Days 22-23:
The Postulates of
Practical Reason
Review: Space & Time as Conditions for the Possibility of Experience
On the Conditions for the Possibility of Morality
Freedom as a Condition for the Possibility of Morality
Virtue, Happiness, & the Immortality of the Soul
God, Virtue, Happiness, & the Immortality of the Soul
More to the Story
Review: Space & Time as Conditions for the Possibility of Experience
Kant uses his idea that space and time are conditions for the possibility
of experience in an attempt to show:
(1) how synthetic a priori claims are possible in mathematics, &
(2) why synthetic a priori reasoning is justified in mathematics.
On the Conditions for the Possibility
of Morality
Is morality objectively binding? Should we adhere to that which is
categorically imperative? Kant has not taken himself to answer these questions
in sections 1 and 2 of FPMM.
Section 3 of FPMM gets billed as an attempt to answer two
questions:
(1) how are synthetic a priori claims
possible in morality?
(2) what justifies the use of such
claims (i.e. why be moral or act in categorically imperative ways)?
In FPMM section 3, he is starting the examination of the
conditions for the possibility of morality, and the answer to the above
questions are grounded in those conditions.
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
The moral ought implies that it is possible for us to behave in the
prescribed way, so morality presupposes that we are free.
Kant argues that freedom is a condition for the possibility of morality,
that freedom is the third term required to synthetically link the will of the
rational agent with the moral law. This link is also independent of experience,
necessary and universal a priori.
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
What does Kants account of how synthetic a priori prescriptions are
possible in morality imply for establishing the objective bindingness of such
prescriptions?
He is less than clear on the above question.
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
From the phenomenal perspective, we are causally determined (just as all
phenomena are).
Noumenally, it is possible that we are free (or not). Theoretical reason
cannot know or have a proof one way or the other; this falls out of the views in
the CPR.
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
Here are a couple things to think about w.r.t. what Kant tries to do in
establishing freedom in his practical philosophy:
(1) has he given us good reason to
believe or have a rational, practical faith in freedom?
(2) assuming he succeeds in doing the
above, has he shown us why we should act in accordance with that which is
categorically imperative?
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
In the CPrR (Abbott 187-194) , Kants view appears to be that
freedom and being bound by objective moral norms reciprocally imply each other
In section three of FPMM, he argues that it is reasonable to
believe in freedom since (i) it makes the moral law possible; (ii) there can be
no theoretical proof of the impossibility of freedom, & (iii) it is practically
necessary to think of ourselves as free
Freedom as a Condition for the
Possibility of Morality
In spite of differences of emphasis in FPMM and CPrR,
acting under the idea (assumption) of freedom in the FPMM can be likened
to the postulate of freedom in the CPrR
Other postulates in CPrR: the immortality of the soul and God
Virtue, Happiness, & the Immortality
of the Soul
The summum bonum includes virtue and happiness
Why is the immorality of the soul postulated?
Postulating immortality leaves us with the question of how the pursuit of
virtue is linked up with achieving happiness
God, Virtue, Happiness, & the
Immortality of the Soul
God is postulated as the guarantor of the link between virtue and
happiness
For Kant: morality, when understood through the summum bonum,
gives us a reason (practical faith) to believe in God. According to the CPrR,
God is arrived at through morality, not the other way around
Morality and God
CPrR (Abbott, 226):
The moral laws lead through the
conception of the summum bonum as the object and final end of pure
practical reason to religion, that is, to the recognition of all
duties as divine commands, not as sanctions, that is to say, arbitrary
ordinances of a foreign will and contingent in themselves, but as essential
laws of every free will in itself, which, nevertheless must be regarded as
commands of the Supreme Being, because it is only from a morally perfect
Morality and God
(holy and good) and at the same time all-powerful will, and
consequently only through harmony with this will, that we can hope to attain the
summum bonum which the moral law makes it our duty to take as the object
of our endeavours. Here again, then, all remains disinterested and founded
merely on duty; neither fear nor hope being made the fundamental springs, which
if taken as principles would destroy the whole moral worth of actions.
More to the Story
For Kant, reason is more than just theoretical (scientific, mathematical,
& metaphysical) and practical, it also has an important aesthetic dimension
(explored in the Critique of Judgment)
Our capacity for insight into beauty and the sublime is said to mediate
between the theoretical and the practical
Be sure to do your independent study reading on the above subject