Immanuel Kant · Philosophy
Kant’s profound reconciliation of freedom and determinism - and his argument that morality itself presupposes that we are free, autonomous beings who give the moral law to ourselves.
Kant faced one of the deepest problems in philosophy: the problem of freedom and determinism. On one hand, the natural world - including human beings as part of nature - seems to be governed by causal determinism: every event has a cause, everything happens according to causal laws, so that human actions, as natural events, would seem to be causally determined, not free. On the other hand, morality seems to presuppose freedom: we hold people morally responsible for their actions, we say they ought to do certain things, which presupposes that they are free to act otherwise (for ‘ought’ implies ‘can’); morality presupposes that we are free, responsible agents, not merely causally determined mechanisms. So there seems to be a deep conflict: the natural world is causally determined (which would make us unfree), but morality presupposes that we are free. How can we be both - part of the causally determined natural world, and free, responsible moral agents? This is the deep problem of freedom and determinism that Kant set out to resolve.
Central to Kant’s view is the argument that morality presupposes freedom - that the moral law, which commands us, presupposes that we are free to obey it. The moral law commands us - it says we ought to act in certain ways (according to the Categorical Imperative). But ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ - if we ought to do something, we must be able to do it, free to do it. So the moral law, in commanding us, presupposes that we are free - free to obey it, free to determine our actions by the moral law rather than being merely causally determined. If we were merely causally determined mechanisms, not free, then the moral law could not command us (for we could not do otherwise than we are determined to do, and ‘ought’ would be meaningless). The very fact that the moral law commands us - that we recognise moral obligations, that we hold ourselves and others morally responsible - presupposes that we are free, that we can determine our actions by the moral law. Morality thus presupposes freedom: the moral law, in commanding us, presupposes that we are free, autonomous agents, able to obey it. So we must regard ourselves as free - for morality, which we cannot abandon, presupposes our freedom.
Kant’s view of freedom connects to his deepest convictions about human dignity and the moral law. We are, Kant held, members of two worlds: the natural world (where we are causally determined, part of nature) and the intelligible or moral world (where we are free, autonomous, rational agents, members of the kingdom of ends). Our freedom and autonomy - our capacity to determine ourselves by the moral law we give ourselves, to rise above the determination of natural causes and inclinations and govern ourselves by reason and the moral law - are the basis of our dignity, our moral worth, our membership in the moral world. Through our freedom and autonomy, we are not merely parts of the determined natural mechanism but free, self-governing, morally responsible agents, with a dignity above all price. Kant expressed his awe at this - at the moral law within us, the sign of our freedom, autonomy, and dignity, our membership in the moral world - in one of the most famous passages in philosophy: his wonder at ‘the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me’ - the vast natural cosmos, and the moral law within, the sign of our freedom and dignity as moral beings. Our freedom and autonomy, the basis of our dignity and our membership in the moral world, are at the heart of Kant’s vision of the human being as a free, autonomous, morally responsible agent with an intrinsic dignity.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that Kant reconciled freedom and determinism through the two standpoints, and held that morality presupposes freedom (autonomy). Explain Kant’s view of freedom and its relation to the moral law, in your own words.
Leads to Jean-Paul Sartre.
Begin this lesson →epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.