Kant's System of Practical Perspectives
by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
Morality, by
itself, constitutes a system. [Kt1:839]
1. The Shift from
the Theoretical to the Practical Standpoint
Having proved
their usefulness in the arduous task of interpreting the first and most widely
studied of Kant's three Critiques,
the interpretive tools established in Parts One and Two can now be employed in
interpreting his second Critique,
which develops a system based not on the theoretical, but on the practical standpoint. By interpreting
'systemp' in terms of the formal structure specified in Figure III.6, we shall
find once again twelve essential steps in Kant's argument. But, whereas systemt adopts the
logical perspective as its standpoint, the system examined here in Chapter
VIII adopts the hypothetical perspective as its standpoint. (As we saw in
II.4, the transcendental perspective serves as the Perspective for Kant's
entire System.) Once this basic difference in their standpoints is discerned,
numerous fundamental differences emerge between systemp and systemt. As Weber says
in W14:251: 'In this new domain, the problems raised by the Critique of Pure Reason change in
aspect; doubts are dissipated, and uncertainties give way to practical certainty.'
So before delving into the details of systemp, we need to
discuss some of the general similarities and differences between it and systemt, which arise out
of their formal relationship.
Whereas
systemt analyzes how the faculty of representation (i.e., theoretical reason,
or the understanding [see VII.1]) functions in the process of gaining
knowledge, systemp analyzes how the 'faculty of desire' (i.e., practical
reason, or the 'will') functions in the process of a person's moral experience.[1] Kant defines the
faculty of desire in a living being as 'the faculty such a being has of
causing, through its ideas, the reality of the objects of these ideas' [Kt4:9n;
s.a. 48; Kt7:178n]. Accordingly, the will itself functions as 'a kind of
causality of living beings so far as they are rational' [Kt5:445-6]. Thus,
systemp carries on within the limits
set by systemt, picking up from stage four of systemt its concern for
practical belief in ideas; yet it goes beyond
systemt in the sense of forging a new path of perspectives. The crucial
difference in this new path is that its 'object' is no longer 'a thing but
only the manner of acting' [Kt4:60]. Therefore, 'the objects of these ideas'
should no longer be regarded as objects of knowledge
(i.e., representations), but as objects of action
(i.e., ends).
Kant points
out in Kt4:3 that the titles of the first two Critiques are not exactly parallel with each other: Kt1 is a
critique of pure speculative reason,
while Kt4 is a critique of impure practical reason. The difference between
the two titles, then, is that the title of Kt4 leaves out the word 'pure' and
inserts 'practical'. The reason for these changes is rooted in the difference
between the improper use of reason
from these two standpoints, against which Kant is warning. Whereas from the
theoretical standpoint reason runs into illusion when it tries to reach
conclusions without considering its
object empirically (so that in response, the transcendental limits of sensibility must be put on its pure employment), from the practical
standpoint reason runs into illusions when it tries to reach conclusions by considering its object empirically
(so that in response, the transcendental limit of freedom from sensibility must be put on its impure employment) [see D2:36; cf. note VIII.10]. For this same
reason, Kant adds '... of Pure
Practical Reason' to the heading of each main section in Kt4, whereas the
headings of the Aesthetic, Analytic and Dialectic in Kt1 do not specify '... of Pure Theoretical Reason': in Kt1 Kant argued against those who
believe knowledge is possible through pure reason by showing how it must be
impure; in Kt4 he now argues against those who believe morality has an impure
source by showing how it must be pure.
Unfortunately,
Kant devotes even less effort to explaining the general architectonic
structure of his argument in systemp than he does in
systemt.[2] But in Kt4:16 he
seems to imply that the architectonic relationship between the stages of
systemp is different from that between the stages of systemt. He states that
the main change in the outline of the second Critique is that
the order in the subdivision of the Analytic will be
the reverse of that in the critique of speculative reason. For in the present
work we begin with principles and proceed to concepts, and only then, if possible,
go on to the senses, while in the study of speculative reason we had to start
with the senses and end with principles.
Whereas Kt1 starts with sensibility (stage one) and
proceeds through concepts (stage two) to pure principles (stage three), Kt4
starts with the pure principle of the free will (stage one) and proceeds
through concepts (stage two) to actual choices presented by sensibly determined
inclinations (stage three).
This might
tempt us to infer that the order of the first three stages in systemp is no longer
'matter, form, synthesis', but 'synthesis, form, matter'. However, Kant is not
referring here to a change in the architectonic structure of the system [cf.
Tables VII.1 and VIII.1]; rather, the way the elements manifest themselves in
the system changes as a direct result of the change in standpoint. Thus,
although the first stage of systemt is sensible,
whereas that of systemp is nonsensible, both perform the same, material
function. Likewise the stage effecting the synthesis of form and matter is that
of the pure (nonsensible) principles in systemt; but in systemp it will be that
of the (sensible) choice to follow duty rather than inclination. (The formal
stage is unproblematic because it supplies the conceptual elements in both systems.)
Although Kant's use of terms such as 'formal' and 'material' is not always easy
to follow, an awareness of the standpoint assumed will usually reveal such
references to be consistent with his architectonic logic. For the perspectival
function of each stage relative to its
own standpoint is always the same in both systems, even though its function
relative to another standpoint might
look different. In both systems, the first stage provides the necessary
limiting condition which must be assumed by any proper use of reason from that
standpoint; the second stage defines the logical form for conceiving the
object; and the third stage explains how the real judgment (or moral action)
comes about. Thus, both systems follow the same logical form: taking account
of their respective Dialectics, both outlines are divided into four stages.
From this and
other hints as to the procedure he is following [see Kt4: 89-91; Kt5:392], we
can see that Kant wants the structure of the outline of Kt4 to follow as much as
possible the same pattern as in Kt1: both books are divided into a Doctrine of
Elements and a Methodology; both contain an Analytic and a Dialectic as major
divisions of the Doctrine of Elements; and both develop systems with four main
stages. There is, however, an important difference: instead of having an
Aesthetic and two 'books' of Analytic, as in Kt1, Kt4 simply has an Analytic
divided into three chapters. The reason for substituting an Analytic in place
of the Aesthetic of systemt is that, as we have seen, systemp begins not with
the faculty which limits reason (viz., sensibility), but with reason's own
limitation of itself (free will).[3]
In his own
account of this difference Kant makes a claim at one point which, as has often
been pointed out, is 'objectively false' [see e.g., F5:294]. He says: 'The
Analytic of theoretical pure reason [i.e., in Kt1] was divided into
Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Logic', with the latter divided
into concepts and principles, whereas 'that of the practical reason is divided
... into logic and aesthetic', with the former divided into principles and
concepts [Kt4:90]. What is usually ignored by commentators, however, is that
Kant admits his 'analogy' is 'not
entirely suitable' [90]; surely this means he has not forgotten that the Aesthetic in Kt1 precedes the Logic, and
that the Logic is divided into Analytic and Dialectic [see Table III.1]. Rather
than regarding this simply as a lapse of memory or a careless mistake, we
should regard it as evidence that Kant was not entirely satisfied with the
divisions made in Kt1, so he was still toying with other, more suitable
arrangements of his architectonic pattern.[4] This revised
organization of Kt1 is actually more suitable, because it correctly places the
Aesthetic content of sensibility within
the bounds of the Analysis of true knowledge without making it a part of
Logic, and because it distinguishes more clearly between this Analytic task and
the task of dispelling the illusions of false logic (Dialectic).
One of the
chief dangers in interpreting systemp is to neglect
the fact that, when Kant uses the same technical terms in both systems, terms
such as 'principle', 'concept' or 'sense' [see e.g., Kt4:16], their meanings
are bound to be different in the two systems, because their standpoints differ.
Even Kant's key distinctions, such as a priori-a posteriori,
analytic-synthetic and transcendental-empirical, take on a rather different
meaning in this new system [see G14:liv]. In systemt the hypothetical
perspective gives rise to certain analytic a posteriori beliefs [see IV.3].
When systemp adopts this perspective as its standpoint, such beliefs are no longer
merely 'regulative' (as in systemt [see VII.3.B]); rather they
gain 'objective reality' [Kt1:836]. This is possible only because the
hypothetical perspective generates 'a special kind of systematic unity, namely
the moral' [855]. Within the context of the resulting system, pure reason now
formulates principles which themselves can be regarded as objectively valid for moral experience, and thus as
synthetic a priori, even though their status as viewed from systemt would be
analytic a posteriori.[5] This crucial
difference stems from the fact that the four main stages of systemt adopt perspectives
on knowledge (scientific experience),
whereas those of systemp adopt perspectives on intentional action (moral experience) [Kt35:(1-2);
Kt10:110(116)]. In systemp, as Kant asserts, 'reason is given to us as a
practical faculty, i.e., one which is meant to have an influence on the will'
[Kt5:396]; and 'will' is 'the capacity of acting
according to the conception of laws, i.e., according to principles'
[412e.a.]; indeed, 'will is nothing else than practical reason.' As Paton
suggests, Kant's 'fundamental assumption is that the will is as rational in
action as intelligence [i.e., the understanding] is in thinking.'[6]
The
implications of this essential perspectival difference for the content of
systemp are brought out by Kant in a concise description of the relationships
between its first three stages:
... practical reason is concerned not with objects
in order to know them but with its own capacity to make them real ...
Consequently, it does not have to furnish an object of intuition, but as practical
reason it has only to give a law of intuition [i.e., freedom] ... [It] must
begin from the possibility of practical fundamental principles a priori [stage
one]. Only from these can it proceed to concepts of the absolutely good and
evil in order first to assign them in accordance with those principles [stage
two] ... Only then could [it deal] with the relation of pure practical reason
to sensibility and with its necessary influence on it, i.e., the moral feeling
[stage three] ...
... the division of the Analytic of Pure Practical
Reason must turn out to be similar to that of a syllogism, i.e., proceeding
from the universal in the major premise (the moral principle [stage one]),
through a minor premise containing a subsumption of possible actions (as good or
bad) under the major [stage two], to the conclusion, viz. the subjective
determination of the will (an interest in the practically possible good and the
maxim based on it) [stage three]. [Kt4:89-91; cf. G14:li-liii]
If we assume that the Dialectic [Kt4:107-48] is the
fourth stage, this summary of the threefold division of the Analytic reveals
the following progression of stages in systemp: (1) the
synthetic a priori perspective on action applies the principle of freedom to
the undetermined will; (2) the analytic a priori perspective formally
defines morality in terms of the moral law and its categories; (3) the
synthetic a posteriori perspective describes the real actualization of duty
through moral feeling; and (4) the analytic a posteriori perspective posits
the ideal ends or implications of morality.
These four
stages correspond directly to the four stages of systemt, as depicted in
Figure VII.3 and in Table VII.1. Hence, we can construct a parallel table for
systemp. All the aspects of systemp shown in Table
VIII.1 will be discussed more thoroughly in the following two sections, which,
like VII.2-3, will deal first with the abstract stages (free will and the moral
law) and then with the concrete stages (moral judgment and the final end of
morality).[7]
Table VIII.1: Basic Perspectival Relations in Systemp
2. The Abstract
Conditions of Moral Action (-)
A. Free Will (--)
The
starting-point of systemp is the 'disposition' of an individual agent.[8] As 'the ground
of moral responsibility' [S11:cxviii], the disposition guides 'the adoption of
the particular maxims on which individual decisions are based' [cxv]; in so
doing it 'gives rise to morality' [Kt35:(22)]. The disposition is 'the spirit
of moral laws' [(52)]; since 'dispositions are the cardinal principles of
action ... and their grounds of impulse', ethics itself can be called the
'philosophy of disposition' [(71)]. Yet Kant laments [(71)]: 'It is not easy to
give an explanation of the exact meaning of disposition.'
The problem
is that this 'ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of maxims'
[Kt8:25(20)] is not, as it were, out in the open for all to view. On the
contrary, we must 'confess', insists Kant, 'that we cannot cite a single sure
example of the [good] disposition' [Kt5:406]. This is because an action's
'moral worth', viewed from the empirical perspective, is 'always doubtful'
[406]: 'for when moral worth is in question it is not a matter of actions which
one sees but of their inner principles which one does not see' [407]. Thus the
disposition is to systemp what the thing in itself is to systemt: the
transcendent presupposition which is required for entry into the system.
Because it is transcendent, it is both impossible and unnecessary to judge as
to the nature even of our own disposition: 'Only God can see that our dispositions
are moral and pure' [Kt35:(80); s.a. Kt8:49-50(44-5); Kt6:392-3]. What is
necessary is to adopt a moral faith, which might simply be called a desire to act. As such it is directly
parallel to the theoretical faith required for systemt [see V.1], which
is, as it were, a desire to know, and
which is implicit in the original act of representation.
A morally
good act ultimately requires a good disposition. But, because the disposition
transcends both our knowledge and our action, we must regard the exact nature
of its 'influence' on the elements in systemp as a mystery.
Nevertheless, here in the first step of Kant's presentation of the conditions
for moral activity, the agent must base its desire to act on the assumption of
a good disposition, thus positing for itself a good will. A good will is 'the supreme condition of all good
[actions]' [Kt4:62; s.a. Kt5:396 and P3:43], for only it can be 'good without
qualification': it 'constitutes the indispensable condition even of worthiness
to be happy' [Kt5:393]. Indeed, 'a good will is that whereby man's existence
can alone possess an absolute worth, and in relation to which the existence of
the world can have a final end'
[Kt7:443]. It is, however, 'undetermined with reference to any objects'
[Kt5:444]. Just as the first step in systemt establishes the
most general, but as yet undetermined objective
condition for knowledge (the transcendental object, with its assumed relation
to the thing in itself), so also the first step here in systemp establishes the
most general, but as yet undetermined subjective
condition for moral action. This step can now be summarized as follows:
The second
step also follows the pattern of systemt (where the
object is intuited in space and time), by determining the formal condition of
stage one to be 'the rational concept of transcendental freedom' [Kt7:211],
viewed now from the practical standpoint [Kt4:3]. Although 'transcendental
freedom' is a transcendent idea in systemt [Kt7:468], it
becomes immanent in the form of the idea of 'practical freedom' here in stage
one of systemp.[9] That practical
freedom is the formal condition of the transcendental perspective of systemp is suggested by
the fact that, like pure time and space in systemt, such freedom
is a kind of brute fact which must be presupposed, even though it can never be
'an object of experience' [Kt7i:195]; 'how this presupposition itself is
possible can never be discerned by any human reason' [Kt5:461]. This parallelism
is, no doubt, what leads Kant to treat the second step of these two systems as
the 'two pivots' around which Criticism itself turns: 'first, the doctrine of the ideality of space and time, which ...
merely points towards what is supersensible but unknowable by us ...; second, the doctrine of the reality of
the concept of freedom as a concept of the knowable supersensible' [Kt69:311].
This 'mere idea' of freedom 'holds only as the necessary presupposition of
reason in a being that believes itself conscious of a will' [Kt5: 459]. Thus,
when Kant declares that 'practical reason ... provides reality to a
supersensible object of the category of causality, i.e., to freedom' [Kt4:6],
he immediately adds: 'This is a practical concept and as such is subject only
to practical use ...' By this he means that, as Paton rather boldly puts it,
'unless we can act on this presupposition there is no such thing as action, and
there is no such thing as will' [P3:219].
In the third
stage, as we shall see in VIII.3.A, 'the freedom of the will' manifests itself
as 'autonomy, i.e., the property of the will to be a law to itself ...
Therefore a free will and a will under moral laws are identical' [Kt5:446-7].
Since 'the Kantian definition of freedom (or autonomy) in general' is
'self-limitation' [Y2:975] or 'internal determination' [W10:9, cf. 53], the
realization of the freedom of choice in moral activity (i.e., in stage three)
depends on the prior assumption of practical freedom here in step two, as a
limiting condition of the will 'which must be assumed, presupposed and believed
of our own will if moral volition in general is to be conceived as a
possibility for us' [W24:36; s.a. W5:213]. Just as the limiting condition of
intuition in step two of systemt gives rise to a manifold of
appearances, so also the limiting condition of freedom here in step two of
systemp enables the will to produce what Kant calls a 'manifold of desires'
[e.g., Kt4:65]. We can therefore summarize this step accordingly:
As with intuition in the second step of systemt, practical freedom
can be divided into 'inner freedom' and 'outer freedom' [Kt6:406]. But this
empirical distinction can be ignored, since it plays no part in Kant's Critique [Kt4], but only in his Metaphysics [Kt6], of morality.
Adopting
freedom as the transcendental condition of reason's practical standpoint
releases us from a strict confinement to sensible intuition (step two of systemt) as a means of
interpreting our experience [Kt4:46; cf. Kt8: 50-1(46) and W24:74]; for
'freedom ... transfers us into an intelligible order of things' [Kt4:42], but
only in the sense that it gives us a purely rational perspective on our
experience.[10] Such freedom
does not require 'another kind of
intuition than the sensuous', i.e., knowledge of 'a causa noumenon' [Kt4:49],
as some interpreters mistakenly allege [e.g., G14:11; see Ap. VIII]. For as
Kant explains,
practical reason ... does not concern itself with
this demand ... But the concept which reason makes of its own causality as
noumenon is significant even though it cannot be defined theoretically for
purposes of knowing its supersensuous existence [Kt4:49-50].
Now the concept of a being which has a free will is
that of a causa noumenon ... But because no intuition, which could be only
sensuous, can support [the] application [of this concept to transcendent
reality], causa noumenon is, for
reason's theoretical standpoint, an empty concept, although a possible and
thinkable one [55-6].
But despite its inability to function positively in
systemt, freedom does have a positive function in systemp: 'although an
intelligible world ... is for us a transcendent conception [in the context of
systemt]-as is also freedom itself, the formal condition of that world-yet it
has its proper function' as an immanent conception in systemp [Kt7:404].
From the
standpoint of systemp, then, freedom 'makes necessary the concept of an intelligible world'
[Kt5:458e.a.] as a nonsensible perspective on experience. Because the fact of
human freedom functions positively as 'a causality of reason' for systemp [458], Kant
virtually identifies it with the
noumenal substrate of phenomena, enabling this practical concept to serve as
'the keystone of the whole architecture of [the Critical philosophy]' [Kt4:3].
In systemp this 'unconditioned causality, and its faculty, freedom, ... are
determinately and assertorically known; thus is the reality of the
intelligible world definitely established from a practical standpoint, and this
determinateness, which would be transcendent (extravagant) for theoretical
purposes, is for practical purposes immanent' [105]. But aside from this single
positive role, practical reason does not generally enable us to 'think theoretically
and positively' about the idea of freedom [133], for systemp does not convert
the 'might be' of the fourth stage of systemt into an 'is'
[104], but only into an 'ought to be'.
The third
step in systemt was never clearly expounded by Kant, so we had to conjecture, based on
the requirements of his architectonic, what he must have intended the reader to
take for granted. But Kant expounds the third step in systemp much more
clearly: it is that in order for a person to act freely there must be an 'end'
presented as a possible 'object' of choice. Since its object also participates in
systemt, the causality of freedom, though itself nonsensuous, is nevertheless
always 'a cause that is sensuously determined in respect of its effects'
[Kt7:465]. In systemp this object is supplied in the form of a 'maxim', a
term Kant discusses quite thoroughly.
'A maxim is
the subjective principle of volition' [Kt5:400n; s.a. 421n]; its function in
stage one is to specify 'the will to act in a certain kind of way in a certain
kind of situation' [P3:83]-for instance in a form such as 'I will do X as a
means to Y' [84]. Because it is based on a good or evil will, a maxim is
'absolutely good or evil in all respects and without qualification' [Kt4:60].
In Kt4:33 Kant relates maxims directly to step two: 'freedom is itself the
formal condition of all maxims, under which alone they can all agree with the
supreme practical law [stage two]'. This clearly requires the formulation of
the maxim to be located in step three. However, 'there is a great gulf between
the maxim and the deed' [Kt8:46(42)], for maxims are not acted upon until stage three, where they are described as having
three aspects, each of which corresponds to one of the other three stages: (1)
'A form, which consists in universality', through the influence of stage two;
(2) 'A material, i.e., an end', through the influence of stage one; and (3) 'A
complete determination ... [enabling them] to harmonize with a possible realm
of ends [stage four of systemp] as with a realm of nature
[systemt]' [Kt5:463]. Kant alludes to the maxim's dual function when he says:
'The term "act" can apply in general to that exercise of freedom
whereby the supreme maxim ... is adopted by the will [in step three], but also
to the exercise of freedom whereby the actions themselves [in step nine] are
performed in accordance with that maxim.'[11] Wood describes
the former as the act in which 'the autonomous agent himself rationally
determines the matter of his maxim, and gives himself ends, rather than merely
receiving his ends from nature' [W24:61].
According to
Kant, an action's 'moral value' depends 'merely on the principle of volition
[i.e., the maxim] by which an action is done, without any regard to the objects
of the faculty of desire' [Kt5:399-400e.a.; s.a. 425]. As Paton explains, 'the
setting of ends before oneself is the essential mark of freedom' [P3:181],
because in this way the manifold of an agent's desires, which as such has no
moral value, is distilled into a discrete maxim, which does. Therefore, any
maxim through which an end (i.e., a possible effect) is chosen can serve to
constitute the material of a moral action, provided it conforms to the further
conditions set out in stage two. These considerations give us ample ground for
summarizing step three as:
The activity
of the free will provides the foundation for synthetic a priori propositions in
a moral system, just as sensibility does so for a theoretical system [cf. IV.3 and
VII.2.A]. Such propositions themselves are not fully revealed until stage
three. So at this point in systemp we still know little more
than the a priori 'possibility' of freedom: 'We do not understand [freedom],
but we know it as the condition of the moral law which we do know' [Kt4:4].
For, although freedom is a necessary condition for the moral law [4n], nevertheless,
looking back from the perspective of moral experience (stage three), 'it is the
moral law which leads directly to the concept of freedom' [30]. Indeed, this
practical freedom 'lies at the foundation of all moral laws' [96]; without it
'no moral law and no accountability to it are possible' [97]. The details of
this close relationship between freedom and the moral law become more clear in
stage two, to which we will now turn in order to discover how the free will can
take on a truly moral character.
B. The Moral Law (+-)
The second
stage in systemp corresponds in several respects to the second stage in systemt. Just as the
heart of systemt is the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, so also the former
requires 'the deduction of freedom as a causality of pure reason' [Kt4:47-8],
or more simply 'the deduction of the moral law'.[12] Probably Kant's
most quoted description of how this moral law relates to the freedom of stage
one is that, 'though freedom is certainly the ratio essendi of the moral law, the latter is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom' [4n]-a
statement closely paralleling his famous account of the reciprocity of intuitions
and concepts in Kt1:75. For just as intuitions would be blind without concepts,
freedom would be an unjustified assumption without the moral law to explicate
its cognitive form; and just as concepts would be empty without intuitions, so
also the moral law 'would never have been encountered' without freedom as its
essential content. In stage two, as Greene puts it rather loosely, practical
reason 'organizes blind moral intuition into a rational moral apprehension'
[G14:lii].
Unlike its
counterpart in systemt [see Kt1:129-69], however, the deduction of the
moral law, as Kant tells us in Kt4:46,
does not concern knowledge of the properties of
objects, which may be given to reason from some other source; rather, it
concerns knowledge in so far as it can itself become the ground of the
existence of objects, and in so far as reason, by virtue of this same
knowledge, has causality in a rational being.
This difference allows Kant's account of this
deduction to be far simpler than that of the categories of systemt. After giving
some clues in Kt5:453-63 as to how to put forward an a priori argument for its
validity, Kant appeals in Kt4:42-50 to what he believes is the universal
awareness of the moral law, as a 'fact' of our immediate experience, which is 'absolutely
inexplicable' from the standpoint of systemt [43]. This law
'is given, as an apodictically certain fact, as it were, of pure reason, a fact
of which we are a priori conscious, even if it be granted that no [empirical]
example could be found in which it has been followed exactly.'[13] In this sense
the moral law is for systemp what the categories are for systemt: viz., given
forms which can be proved neither by logical nor by empirical proofs, but which
must be utilized by any rational being who wishes to act morally (for systemp) or know
empirically (for systemt). In both cases 'we impose [the law] on ourselves
and yet recognize [it] as necessary in itself' [Kt5:401n]. But because reason
gives itself the moral law, rather than drawing it from objects, Kant concludes
that 'the objective reality of the moral law can be proved through no
deduction' [Kt4:47]. Or, stated more accurately, its only deduction is the
simple fact that it imposes itself upon the moral experience of all rational
beings as the only possibility for the formal stage of systemp. As such, it 'is
the formal rational condition of the employment
of our freedom' [Kt7:450e.a.]: without this logical perspective in systemp, practical
freedom would be, so to speak, 'stranded' in the realm of transcendent ideas.
As a result
of this way of satisfying the need for a deduction, Kant never clearly and
unambiguously explains how 'the law, as the formal aspect of the will'
[Kt30:282n(67n)]-i.e., as the formal (+-) stage of systemp-develops according
to a three step argument. Nevertheless, he does cite various ways of
formulating the moral law in terms of principles (which he calls the 'categorical
imperative'), apparently hoping that one or another of these will strike
morally attuned readers as a 'fact' of their own moral experience. As it turns
out, the basic moral fact of an inner 'law-abidingness' [P3:71; cf. 180] itself
enjoys a status parallel to the categories in systemt (i.e., step
five), and his other formulations of the categorical imperative give clues as
to how we can reconstruct steps four and six as well [see note VIII.25].
Each of
Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative includes one of two elements
that fit into systemp at this point. The first is the requirement that
moral agents be willing for their maxims to 'serve at the same time as the
universal law (of all rational beings)' [Kt5:438; s.a. 402,421,434]. In Kt4:30
Kant expresses this formula of 'universality' as: 'So act that the maxim of
your will [step three] could always hold at the same time as a principle
establishing universal law.' And in Kt6:225 he describes the process more
fully:
You must ... begin by looking at the subjective
principle of your action. But to know whether this principle is also
objectively valid, your reason must subject it to the test of conceiving
yourself as giving universal law through this principle. If your maxim
qualifies for a giving of universal law, then it is objectively valid.
Step four can therefore be summarized along these
lines as:
Of course, this test does not have to be performed
each time a maxim is adopted; but any maxim must be able to be universalized in order to function in systemp. For this reason
Kant's criterion of 'universality' is sometimes called 'universalizability'
[e.g., W10:111; cf. P5:85-96].
The fifth step is the function of
'law-making', a condition which is also intimated in some formulations of the
categorical imperative [Kt5:434,438]. This step corresponds directly to step
five of systemt, for here we meet the logical breakdown of the moral law itself in
terms of its 'categories of freedom'.[14] These categories
serve as 'the analogue to the categories of the understanding' [G14:lii; cf.
Kt4:65], the main difference being that the former 'are without exception modes
of a single category, that of causality', the causality of freedom [65]. Kant
further explains their difference in Kt4:65-6:
... the elementary practical concepts have as their
foundation the form of a pure will [i.e., freedom, the second step in stage
one] given in reason and thus in the faculty of thought itself.... [Moreover,]
the practical concepts a priori in relation to the supreme principle of freedom
[in stage one] immediately become cognitions, not needing to wait upon
intuitions in order to acquire a meaning. This occurs for the noteworthy reason
that they themselves produce the reality of that to which they refer (the
intention of the will)-an achievement which is in no way the business of
theoretical concepts.
Kant begins
Chapter Two of the Analytic by defining 'a concept of an object of practical
reason' as 'the representation of an object as an effect possible through
freedom' [Kt4:57]. This indeed is the ultimate function of stage two: to form a
concept which corresponds to the object as it is given in the maxim at the
close of stage one. Step five fulfills this function, inasmuch as the 'categorial
conception of freedom' (as I shall call it) yields 'the concepts of good and
evil' [66], which, in the context of systemp, refer 'to
actions and not to the sensory state of the person' [60]. (In Kt4:66 Kant lists
the 'practical categories' [V4:121] which operate here in a table with the same
twelvefold form as that in Kt1:106; but he gives even less argument for his
choice of these categories than he did for those in Kt1.[15]) 'It is the
concepts of the good and evil which first determine an object for the will'
[Kt4:67]. Even though a maxim has been universalized as being worthy of
everyone's consent, the object to which it refers is not determined to be
'good' or 'evil' until it is placed under these categories of freedom here in
step five. For 'the moral law is that which first defines [these] concept[s]'
[64]. This formal condition of stage two can now be summarized as:
The one
version of the categorical imperative which does not include 'universality'
contains instead an element which we can regard as the function of step six:
'Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of
another, always as an end and never as a means only' [Kt5:429]. Kant fleshes
out the nature of this 'predisposition of the will to personality' [S11:
civ-cv] rather well. Because we have within us 'the ground of a possible categorical imperative' (i.e., the moral
law as its form), each of us 'exists as an end in himself and not merely as a
means' [Kt5:428e.a.; cf. P3:167-75]. Elsewhere Kant says more generally that
it is 'reason' (i.e., practical
reason) that 'makes [man] an end in himself', and in virtue of which 'he is the
true end of nature' [Kt63:114]. Likewise, Kant argues in Kt7:435 that 'man is
the final end of creation. For without humanity the chain of mutually subordinated
ends [in nature] would have no ultimate point of attachment.' 'Everything in
creation', therefore, 'can be used merely as a means; only man ... is an end
in itself' [Kt4:87]. This is why 'respect', as we shall see in step seven,
'always applies to persons only, never to things' [76]. Strictly speaking,
however, such respect is 'really for the law, which [a person's] example holds
before us' [78].
Just as the
'I' of apperception enables the understanding to serve as the supreme limiting
condition of sensibility in step six of systemt, so also the
'we'-i.e., the 'principle of humanity and of every rational creature as an end
in himself'-serves here in step six of systemp as 'the supreme
limiting condition on freedom of the actions of each man' [Kt5:430-1].
Indeed, the former is dependent on the latter for its legitimacy: 'the person
as belonging to the world of sense is subject to his own personality so far as
he belongs to the intelligible world [i.e., the world of persons]' [Kt4:87].
And just as pure apperception converts the categorized concepts of
understanding into self-conscious
concepts, so also this principle of humanity converts the categorized concepts
of good and evil into personal ends.[16] Thus the sixth
step is:
Kant's distinction between the free will as the
first stage of moral activity and the moral law as the second will enable him
in step seven to allow for those who freely reject the moral law; but the
implication of this sixth condition, which defines personality in terms of the
willingness to treat other human beings as ends in themselves, is that to
reject this law would be to reject one's own personhood.[17] As Kant says in
Kt35:(121): 'Only if our worth as human beings is intact can we perform other
duties; for it is the foundation stone of all other duties.'
In the
logical perspective of systemp, a universal moral
principle serves as the matter which comes under the formal condition of the
causality of freedom, and in so doing gives rise to human personality. Silber
summarizes this entire stage rather concisely in S11:xciii:
The moral law [stage two] which demands that the
individual act according to a maxim [step three] that is capable of
universalization [step four], is a law [step five] that defines the conditions
for the fulfilment of personality [step six], just as the law of
noncontradiction and the rules of understanding [in stage two of systemt]
define the conditions for the fulfilment of mind.
The material
and formal stages of systemp, the free will and the moral law, have now been
specified in sufficient detail. But no moral act has yet taken place at this
midpoint of systemp. Nor has anything been said about the ultimate
purpose or goal of such activity. These are the topics Kant deals with in the
third and fourth stages of his system, to which we shall now turn our
attention.
3. The Concrete
Conditions of Moral Action (+)
A. Moral Judgment (-+)
In the third
stage of systemp the moral agent employs what Kant occasionally calls 'the practical
faculty of judgment', which is directly parallel to the judgment employed in
systemt [Kt5:404]. Here in systemp, he explains,
'the power of judgment first shows itself to advantage when common understanding
excludes all sensuous incentives from practical laws' [404; s.a. Kt4: 81]. The
agent does so by actually choosing to submit a maxim to the determining
conditions of the moral law, so that the agent's 'empirical nature can be
directed by ... ethical imperatives' [R11:111]. Kant names such a choice 'autonomous'.
An alternative possibility, which we have not yet discussed, would be to
choose for the faculty of desire a transcendental perspective rooted not in
the free will, but in human sensibility. To do so would then lead us to regard
the attainment of happiness, instead of the moral law, as our incentive to
action. A decision of this type Kant entitles 'heteronomous'. In order to
understand the seventh step in systemp, it will be necessary
to explore how this choice also relates to systemt.
'The
dependence of the faculty of desire on sensations is called inclination, and
inclination always indicates a need' [Kt5:413n]. Whenever this need is
fulfilled by assuming 'an object of the will ... as prescribing the rule which
is to determine the will, the rule is nothing else but heteronomy' [443-4]. In
actions performed on this basis, 'the will does not give itself the law, but an
external impulse [Antrieb] gives it
to the will' [444]. This 'impulse', or 'motive', is 'external' to practical
reason inasmuch as it is derived from the faculty of sensibility, which has
its proper function in systemt [see Kt7:443]. Hence 'the
material of the faculty of desire' (i.e., stage one) consists in this case not
of maxims based on free will, but of 'objects of the inclination' [Kt4:74]
based on sensible intuitions. Such heteronomous choices 'all revolve around
the principle of one's own happiness' [34]. For 'all men have the strongest and
deepest inclination to happiness, because in this idea all inclinations are
summed up' [Kt5:399; s.a. 405 and W24:81-2]. Indeed, inclinations point towards
happiness in much the same way as the free will points towards the moral law.
When faced
with an empirical choice between autonomous and heteronomous action-between
drawing one's maxim from 'desires' or from 'inclinations' [Kt5:427]-'the will
stands, as it were, at the crossroads halfway between its a priori principle
which is formal and its a posteriori incentive which is material' [400].
Although 'it is certainly undeniable that every volition must have an object
and therefore a material' (i.e., something to fill step three), the material is
not always 'the determining ground and condition [of the agent's use] of the
maxim' [Kt4:34; s.a. W10:28-9]. But if an action is to be autonomous, '[t]he
mere form of a law, which limits its material, must be a condition for adding
this material to the will but not presuppose it as the condition of the will'
[Kt4:34]. In other words, whereas the heteronomous will 'goes outside itself
and seeks [its determining] law in the property of its objects', the autonomous
will requires that 'I should act this or that way even though I will nothing
else' [Kt5:440-1]. The choice, therefore, is between taking the object
directly from sensibility and then imposing it upon the will as a heteronomous
inclination, or taking it from the will itself (in step three) and then
allowing the moral law to form it into an autonomous desire. In the former case
the primacy of theoretical reason is assumed, so that the material is made the
determining factor in an action; in the latter case the form (i.e., the moral
law) is made the determining factor, thus presupposing the primacy of practical
reason [see VIII.4].
At this point
it is important to emphasize that heteronomous action should not be regarded as
necessarily immoral or evil action, but as nonmoral action-action which never directly engages with the conditions
of moral action in systemp [cf. W10:101]. Any action 'resulting merely from
natural laws, and hence standing in no relation whatsoever to the moral law'
is, Kant tells us, 'a morally indifferent action' [Kt8:23n(18n)]. 'To have no
respect for the moral law constitutes lack of virtue, but vice means an active
contempt for the law' [Kt35:(244)]. Interpreters who neglect this fact
typically misconstrue the whole tenor of Kant's ethics. Wood attests to this
error when he declares: 'Too much emphasis has been given to the
"moroseness" of Kant's ethics, and to his supposed hostility to
inclination and sensibility. This attitude is neither typical of Kant, nor
characteristic of his best and most mature thought' [W24:109; s.a. P3:55-7].
Indeed, Kant explicitly opposes the 'ethics of moroseness', arguing that its
'separation of morality and pleasure' is good, but 'its hostility to pleasure
is a mistake' [Kt35:(77)]. Thus, 'the good man need not dislike his duty'
[W13:99], for as Kant says, 'cheerfulness of heart in the discharge of one's
duty ... is a sign of the genuineness of a virtuous sentiment' [q.i.
W13:98].
Heteronomous
action is opposed to moral action only if it is regarded as a moral alternative to acting
autonomously. For Kant warns that a person who knows the will 'only as a mixture degrades morality'
[q.i. R1:156]. As he puts it in Kt1:375: 'Nothing is more reprehensible than to
derive the laws prescribing what ought to
be done from what is done or to
impose upon them [in systemp] the limits by which the latter [systemt] is
circumscribed.' Apart from such a 'pernicious' error [Kt6:215], then, nothing
is intrinsically wrong with the heteronomous actions which everyone performs
most of the time: our ordinary habitual or skillful activities, the fulfillment
of our genuine needs, and even our indulgence in various pleasures do not make
us 'evil' even though they may be rooted heteronomously in desires stemming
from our sensibility. Such 'empirical ends', which 'can all be summed up under
the general heading of happiness' [Kt30:290(73)], are ends 'which nature itself
has imposed upon us' [282(67)]. 'Natural inclinations, considered in themselves, are good',
Kant tells us; and learning to tame them to maximize happiness is 'prudence';
'only what is opposed to the moral law is evil in itself' [Kt8: 58(51)].
Moreover, doing things 'from inclination
... is good in many cases' [Kt39:482(189-90)]. For as Kant reasons in
Kt63:117n, 'surely nature has not endowed living beings with instincts and
capacities [i.e., inclinations] in order that they should fight and suppress
them.'
The choice to
act heteronomously is evil only if one's original disposition favors such
action to the point of partially or altogether excluding specifically moral
actions when such opportunities do present themselves.[18] Kant affirms
that he does not expect a person to
renounce his natural aim
of attaining happiness as soon as the question of following his duty arises;
for like any finite rational being, he simply cannot do so. Instead, he must
completely abstract from such
considerations ..., and must on no account make them a condition of his obeying the [moral] law [Kt30:278-9(64); s.a.
281(66) and Kt4:93].
What is needed, then, is an alternative condition provided
by practical reason itself which can protect the moral agent from the danger of
allowing inclinations to eclipse the moral law. For the will on its own (i.e.,
in stage one), as Lauener observes, 'does not act morally from itself as a
phenomenal arbitrium liberum and
therefore needs an incentive, which counteracts the sensuous stimuli'
[L2:143].
In accordance
with this need, Kant suggests a moral incentive for autonomous action which
corresponds to the relationship between happiness and heteronomy. This motive
goes under various titles, such as 'moral feeling', 'interest', 'schema' or
'respect'. Moral feeling is 'the subjective effect which the law has upon the
will' in a moral agent [Kt5:460]. Although it is subjective, such feeling is a
necessary mediating step between 'the thought of the possible action' (step
three) and 'the action or its effect' as such (see step nine); so 'any
consciousness of obligation [see step eight] has moral feeling at its basis'
[Kt6:399]. The function of moral feeling in step seven, then, is to produce 'an
interest in obedience to the law' [Kt4:80]. This 'interest in the practically
possible good [step five] and the maxim based on it [step three]' paves the way
for the concluding stage of the Analytic's argument: 'the subjective
determination of the will' [90; cf. Kt6:212]. 'Interest is that by which reason
[actually] becomes practical, i.e., a cause determining the will' [Kt5: 459].
It encourages us to renounce the temptation to let happiness determine the
form of all our actions. A maxim 'is thus morally genuine only when it depends
[for its actualization] on the mere interest in obedience to the law.'[19]
Just as the
origin of schematism in step seven of systemt is essentially a
mystery, so also here in systemp 'an explanation of how and
why the universality of the maxim as law (and hence morality) interests us is
completely impossible for us men.'[20] Kant develops
this comparison further in Kt4:68-9:
Here [in step seven of systemp] we are concerned
not with the schema of a case occurring according to laws but with the schema
(if this word is suitable here) of a law itself ... [It] connects the concept
of causality [in stage two] to conditions altogether different from those which
constitute natural connection [i.e., to practical freedom].
... Thus ...
the understanding can supply to an idea of reason not a schema of sensibility
but a law. This law ... may ... be called the type of the moral law.
The schema enables us 'to use the nature of the
sensuous world as the type of an intelligible nature, so long as we do not
carry over to the latter intuitions and what depends on them but only apply to
it the form of lawfulness in general' [70]. Therefore, just as schematism
reintroduced the element of time
(step two) after the categories had abstracted from it in stage two of systemt, it here
reintroduces the element of freedom
(step two) after the moral law had abstracted from it in stage two of systemp.
Kant's
favorite way of referring to this moral 'schematism' is in terms of the respect which the moral law naturally
deserves to be given [cf. L2:141-2]. He notes that respect is 'the effect of
the law on the subject and not ... the cause of the law' [Kt5:401n]. It 'is a
feeling produced by an intellectual cause, and this feeling is the only one
which we can know completely a priori and the necessity of which we can
discern' [Kt4:73]. Indeed, here in step seven the entire 'moral realm'-the
whole system of practical perspectives-'is presented to us as an object of
respect' [82]. In this sense, 'respect for the law is not the incentive to
morality; it is morality itself, regarded subjectively as an incentive' [76;
s.a. Kt30:282n(67n)]. It is 'the conformity with Law of the maxim' [Kt6:390].
But this
result is not achieved until the second stage is actually imposed upon the
first, for 'no kind of feeling ... may be assumed as prior to the moral law and
as its basis' [Kt4:75; cf. L2:140-5]: 'Respect [is] the consciousness of the
direct constraint of the will through law ... [I]t produces exactly the same
effect [as 'the feeling of pleasure'], but from different sources' [Kt4:117].
This moral feeling is 'a positive assistance to [the moral law's] causality',
because it 'removes a resistance' to the moral law [75] by providing an incentive
or 'moral interest' [Kt5:401n] for morality which can 'counterpoise' that of
happiness:[21] it 'weakens the
hindering influence of the inclinations through humiliating self-conceit'
[Kt4:79]. Respect motivates the will in the third stage to replace sensibility
with practical freedom, thus 'preclud[ing] all inclinations from having a
direct influence on the will' [80]. 'It does not serve for an estimation of
actions or as a basis of the objective moral law itself but only as an
incentive to make this law itself a maxim' [76; s.a. Kt6:399]-i.e., to unite
stages one and two. Through such respect, therefore, the moral agent 'is
immediately inspired to obedience by
the moral law' [Kt7:452e.a.].
Although we
cannot include all the intricacies of Kant's theory in our summary of step
seven, we can capture its most basic elements, as follows:
Coupled with this condition of morality is its
alternative, which describes the vast majority of most people's ordinary
(nonmoral) actions:
Kant himself summarizes these two alternatives in
Kt35:(124-5): 'There are in us two grounds of action; inclinations, which
belong to our animal nature, and humanity, to which the inclinations must be
subjected.' This indicates clearly enough that, although Kant does not view
pleasure as inherently evil, he does
regard inclinations as tempting us into
a kind of 'self-love' which must be overcome in the process of moral improvement
[Kt5:401n]. Inasmuch as inclinations tend to encourage self-love, moral purity
will eventually require 'self-denial' [407]-i.e., the 'renunciation of all
interest' [432; s.a. Kt57: 226(32); W13:104,118]. Because 'the idea of the
moral law deprives self-love of its influence and self-conceit of its
delusion' [Kt4:75], respect for that law is experienced as a kind of 'pain'
[73], the pain of 'humiliation'.[22]
The above summary
of the two alternatives for step seven points up the difference between
'practical freedom', as viewed from the transcendental perspective in stage
one, and the freedom viewed here in stage three from the empirical perspective.
The latter can be called 'the free faculty of choice'; this faculty is
determined in step five by the 'categories of freedom', which in turn 'have as
their foundation the form of a pure will' [Kt4:65-6]-i.e., the practical
freedom of step two, rather than sensible intuition. Thus, from the empirical
perspective, 'free will' refers not to our abstract
power to determine a nonsensible object for our will (which Kant calls 'the
higher faculty of desire' [Kt4:22]), but to our concrete power to choose (by means of 'the lower faculty of
desire') whether our actions are to be determined by objects in the sensible
world or by our own power of practical reason.[23] Only in this
empirical sense is Silber right to call freedom 'the third thing "X"
in terms of which the proposition expressing the synthetic relation of the
concept of the will [stage one] to the concept of the moral law [stage two] is
... analytic' [S11:cxxivn; s.a. P3:200,213].
Once an agent
has chosen empirically to respect the law as a determining factor for a maxim,
the law itself must be reimposed in a schematized form, suitable for empirical
obedience. Only in this form, which unifies stages one and two in a single
principle [Kt4:47-8], is the moral law truly 'a law of causality through freedom' [47e.a.; s.a. Kt33:416(288)].
This eighth condition in systemp is provided by the
'categorical imperative', 'the imperative of morality' [Kt5:416]. An imperative
is defined by Kant as an 'objective principle valid for every rational being'
[420-1n]; it is a 'practical law' [400n,420] expressed in terms of 'a command'
[413]. It 'indicate[s] the relation of an objective law of reason [stage two]
to a will [stage one] which is not in its subjective constitution necessarily
determined by this law' [413]. An imperative is 'categorical', as opposed to
'hypothetical', if it 'present[s] an action as of itself objectively necessary,
without regard to any other end' [414]: 'If the action is good only as a means
to something else, the imperative is hypothetical; but if it is thought of
as good in itself ... [it] is categorical.' Thus 'the [categorical]
imperative contains besides the law [stage two] only the necessity that the
maxim [step three] should accord with the law' [420-1]. Kant says 'this categorical
ought presents a synthetic a priori proposition'.[24]
From the
categorical imperative are derived various other 'practical universal laws',
which are 'principles which contain the determining ground of the will because of
their form and not because of their matter' [Kt4:27; s.a. Kt5:416; Kt6:227],
the form being given in stage two ('the moral law'), and the matter in stage
one ('the object of the will') [Kt4:27; s.a. P3:95-6; W24: 44]. These 'rules of
a practical reason' [Kt4:65], then, are maxims which have been fully determined
by the moral law. As such, they 'contribute nothing to the understanding's
theoretical standpoint ..., but only to the a priori subjection of the
manifold of desires [step two] to the unity of consciousness of a practical
reason commanding in the moral law [stage two]' [65]. However, they are
analogous to the theoretical principles of nature given in step eight of systemt [Kt5:454;
Kt7:171; E3:174]: in an ideal world such rules, based on the categorical
imperative, would be 'the ground of all actions of rational beings, just as
natural law is the ground of all appearances' [Kt5:452-3; see Ch. XII].
Because
respect for the moral law requires the agent to act without considering the
conditions of sensibility, the rules produced by the categorical imperative
take the form of 'unconditional' commands-i.e., 'laws independent of all
antecedent reference to ends or aims' [Kt7:173]. Hence they 'must completely
determine the will as will, even before I ask whether I am capable of achieving
a desired effect or what should be done to realize it' [Kt4:20]. For any
'finite being whose will does not obey the law by nature' [B9:217], such laws
will appear in the form of an imperative of 'obligation': 'The dependence of a
will not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy (moral constraint) is obligation' [Kt5:439; s.a. Kt6:222,386].
A moral action may well fulfill various sensible inclinations as well, since
human agents must 'represent their ends amid
the sensible world of which they are a part' [W24:45]; but these will not be
the motive for acting, and will therefore be irrelevant to the action's moral
status [cf. 61]. With these points in mind, the eighth condition can now be
summarized:
None of
Kant's various formulations of the categorical imperative should be taken as
its 'official' form;[25] for the question
of what is being commanded is at this point subordinate to the fact
that something is being commanded as
a morally necessary action. Perhaps its most profound version would be the
simple command: 'do your duty' [Kt6:391]. This command is fully realized only
in step nine, where a moral action is
actually performed:
The action which is objectively practical according
to [the moral] law and excludes inclination from its determining grounds is
called duty ...
The concept
of duty thus requires of action that it objectively agree with the law, while
of the maxim of the action it demands subjective respect for the law as the
mode of determining the will through itself. [Kt4:80-1; s.a. 31]
In terms of the categorical imperative which serves
as its basis, 'duty is practical unconditional necessity of action' [Kt5:425]:
it 'directs categorically, irrespective of the objects of desire-the
subject-matter of volition-and, consequently, of any end whatsoever.'
Although the form of an action determines its moral
worth, it is nevertheless the matter
(i.e., the end, as given in the maxim) which we actually aim to carry out when
we do our duty.[26] Since 'human
actions' are, as it were, the 'appearances' of the will [Kt60:17], the actual
performance of an action is inextricably bound up with the sensible conditions
of systemt; and since acting thereby impinges to some extent on our inclinations,
the effort required to make actions conform to the requirements of the moral
law may vary greatly in different situations. Indeed, because our obedience to
this law sometimes requires turning our backs on various inclinations, such
obedience is called duty [cf.
Kt35:(15-6) and Kt6:379]. In such instances duty involves 'a necessitation [step eight] to an end we
adopt reluctantly' [386]. Our motive
for obeying, however, is not duty itself, but respect for the moral law [Kt8:
27-8(22-3); s.a. Pq5]; for Kant, duty is technically 'the necessity of an action executed from [i.e., motivated
by] respect for the law.'[27] Regarded as a motive,
duty would imply the 'wooden imitation' [P3:51; cf. Kt5:409] of rules imposed
upon us from some outside source, such as tradition. Kant severely criticizes
the 'fantastically virtuous [man] who admits nothing morally indifferent
... and strews all his steps with duties, as with man-traps'; for such an
approach 'would turn the sovereignty of virtue into tyranny' [Kt6:409]. But
regarded as an action, duty is simply our free, empirical obedience to a moral
command, which must present itself as a command (a categorical obligation)
because of the potential conflict which exists between our finite sensible
nature and our feeling of respect for the moral law [cf. P3:70-1,113-6].
Regardless of
how strict the requirements of duty are, Kant insists it is always at least possible to fulfill them, since they are
rooted in the agent's own rationality:
Whenever we bring any flattering thought of merit
into our actions, the incentive is already mixed with self-love and thus has
some assistance from the side of sensibility. But to put everything else after
the holiness of duty and to know that we can
do it because our own reason acknowledges it as its law and says that we ought to do it-that is, as it were, to
lift ourselves altogether out of the world of sense [i.e., to render the limits
of systemt temporarily irrelevant to our activity] ... [Kt4:159]
This ninth condition insures that Kant's moral
theory is not that of 'a pharisaical formalist',[28] by requiring
genuine moral activity, not just mere
'legality',[29] to become an actual
part of one's empirical nature. Wood puts forth Kant's case admirably when he
says that to be virtuous, one must
act on valid maxims,
and hence labor to attain the ends represented ... as the matter of such maxims....
[Accordingly,] there can be no 'reign of law' without a purposeful relation to
the world of action and a genuine attempt to transform that world in
accordance with the law of morality. [W24:64; cf. G16:xxiii]
As we saw at
the beginning of this section, the decision by which a moral agent 'applies
what is asserted universally in the rule (in
abstracto) to an action (in concreto)'-i.e.,
the function which actually gives rise to the performance of duty-is
'practical judgment' [Kt4:67; s.a. 81]. Kant devotes little attention to
explaining this term, not only because of its similarities to both theoretical
judgment and 'common rational judgment' [Kt5:404], but also because the
preceding eight steps of systemp are themselves a thoroughgoing
analysis of the conditions which give rise to this empirical function in our
moral experience. Moreover, he analyzes its actual manifestation in experience
in Kt6 [s.e. 379-98], where he examines in detail 'the four main types of duty:
juridical duty, perfect duty to oneself, imperfect duty to oneself, and duty of
virtue to others' [G16:xxxv]. But since the details of his analysis of duty in
terms of this 2LAR are irrelevant to systemp as such, it will
suffice merely to conclude our discussion of stage three with a summary of
step nine:
B. The Final End of Morality (++)
Kant's
exposition of the first three stages of systemp attempts to show
that, as Silber puts it, 'the concept of freedom is as thoroughly deduced from
the perspective [i.e., standpoint] of moral experience as is the concept of
causality from the perspective [i.e., standpoint] of scientific experience'
[S11: lxxiiin; cf. Kt4:141]. This leaves to the fourth stage the task of
justifying the other metaphysical ideas around which the System revolves: God
and immortality [see VII.3.B]. Concerning his treatment of these topics Kant
warns that 'reason in its practical standpoint is not a bit better off [than in
systemt]. As pure practical reason it likewise seeks the unconditioned for the
practically conditioned ..., under the name of the highest good' [108; cf.
W24:91]. The question which sets off Kant's attempt to complete his system of
moral perspectives is: What is the ultimate purpose or 'final end' of our
moral activity? His answer to this question comes in the fourth stage of systemp, discussed
primarily in the 'Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason' [Kt4:107-148], where the
ultimate 'object' of systemp is 'presented to the will' [64].
Before
expounding the three steps which constitute this stage, its 'object' must be
carefully distinguished from the 'object' given in the maxim in step three. As
Kant explains, whenever 'the representation of an effect is at the same time
the ground determining an intelligent efficient cause to its production, the
effect so represented is termed an end'
[Kt7:426; cf. P3:166-7]. As such, all moral actions seek to realize ends, as
expressed in the maxims of step three, for they are all effects resulting from
a person's free, intelligent causality. Kant's use of the term 'end' in stage
four is clearly distinguishable from its use in the first three stages, for it
now refers not to any particular end, but to a single, 'final' end, which is
'not to be taken as the determining
ground of the pure will' [Kt4:109]. On the contrary, 'the whole of pure reason
... is presented to reason through its final end in the sphere of the
practical' [Kt1:xxxviii]. 'A final end
is an end that does not require any other [subsequent] end as a condition of
its possibility' [Kt7:434]. As 'man's morally rational ideal of the complete
and perfect goal of human life' [G14:lvi], this end is 'an idea that has
objective reality for us in practical matters' [Kt7:469]. In this way, as Wood
notes, Kant distinguishes 'between what the law commands us to do'-viz., dutiful realization of
particular ends-'and what it commands us to seek'-viz.,
the highest good as a final end [W24:94].
'The idea of
a final end in the employment of freedom in obedience to moral laws' provides
us now with 'a principle which, from a subjective perspective, is
constitutive'-i.e., it constitutes the true 'object' of systemp [Kt7:453]: 'The
achievement of the highest good in the world is the necessary object of a
will determinable by the moral law' [Kt4:122]. 'This summum bonum is formed', Kant argues, 'by the union of universal
happiness with the strictest morality' [Kt7:453; s.a. Kt35:(77)]. The latter
entails 'moral perfection' [Kt4:128], or 'virtue' [110], which depends upon
'the strength of man's maxims in fulfilling his duty'.[30] Kant maintains
that 'virtue (as the worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of
whatever appears to us to be desirable and thus of all our pursuit of
happiness' [Kt4:110]. Stage three makes it clear that 'to further one's
happiness can never be a direct duty, and even less can it be a principle of
duty' [93]; nevertheless happiness does fulfill a necessary function in systemp, because in
order for virtue to become the 'perfect good ..., happiness is also required'
as a 'necessary corollary' to morality.[31] Happiness 'is
one end ... which we may presuppose as actual in all rational beings so far
as imperatives apply to them' [Kt5:415]. That is, happiness is the 'idea of a
state' which ought to follow upon
one's dutiful obedience to such imperatives [Kt7:430]-an idea every moral
agent actually possesses.
Since Kant is
careful to keep virtue and happiness distinct, we can regard them as the tenth
and eleventh steps on the path to the highest good: 'happiness and morality
[i.e., virtue] are two specifically different elements of the highest good and
therefore their combination cannot be known analytically ... The highest good
is a synthesis of concepts'
[Kt4:112; s.a. Kt66:277-82(143-7)]. Their difference is analogous to that
between the unconditioned and the idea in systemt: like the
unconditioned, 'virtue is ... the condition having no condition superior to
it, while happiness ... always presupposes conduct in accordance with the
moral law as its condition' [Kt4:110-1], just as the regulative idea
presupposes empirical knowledge. 'The highest good will therefore consist',
Wood observes, 'in a complete and total attainment of both of these
components' [W24:92]; as such, it is not a presupposition of practical reason,
but 'the descriptive product of reason's drive for totality' [M11:178]. Kant
unambiguously expounds the logical relationship between the three steps of
stage four in Kt4:119e.a.: 'the supreme good (as the first condition of the highest good) is morality; and ...
happiness, though it indeed constitutes the second element of the highest good, does so only as the morally
conditioned but necessary consequence of the former.' The key aspect of the
relationship between these two conditions is that their combination in the highest
good requires that 'the greatest happiness is thought of as connected in exact proportion to the greatest degree
of moral perfection possible to creatures' [129-30e.a.]; for 'the moral value
of happiness is conditioned by a virtuous character as the worthiness to be
happy' [W24:89; s.a. 126].
Our actual
attainment of the highest good is, Kant admits, severely limited by the fact
that the 'connection of the conditioned with its condition [i.e., virtue with
happiness] belongs wholly to the supersensuous relations of things and cannot
be given under the laws of the world of sense, even though ... the actions
which are devoted to realizing the highest good, do belong to this world'
[Kt4:119]. To ignore this limit is to ignore Kant's warning in Kt4:108 (q.a.)
concerning the danger of dialectical illusion in systemp. For, as he
reminds us in Kt7:403,
what ought
necessarily to happen frequently does not happen. Hence it is clear that it
only springs from the subjective character of our practical faculty that the
moral laws must be represented as commands, and the action conformable to them
as duties, and that reason expresses this necessity ... by an "ought to
be" ...
In spite of
this limitation any moral agent who wishes to be fully rational must find a way
to explain how the final end of morality can be fulfilled:
It is a duty to realize the highest good as far as
it lies within our power to do so; therefore, it must be possible to do so.
Consequently, it is unavoidable for every rational being in the world to assume
whatever is necessary to its objective possibility. The assumption is as
necessary as the moral law, in relation to which alone it is valid.[32]
As Ward affirms, 'practical reason necessarily aims
at the preservation and development of all purposes (including the essential
purposes with which nature is concerned in man, human happiness and
perfection)' [W10:112-3]. If morality is to be conceived as ultimately
rational, therefore, a 'supplement to our impotence' is required in the case of
both virtue and happiness [119].
Concerning
virtue, Kant argues that 'complete fitness of the will to the moral law is
holiness, which is a perfection of which no rational being in the world of
sense is at any time capable. But since it is required as practically
necessary, ... [we must assume] an endless progress to that complete fitness';
and this requires 'the supposition of the immortality of the soul'.[33] Likewise 'the
second element of the highest good, i.e., happiness proportional to that of
morality', is often not realized in particular moral situations, so the moral
agent 'must postulate the existence of God as necessarily belonging to the
possibility of the highest good ...'[34] The postulate of
God alone makes it possible 'to equate virtue and happiness' [G14:lviii], in
the sense of conceiving how the two can exist in equal proportion to each other [see Kt7:452; Kt8:7-8n(6-7n)]. Thus,
'the existence is postulated of a cause of the whole of nature, itself distinct
from nature, which contains the ground of the exact coincidence of happiness
with morality' [Kt4:125]. Such a being must be 'capable of actions by the idea
of laws'; hence it must not only be 'a rational being': it must be 'God' [125].
Kant defends this postulation 'of a moral
author of the world' in Kt7:453:
As this assumption at least involves nothing intrinsically
self-contradictory [cf. the regulative ideas in stage four of systemt]
[we] may quite readily make it from a practical standpoint, that is to say, at
least for the purpose of framing a conception of the possibility of the final
end morally prescribed to [us].
Like freedom
in stage one, these postulates of God and immortality 'are not theoretical
dogmas, but presuppositions of necessarily practical import' [Kt4:132; s.a.
Kt69:305-6]. Thus the argument Kant uses to defend them is not intended
necessarily to convince every skeptic [Kt7:450-1]. Rather, it is, as Wood aptly
calls it, 'a reductio ad absurdum
practicum, an argument leading to an
unwelcome conclusion about the person himself as a moral agent.'[35] The ideas of
practical reason are 'immanent and constitutive' of the highest good
[Kt4:135], so we cannot reject them without rejecting the rational end of
morality itself. Therefore, only skeptics who desire to act morally are forced
to choose between regarding moral activity as essentially irrational (and thus
failing to understand the nature of morality) or accepting the practical
reality of freedom, immortality and God. Kant's argument appeals only to
persons who strive for moral goodness and believe morality has a rational
purpose [146].
Kant is
trying to convince anyone who does not wish to be either immoral or irrational
to adopt a moral faith in the
transcendent objects to which his practical postulates refer [Kt7:469]. Nothing
can force anyone to do so, however,
for this 'faith of pure practical reason ... is a voluntary decision'
[Kt4:146]: it 'springs from the moral disposition' (cf. step one), so 'it is
itself not commanded.' As such, moral faith is not simply a version of Freudian
'wish-fulfilment' [see W24:182-7], nor do its historical roots in Christian doctrine
[see D3:311; P3:196-7] preclude the concept of 'faith' from being 'freely approved by reason' [Kt7:471-2n].
For Kant's 'reflective' faith must be distinguished from 'dogmatic faith, which proclaims itself as a form of knowledge' [Kt8:52(48)]: the 'matter of
faith', with which the former is concerned, is not intended to be made an
'article of faith'; for it 'cannot, like matters of fact, depend on theoretical
proofs' [Kt7:469n], but rather on 'a practical need' [Kt4:126]. 'The
"belief" of which Kant speaks', therefore, is not itself a duty, but
'a condition for purposive volition,
or for the rationality of that volition' [W24:23; s.a. 151]. As we saw in our
detailed discussion of faith in Chapter V, rational faith operates in both
systemt and systemp; indeed, it forms an important link between them.
For in systemp moral faith requires practical belief in the reality of the objects of the same 'transcendental ideas' which
could only be viewed as possible in
systemt [cf. 145-6]. It is therefore faith in the practical value of concepts
which for systemt must always remain 'problematic' [Kt1:445n].
Kant makes it
quite clear that the adoption of moral faith does not guarantee that in this
life the moral agent will attain perfect virtue or receive happiness in return
for moral goodness. Concerning proportional happiness, for example, he says in
Kt4:128-9:
But the moral law does not of itself promise
happiness, for the latter is not, according to concepts of any order of nature,
necessarily connected with obedience to the law [i.e., to virtue]....
[Proportional] happiness cannot (as far as our own capacity is concerned) be
reached in this present life and therefore is made only an object of hope.
In fact, because it is in constant conflict with
inclination and self-love, 'a virtuous disposition is just as likely to
increase the pain of this life' [Kt35:(75); see note VIII.22].
This
inadequacy of human moral agents to realize the highest good leads Kant to
conjecture as to what the proper context for its fulfillment would actually
be. Insofar as it points forward to the fulfillment of the highest good, 'the
principle of autonomy of the will ...
leads to a very fruitful concept, namely that of a realm of ends', a 'realm' or 'kingdom' (Reich) being understood as 'the systematic union of different
rational beings through common laws' [Kt5:433]. Thus, although Kant sometimes
seems to be saying moral agents should have only their own virtue and happiness as their highest end, this notion of a
realm of ends clarifies that, as Wood puts it, 'the moral good of all finite rational beings is the
unqualified and unconditioned end of the finite rational moral agent'
[W24:78]. For 'true spiritual goodness ... reaches out after a good-will of
universal scope' [Kt35:(206)]. From the hypothetical perspective of the realization
of this final end in step twelve, '[m]orality [i.e., virtue (step ten)] ...
consists in the relation of every action [step nine] to that legislation [step
eight] through which alone a realm of ends [step twelve] is possible'
[Kt5:434]. Kant believes such a realm should 'be thought of as united under a
sovereign [step eleven] so that [it] ... no longer remain[s] a mere idea but
... receive[s] true reality' [439]. In fact, he says 'the summum bonum ... is alone possible under' the guidance of 'the
Sovereign Head legislating in a moral Kingdom of Ends' [Kt7:444]. 'Duty', in
such a case, 'pertains not to the sovereign in the realm of ends, but rather to
each member, and to each in the same degree' [Kt5:434].
From the
empirical perspective of actual moral action (step nine), such a realm of ends
is 'certainly only an ideal.'[36] Indeed, we can
conceive of it 'only by analogy with a realm of nature' [Kt5:438]. The moral
agent should nevertheless act as if
the highest good is attainable by striving after it as an ultimate goal, with
the hope that it will eventually be realized in some form.[37] Wood defends
such a position in W24:98: 'Just as the ideas of reason in the first critique
were necessary, and could not be simply dismissed as foolish chimeras, so the
ideal end of finite rationality cannot be simply ignored, or relegated to the
comfortable status of an "unattainable ideal."' Instead, the 'holiness
of the will', as conceived of in the context of a realm of ends, is 'a
practical ideal which must necessarily serve as a model which all finite
rational beings must strive toward even though they cannot reach it' [Kt4:32].
For us, then, virtue is 'the unending progress of [our] maxims toward this
model' [32], a progress which, as Wood puts it, might then be 'regarded by God
as in some sense morally equivalent to holiness' [W24:120].
Once an ideal
realm of ends is accepted as a necessary condition or context for the
eventual fulfillment of the highest good, systemp is complete. For
in this final step, we 'end where we started, with the concept of an unconditionally
good will' [Kt5:437; s.a. 396]. The good will which was posited as an unknown
in step one is now regarded as being fully determined in every rational moral
being, thus fulfilling the final end towards which all moral activity points.
Because of the close connection between each of the three steps which have led
up to this final end of systemp, it has not been expedient
to provide summaries for each step as the stage unfolds. Now that our exposition
of this stage is complete, however, such summaries can be readily provided:
Although these steps are all 'matters of faith'
[Kt7:469], each is required in order for moral agents to answer the question of
the final end of their moral activity.
4. An Analytic
Summary and a Synthetic Model
Having
completed our interpretation of the essential elements in Kant's system of
practical perspectives, we can now follow the pattern set in VII.4 by
summarizing systemp in reverse, or analytic, order, and then
diagramming the analysis, as in Figure VIII.1. Before doing so it should be
noted that, with the help of the principle of perspective, we have been able to
interpret systemp without appealing to those infamous theories, such
as the 'noumenal self' or 'timeless acts', which have traditionally been
attributed to Kant and used as reasons for rejecting his position or avoiding
its implications [see Ap. VIII]. Moreover, a perspectival interpretation of
systemp releases us, as we shall see more fully in Part Four, from any need to
find ways of refuting the supposedly destructive metaphysical implications of
systemt.
Stage four. The hypothetical
perspective (++) in systemp aims to establish the ultimate purpose, or 'final
end', of moral action. This end, called the 'highest good' (x), can be
conceived to be possible only by setting before oneself an idealized 'realm of
ends', in which perfect virtue (-) is combined with happiness (+) proportional
to each person's virtue. Because humans are not only intellectual but also
sensible beings, they do not always act virtuously; and when they do, they are
not always rewarded with happiness. We who do not yet live in the ideal realm
must therefore adopt a moral faith to postulate the reality of a God who, as a
righteous judge, will insure happiness for the virtuous, and an immortal life
in which human beings can gradually attain perfect virtue.
Stage three. The empirical perspective
(-+) deals with the actual realization of moral action. The real experience of
moral action is called duty (x), and
it results from a practical judgment impelling us to follow some unconditional
rule for action (+). The agent is obligated to obey such rules because they are
commanded by the 'categorical imperative', which is the moral law viewed from
the empirical perspective. The autonomous choice to obey (-), which signals an
agent's adoption of this imperative, is motivated by a feeling of respect for
the moral law. (This provides an interest in obeying the law which counteracts
the agent's natural interest in pursuing happiness through the heteronomous
choice to fulfill sensuous inclinations.) Such respect functions as a
schema, synthesizing the moral law (stage two) with free will (stage one).
Stage two. The logical perspective (+-)
deals with the conceptual form of moral actions, as expressed in the moral law.
Because the moral law legislates through human reason, the 'we' of humanity
must be regarded as an end in itself, so that all moral ends will be personal
ends (x). A personal end can be adopted only by someone who can understand the
concepts of good and evil
STAGE STAGE STAGE STAGE
ONE (--)
TWO (+-) THREE (-+) FOUR (++)
Figure VIII.1: Schematic Analysis* of Systemp
(+), as determined by the categories of freedom. The categorial conception of
freedom (and so also personhood itself) requires the capacity to universalize
a maxim of the will (stage one) in order to produce a moral principle (-).
Stage one. The transcendental
perspective (--) concerns that which must hold true of an object of desire in
order for it to produce material for a moral action. A maxim (x) is the
subjective rule of action which results from an agent's choice of an end (i.e.,
a possible object) from among the manifold of desires (+). The latter arises
when the fact of practical freedom is imposed upon a good will (-). This wholly
undetermined concept of a 'good will' can be regarded as the original
manifestation of a moral agent's transcendent disposition (0), which is the
ultimate basis of the agent's desire to act.
Many common
disagreements between interpreters of Kant's moral philosophy can be resolved
once the principle of perspective is taken into consideration. An obvious
example is the coherence it renders to his frequently criticized doctrine of
happiness [see note VIII.31]: happiness is considered from different
perspectives when he rejects its legitimacy as a motive, yet accepts it as an
element in the highest good. The former concerns its empirical (i.e., constitutive) role in our actual activities, whereas the latter concerns
its hypothetical (i.e., regulative)
role in our moral beliefs. Likewise,
the postulates of God and immortality tend to give the impression of being
superfluous additions to an already complete moral theory precisely because
their proper place is in stage four. The system is indeed completed in step
nine, from the perspective of moral
activity; in order to understand the arguments for God and immortality,
therefore, a change of perspective is
required. Or again, a solution is readily available to the problem which
confounds many interpreters [see e.g., P5:117-31; W10:128-9] as to whether the
categorical imperative is (1) a purely formal and 'descriptive' condition
of morality, or (2) a 'prescriptive' condition 'from which specific classes of
duties [can] be derived' [129]. In stage two the categorical imperative is
considered from the logical perspective (that of the moral law), and functions
as in (1); but in stage three the same imperative, considered now from the
empirical perspective (that of moral action), functions as in (2). The above
is just a sampling of the many quandaries which the interpreter of Kant's moral
philosophy can avoid by thoroughly applying the principle of perspective.
The many
parallels between systemt and systemp which have been
brought to light in the foregoing interpretation should in any case make it
amply clear that systemp follows the same architectonic structure as systemt. Thus we can use
the same model to symbolize the synthetic progression of both [see Figure
VIII.2]. The only remaining question is how these two systems are meant to
relate to each other as systems. Kant speaks to this matter
Figure VIII.2: Kant's Circle of Moral Action
in Kt1:824: 'Now all synthetic knowledge through
pure reason's speculative standpoint is ... completely impossible....
Consequently if any pure rational standpoint be correct ... [it] will be not
the speculative but the practical.' This
view that the 'proper territory' of pure reason is 'that of practical principles'
[Kt1:822] Kant later describes as the 'primacy' of practical reason.[38] 'Primacy' in
this sense refers neither to the logical order of the two Critical systems (for
systemt has primacy in this sense [cf. W10:97-8]), nor to the ability of
systemp 'to comprehend [systemt] within [its limits]'
[Kt4:121]. On the contrary, it has to do with the question 'Which interest is
superior?' [120] -i.e., Which system must look to the other for its ultimate value?
Since stage four of systemt ends in failure when its ends are assumed to be purely theoretical (i.e., speculative),
and succeeds only when those ends are regarded as practical (i.e.,
hypothetical), the fulfillment of the latter is clearly of utmost interest to
the former. For as Kant says in Kt7:442, a good
will is the 'final end of the world', and 'must be presupposed as that in
relation to which the contemplation of the world [in systemt] may itself
possess a worth.'
The primacy
of systemp is symbolized in our model by the fact that the standpoint of systemt is located at
position six on Figure III.6 [cf. Figure IV.2], while that of systemp is at the apex
of the diagram, position twelve (which is also the origin). The tension between these two points symbolizes the fact
that, even after these two systems are completely elaborated, the Critical
philosopher's task is still teleologically incomplete. For just as systemt ends not with
absolute knowledge in its totality, but with an open-ended reference to
regulative hypotheses, so also systemp ends not by
establishing of its own accord the highest good in its totality, but by postulating
something beyond humanity which can
achieve this telos. We could also
represent the relationship between systemt and systemp by combining the
diagrams in Figures VII.5 and VIII.2 into a single, spiral model, such that
the twelfth position in systemt points to the starting
point of systemp, which in turn continues on a path towards their common center. This
would further suggest that, just as theoretical reason benefits from pointing
inwards towards a new system of practical perspectives, so also practical
reason will benefit by pointing beyond itself, beckoning the Critical mind to
systematize still deeper levels of human experience.
