end' on the categorical imperative, which is humanity in ourselves and others. This, as an objective ground of volition, is considered the only suitable end for a moral maxim. Thereby answering the question to 'Why ought? -by saying 'I ought because I would not be respecting humanity in myself and others otherwise'. In a footnote of GWI, Kants associates the reverence for the law directly with that of respect for a person, which unites the idea of a person as being an objective end, with the concept of man ('der Mensch') as being the limit of all subjective principles of volition°. Crucially, the concept of humanity contains within it a notion, which of itself, is a motive to act and an object of volition for the will, thereby rendering the will as free in its actions, providing a possible solution to the problem of an unconditional obedience to duty. This determining ground of the will in considering humanity, a notion which is universal and therefore undeniable as a source of moral law, is reason itelf. Yet prior to an analysis of the concept contained therein, I will outline another attempt made at its proof in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, through the route of freedom.
The deduction of morality requires the proof of freedom:
The first paragraph of the Groundwork III reaches the conclusion that freedom would be nothing other than the categorical imperative, once the positive concept of freedom were known. It therefore sets itself the task of discovering what this synthetic a priori missing term is which binds both conditions a priori. The proposed solution is in transcendental deduction.
What is an synthetic a priori proposotion, what is the difference bwteen this and a snthetic a priori practical propositions
-analytic proposotions are universally true
Yet aside from this, the connections between concepts raise several issues attempt to ground morality in freedom alone. That the categorical imperative must be the law which determines a free-will seems to be self-evident. Since a lawless causality is absurd, and a causality of nature is merely the natural necessitation of the will, the only causality which can spring from a will which is neither heteronomy nor lawless, yet is called free, must be that of being its own law°. (GW: 4:447) As a means to link the notion of the moral law - which in the GWII had been asserted and not proved valid - to the concept of freedom, the notion of autonomy is posited as a mediator in virtue of being able to consider maxims other than those grounded in emprically conditioned objects to its detemining ground of the will.
In the process, Kant points out that a lawless free-will is an absurdity°.Although it is mentioned only once, it still poses some concern. An explanation of this is simply that a rational being is one who has intention in his actions. A being who is not able to control his actions does not therefore have a free-will and is either determined completely by nature or chance. The notion of chance appears to resemble absurdity than a pathoilogicall determined will, because the latter still implies a response to laws which are fathomable by experience, and chance is called chance because it has no law. In the plight for a law, the will as a causality suggests itself to the role.
What has been reproached of the argument is of establishing the unconditional law as the inevitable consqeuence of rational beings' ability to act in accordance with their conception of laws, of which he has not given any proof. Kant shifts from the analytical truth 'Whoever wills the ends also wills the indispensably necessary means to it that are within my power' (GWII: 4:417) as a formal, non-moral proof of the universality of decision-making in rational beings°; to the notion that there must be a an equivalnt which is grounded in all human beings
Reformulated it states: Just because all rational beings, qua rational beings, are able to think of their maxims as universal, this does not imply that qua rational beings they are bound to them necessarily. This problem is confounded yet further by the equivocation of presupposing freedom of all rational beings, as Kant acknowledges: it merely spells out more clearly the problem at hand. Nevertheless, by merely predicating of the the will a presuppositon of freedom in virtue of being rational, he fails to prove either the bindingess of the moral law, or the existence of freedom in the rational will. An immediate concern is that a true proposition such as 'Everyone ought to act on principles which they see fit for themselves' may arise out of merely equating autonomy and the moral law.
It is a misleading claim, as H.E. Allision puts it, that: 'since moral laws hold for rational beings as such they ought to be derived from the "general concept of a rational being as such"'. In his essay 'The Reciprocity Thesis' he considers the analytical equivalence of both to be possible only if freedom in its transcendental sense (Wille) is presupposed with reason, and not as practical freedom ('Willkür') alone. Although Kant rejects the former, negative concept of freedom as 'fruitless', it is precisely this ability to reject maxims with their object grounded in matter which leads him to autonomy. But it is the law-making function of reason which furnishes the will with transcendental freedom, as Kant makes explicit in the second critique: "That independence [of alien causes], however, is freedom in the negative sense, whereas this lawgiving form of its own on the part of pure, and as such, practical reason is freedom in the positive sense" (CpracR: 5:33). This distinguishes reason as the slave of nature, from reason itself being the source of its principle - which is elaborated further in the second critique based on the ability of the will to abstract from the emipirically conditioned yet obey principles which do not aim at the empirically conditioned.
The bindingness of the moral law cannot reside in the negative concept of freedom. If reason can be nothing but the slave to the relation of the subject's faculty of desire (regardless whether the representations of the objects reside in the understanding or in coarser pleasures (CpracR: 5:23)), than reason itself cannot be ascribed a higher faculty (CpracR: 5:22) , and is nothing more than nature. This is immanent from GWI where Kant argues that reason must have another, higher purpose in man, given that nature is itself much more suitable to catering for the faculty of desire without intereference from reason (GWI: 4:395). Moreover, if freedom itself were conceived as nothing else than freedom from determination, the notion would state nothing about our actual freedom leading us to the transcendental deduction.
If we assume that judements are susceptible to interference from nature at any time, an attempt to reject inclination might be nothing more than the effect of another inclination on our decision. This is noted by H.J. Paton on his reference to a passage from GWIII "If every judgement is determined solely by previous mental events and not by rational insight into a nexus between premises and conclusion independent of temporal succession, there can be no difference between valid and invalid inference, between reasoning and mere association, and ultimately there can be no truth"° although rather free-will, not determinism, as he states it, is under attack in this argument, because if judgements were considered merely the result of inclination, in sense that a materialist might reject mind-body dualism, the mind is completely detemined by alien causes, and is nothing more than an effect in the realm of natural causality.
This leads to the transcendental deduction, and a brief explanation might provide an insight into overcomeing the problem. The transcendental deduction is Kant's means of escaping the circle he has set up for himself as a reuslt of presupposing freedom under the moral law, and subsequently presuppoising moral law under freedom. The solution is a parallel to that of the first critique, and in both cases the eixstence of reason in rational beings is the justification of their freedom. This is accomplished by distinguishing appearances, which are representations of things which we cognise through sense and are only capable of knowing them through how they affect us, from 'things in themselves', which are mere ideas which produced in the mind independently of sense° and of which nothing more can be known. This "pure activity"(GWIII: 4:451) is reason. Which, unlike the understanding that requires sensible objects for its activity, is a spontaneous activity in the mind of ideas which reach the consciousness prior to any sensibility.
It is impossible for a rational will to be part of the intelligible world, and not consider itself acting under the idea of freedom, because this would be to deny it pure spontaneous a priori reason. Yet, the way it is shown in the argument is such that, reason, is not a symbol of the moral law itself, but as a proof of an intelligible world which thereby grants us an idea of freedom which avoids the need to presuppose the idea of freedom of the moral law.
Such a propostion would be unanimous with the frist critique: "Reason does not here follow the order of things as they present themselves in appearance, but frames to itself with perfect spontanaeity an order of its own according to ideas, to which it adapts the empirical conditions, and according to which it adapts the empirical conditions, and according to which it declares actions to be necessary, even although they have never taken place, and perhapd never will take place."
This provides an answer to the problem of freedom of judgement. Even if we observe our own thoughts as effects of previous thoughts in the way we perceive causality in nature, and thus determined in each of our decisions, we could still not deny or grant ourselves freedom. As mere phenomena observing ourselves by inner sense, which, granting that it provides no insight into our true selft, we could never deny ourselves freedom because it would have to be denied a priori. Providing that such spontaneous reason exists, we have in it the key to freedom. "Even as to himself, the human being cannot claim to cognize what he is in himself through cognizance he has by inner sensation." (GW: 4:451). If we wish to reject transcendetal freeom, it remains to be proved that such a thing as pure spontaneous reason, truly independent of a temporal order, does exist.
In addition to this, if we take up the notion of the intelligible world as the condition of freedom, then practical freedom, according to the deduction aswell as the understanding would not be free, and only pure spontaneous reason would be free. The problem therefore arises that even if we can think of principles, does this mean we are compelled to act upon them? Even in this case it seems that the wish to want to be free of inclination
In the metaphysics of morals, kant clarifies his positoin on the ditinction between the freedom of making laws, and the freedom of choice.
"Laws proceed from the will, maxims from choice. In man the latter is a free choice; the will, which is directed to nothing beyond the law itself, cannot be called either free or unfree, since it is not directed to actions but immediately to giving laws for the maxims of actions (and is therefore, practical reason itself). hence the wil
-(quote from p219)
-As regards freedom as a result of reason, there is still another argument, provided by the fact of reaosn. (thinking of God, cosnidering ones purpose in life)
-combination of transcendental freedom and all sort later on...
-Despite this concern, the problem remains of connecting duty with the categorical imperative. The command 'ought' as irrespective of an object of the will, and 'Will' in accordance with the form of law, seemingly leaves no room for the judgement of the categorical imperative.
-How can a maxim, which always has an end be tunred into a law which itself has no end?
-Can the will have an object which it can decde to act upon if it moral?
-Where does the driving force of he moral law come from - solely in our want to reject alien inclination?
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Hows does the fact of reason prove freedom?
Maybe it is possible to condion ourselves to reverence.
Freedom canot be drawn from conceps of exprience, therefore it cannot be known whether my actions with regard to sensous objects are free or not
It is evident from the preface and introduction to the second critique, that Kant believed morality in danger from drifting too far from experience. After all it must have been in mans actions where the idea of a moral law must have first arisen ("all knowledge begins with experience"). The conceptual use of terms such as, autonomy, laws, and freedom were in danger of losing sight of there posessor°, and a metaphysical notion of freedom was curiously close to losing its relationship to him in the GWIII and the CpR, since it was supposedly man's will which was supposed to be free, and not only an illustration of freedom.
This essay began with an attempt at looking at the notion of freedom in its role in proving the moral law and came uponm several problems
-It still had nos solved how unconditional law was actually 'free', and difference between deciding to 'act upon maxims fit to make universal law' or not deciding but doing 'actions conforimng to the law'.
Resulting in non-moral actions which were non-free. distinction between practical and transcendental freedom overcanme this problem.
The second half will discuss how the moral fact approaches the problem of proving the moral law, and therupon a discussion of freedom and its relation to causality to actions raised as a theoretical problematic in the first half. It will then concdlue with a comparison of results from both analyses.
To return to a discussoin on the role of reason in the moral law it might help to provide a recourse to the categorical inmperative. "We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law: that is the canon of moral appraisal of action in general" (GWI: 4:424). Every maxim which is acted upon by a rational being has the categorical imperative within it. One could describe it as being a universal predicate of each individual's decision to act. A clear illustration is in the discussion about property, which applies in similar circumstances to lying. For example, if I want to listen to music, I need a means to do so: a record player. This would comply with the analytic 'whoever will the means will the ends', containing with it the causality of myself acting as a cause, nothing other than practical reason, or practical freedom (as long as the means are within my power). I acknowledge that a friend who lives nearby owns a stereo. I make my way to his room and even on the way automatically assume that he is there and that he won't have any problems of me borrowing his property when I ask him. Unlikely that a precise formulation of the law that 'if everyone were granted free rights to everones property there ouwld be no property at all' may have never made itself explicit in my mind amidst the sudden desire to listen to music. Under the circumstances I might have been interested in nothing but achieving my end of listening to music. Yet when I arrive in his room, and he is not there, I "immediately" realise at once that such an action is not possible. This cognition would be equivalent to the act of a pure will guided by pure reason in my decision to act. It requires no hesitation and immediately of itself annuls stepping over itself. Consequently, it would be natural for me, as a finite being also endowed with reason to then consider all means of overcoming this moral fact, of which the options are infinite, the most common probably being some form of excuse based on the golden-rule: I don't mind, why should he?, or the assumption that 'he's my friend he won't mind' or ' appease my conscience with 'I could return him in equal favour'. Neverthless, it is fundamentally true that the mere thought of 'he won't mind' is itself a result of the conscioussness of the moral fact, which if it weren't there would never have given rise to the question in the first place. It is an undeniable fact (if I am clever to rememeber my thoughts before) that I did not go into his room thinking that I can take the stereo as a means to my ends simultaneously completely disregarding the question of whether he would allow me or not. Crucially, I then realise that if that were the case thatt I did think so on my way, prior to going into the room I would have been acting under the principle that 'everyone ought to have rights to everyone elses property for their means'. And this is how a categorical imperative not only restricts an action itself on the basis of deciding not to act on it but also is brought out as a phenonmenon in decision making. This occurs each time the inner law of the intelligible world surfaces in the realm of appearances in deliberating action. This is because subsequently to the immediacy acknowledging restriction, I become aware that the moral law which had been in my mind but did not materialise itself until it surfaced in my action was the thought which was lurking in my head but I had never considered until the moment of action. 'If everyone were granted free rights to everones property there would be no property at all'. Up to that point I was free in a practical sense. This might be a phenomenological illustration, but it draws the moral fact closer to intuition .This is the moral fact in action. What is also born out of it is the recognition is that I don't have limitless freedom to my actions, which might seem restricing, but the law within lets me realise that truly speaking, this self-restriction is nothing other than freedom itself. This is because I can decide myself whether something is right or wrong without having to be told by anyone else, like a child. Autonomy is very much a notion bourne of Rousseaian thought. The way Kant perceives it is something ingrained on the mind which results in the knowledge that 'this property is an inviolable object belonging to the individual I seek it from and therefore Ican't take it without asking'. And one could grant that this follows from a near intuitive assumption, grounded in logic, that if everyone had unlimited rigths to the others property there would be no property at all. (Unless we may have certain enigmatic faith which rejects property as a cause of evil (but not everyone has such faith - which is why the logical principle still applies today.)) For this reason, one could not imagine the principle as becoming a law of nature because property would become a void subject like promises, and it is not as if we ever infer from the premise that no one naturally steals to the conclusion that to not-steal should be prohibited (such a reversal would be an absurdity), it would also not be treating the other as a being with inaliable rights, and it would not be suitable law in the kingdom of ends because I would be excluding myself as a law-making member by only acting on maxims which ignore the law. One could state that this capacity is acquired from learning but it does not mean that it is not true ("not all knowledge arises out of experience"). The analytic: 'Whoever wills the means necessarily wills the means' also applies in the moral sphere that 'whoever decides to break rule which restircts the means to his ends is also solely responsible for doing so'. The causality of decision lies in myself and the ability to decide to do, or not do, that action which I had in mind of doing.
Does the moral worth increase depending on the circumstance for it to show ie. parsimonious man. Is parismonious man no different from rich man if law is truly supposed to be indifferent.! ie. the bible example of woman wrenching out her wallet. 'love'
What the fact of reason establishes is that- it is impossible to be unaware of the lawfulnes of certain actions at the time of there occurrence if reason is present in us.
It proves that the freedom to reject ones inclinations does not arises from the thought of freedom, or to think oneelf as a member of the intelligible world, in practice these are impossible and ouwld require 'an intellectual mind' and we must assume that not everyone thinks of transcendental deduction prior to an action. Practical freedom thus reveals to us the moral law, which out of its ownself leads to the notion that we can be members of the intelligible world.
Apart from illustraions however, we have shown how freedom must arise out of the moral law and not vice versa,
The illustration makes in addition an important point: the reason one could call this act the act of a 'pure will' is because it requires no antecedent knowledge for it to build its decision of. It is completely a priori.
All that remains proving is that this self.legislation, is not grounded on repetitive aggravation from peers, but an a a priori thought, which each individual necessarily has in virtue of being rational.
-NB. How does a mans action thus effect the real world
What has been given to morality, is the status of that of philosophy for every man. It saves him from being nothing but a mere autonomaton, because it is clear that this is not how an individual conceives of himself even in his own life. The most hardened scoundrel wished he were free from alien influences on his mind, from instinct downgrading him to the feeling he were an animal, any yet, within this thought is proof of that which makes him a human, and part of an intelligible world. It is precisely because reason is not only there to formulate maxims for felicity, but is capable of other thoughts, including the questioning of God's existence, immortality of the soul, and generally all thoughts which have distinguished us from mere 'things' (GW FE); making reason a source of law. It leaves little to the worth of man's life if it would be the mere sum total of accomplished hypothetical imperatives one sets for onself to overcome inclinations or need, in Hobbesean terms: to secure one's felicity. Even in ordinary intelligens, the question of why an 'Ought?' applies itself to more enigmatic aspects of life than simply self-satisfaction, such as ones belief, or religion, or purpose in life.