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 ...