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The present work focuses on the three central moments of Kant’s practical philosophy (the third antinomy of the transcendental dialectic, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the beginning of the second Critique) by establishing the concept of “moral insight” as its guideline. Our objective is both negative and positive: first, we aim to deconstruct the view that Kant relapses into dogmatism in the KpV due to his use of the concept of the “fact of reason”, which offers immediate evidence for the moral law; second, we aim to show that Kant’s philosophy has developed in a way that led Kant to the conclusion that a deduction along the lines of the KrV would be inadequate for practical reason. Kant effectively recognizes throughout his intellectual path that the notion of “moral insight” demands a new approach, which was first attempted in the Groundwork but only achieved its conclusive form in the second Critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the place of the principles "ought implies can" (OIC) and "you can because you ought" (CBO) in Kant's moral philosophy. Contrary to an often tacit assumption in the relevant literature, according to which CBO is simply a version of OIC, I argue that it is a separate principle, which has a central role in Kant's attempt to justify morality and freedom on the basis of the consciousness of the moral law as a "fact of reason". Crucial to my main argument is the somewhat neglected distinction between actuality and reality of freedom, which leads me to a differentiation within CBO itself. This differentiation is of particular importance for understanding in what the deduction of freedom in the second Critique consists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the literature dedicated to the Kantian reception of Spinoza has experienced a significant increase. There are several studies dedicated to mapping the presence of the latter in both pre-critical and critical writings of the former, and different are the results achieved by each. Yet, with the exception of a few references to the section in which Spinozism is presented as the only alternative to transcendental idealism, the Critique of Practical Reason is almost never mentioned nor, even less, is it customary to look at it in an attempt to find something that attenuates the contrast between the two philosophies. The aim of this essay is to show how it is precisely in the second Critic, and in particular by introducing the Fact of Reason, that Kant thinks, so to speak, together with Spinoza. Indeed, in 1788 the moral law works as an adequate idea that makes us active causes, and the experience of the freedom procured by the conscience that we have of it is, therefore, very similar to the experience of eternity illustrated by the fifth book of the Ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of evidence regarding joint commitment and plural action is mostly reserved for documents and explicit linguistic expressions. This paper considers the problem of evidence in cases of engaged (jointly committed) social acts where there is no explicit expression or binding document, yet can still be ascribed to a plural subject. The argument rests on the double meaning of the term factum as fact (factum brutum) and deed (factum practica), as well as contemporary debates about the topic of fact of reason in Kant. The text seeks to show that in certain cases, the execution of an act or the obligation produced by it can be considered evidence of a plural subject. Thus, these facts deserve a special position in relation to scientific evidence.

Carl Arnold Wilmans received his degree of doctor in philosophy in Halle in 1797 for a bold thesis. He claimed a latent similarity between Kant’s enlightened philosophy of religion and the pure mysticism of some so-called separatists — and sent his work to Kant. The fact that and how the latter re­acted to it, makes the matter all the more interesting. Could Kant have been a secret mystic? The following study attempts to give a differ­entiated presentation of Kant’s intellectual relationship with mysticism, which was not as unambiguous as it may seem, by first elaborating the historical background as well as the philo­sophical and theological contexts of Wilmans’ dissertation. Furthermore, the focus of my study is directed towards Kant’s essay On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone in Philosophy. I show that the central Kantian theorem of the fact of reason con­verges with his doctrine of respect to the moral law as intelligible feeling. This rapprochement allows the latter to play an argumentative role that, by serving as ratio cognoscendi of freedom, is also of epistemic value. Kant’s practical philosophy turns out to be based on a quasi-phenomenological intuitionism of finite reason in which aesthetic elements are of such importance that Wilmans’ assertion of its latent similarity to pure mysticism may be justified.

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Copyright of Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy is the property of Con-Textos Kantianos (CTK) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The first objective of this paper is to present an interpretation of Groundwork III which aims to establish two main points: first, that Kant offers there a theoretically-grounded deduction (in Kantian sense) of freedom/morality-as-autonomy; second, that Kant also offers a separate deduction of the categorical imperative. Thus, contrary to what several commentators have claimed, Groundwork III contains a theoretically-grounded double deduction. The second objective of the paper is to examine and criticize in detail one crucial step in these deductions, namely, Kant’s inference from the speculative spontaneity of reason to the noumenal existence of the subject as a free will. I show that Kant himself came to reject this inference in the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, and argue that this explains Kant’s rejection, in the Critique of Practical Reason, of the deduction of the moral law he previously offered. Thus, contrary to the “reconciliationist” reading, there is indeed a great reversal in the latter work.

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since H. J. Paton’s famous commentary from 1947, Kant’s interpreters have considered a ‘deduction of the categorical imperative’ a challenge. This is quite puzzling since Kant himself never talks about such a deduction - and the famous ‘deduction’ he does mention in Groundwork III.4 is, as a close reading shows, not at all the deduction of a law but the deduction of a concept, of the idea of a pure lawgiving will: Only the reality of this idea can explain the possibility of - prima facie impossible - categorical imperatives and thus of morality as autonomy. The presupposition of the validity of the moral law, however, was already a cornerstone of Kant’s critical metaphysics in 1781: Moral theology (which replaces all speculative proofs of immortality and of God’s existence) depends on the moral law’s being an undisputed datum without any need for philosophical justification (‘deduction’). While in the Groundwork (1785) Kant tried to show the practical reality of the idea of a pure will with the help of a speculative deduction of freedom (which a reviewer described as being ‘uncritical’ in May 1786), in the second Critique (1787/88) the reality of that very idea, and with it the idea of freedom, depends (as did immortality and God’s existence in 1781) on the aforementioned practical datum, which, from that point on, Kant called a “Factum der reinen Vernunft” [fact of pure reason]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many take the formula of humanity to be Kant's best formulation of the CI, there is no agreement on his argument for it. Kant says that the argument comes in GMM3, but that section is difficult to interpret. I draw on his remarks about cognizing other minds in the Paralogisms to interpret the argument of sub-section 2 of GMM3, the argument that rational beings must 'lend' the idea of freedom to all rational beings. Kant later rejects his attempt to establish the CI in GMM3 and tries again in the fact of reason passages of the Second Critique. I follow Willaschek's reading of these texts: Humans can cognize their freedom by performing a Gedankenexperiment where they experience their wills being moved through the moral law. Kant tries to move from that demonstration to the claim that pure reason gives the moral law to all humans, but his argument fails. Appealing again to his theory of other minds, I argue that he could have offered a cogent argument that all humans have an efficacious moral law within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Groundwork III, Kant attempts to give a deduction of the categorical imperative. There is widespread disagreement as to how Kant's argument is supposed to proceed. Many commentators believe that Kant's deduction fails because some of its argumentative moves are unjustified. In particular, Kant makes a mistaken inference from theoretical freedom to practical freedom, and his axiological 'superiority claim' regarding the noumenal world's priority over the sensible world is unjustified. According to the standard incompatibilist story, Kant came to see that his deduction was flawed by the time he wrote the Critique of Practical Reason, at which point he claimed that the truth of the moral law does not require a deduction since it is a 'fact of pure reason'. The moral law is no longer the conclusion of his argument; instead, it functions as the premise of an argument that establishes our freedom. Other commentators endorse a compatibilist reading, according to which the justifications of the moral law in Groundwork III and the second Critique are compatible because Kant never attempted to give the strong kind of deduction that he rightly rejects in the second Critique. On the view I develop here, the particular argumentative moves that the standard incompatibilist takes issue with are not flawed and incompatible with Kant's second Critique. I argue for a compatibilist reading of these moves. I think the compatibilist is right to claim that the deduction Kant considered impossible in both the Groundwork and the second Critique is what I call a strong deduction. I also agree with compatibilists that the deduction he actually delivers in Groundwork III is only a weak deduction that makes use of a merely problematic conception of transcendental freedom. However, I do think that Kant's argument in Groundwork III remains question begging in the final analysis. The facticity claim in the second Critique, by contrast, can provide a non-question-begging account of moral obligation. Here, I agree with the optimistic incompatibilist, who views the argument in the second Critique as an improvement on his argument in the Groundwork. However, in my novel account of Kant's argument, I endorse what I call 'radical incompatibilism' because it concerns the roots of Kant's approach to the justification of the moral law. What is novel about my account is the claim that the deduction in Groundwork III rests on the false assumption that practical cognition, like theoretical cognition, requires a critique of pure reason. In the second Critique, Kant revised his argument because he realized that, in contrast to synthetic a priori judgments of theoretical cognition, the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments of practical cognition can be derived from the actuality of a 'deed'. With respect to pure practical reason, the second Critique proceeds metaphysically - i. e. dogmatically - rather than critically. Hence Kant came to view a deduction of the categorical imperative as unnecessary and abandoned the project of a critique of pure practical reason. We should, for this reason, resist the generality of Kant's claim in the first Critique to the effect that, for all synthetic judgments a priori, 'if not a proof then at least a deduction of the legitimacy of its assertion must unfailingly be supplied' (KrV, B 286). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom inGroundworkIII. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the secondCritique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument inGroundworkIII rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the secondCritique. Accordingly, I argue, there is no reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ethics, deductivism strives for self-evident premises as a foundation for normative claims, whereas coherentism seeks moral justification in relations between abstract normative claims and moral judgments. While Immanuel Kant is still widely believed to have pursued a deductivist project, the article contends that he endeavored to justify his moral philosophy in general, and the Categorical Imperative in particular, in the coherentist manner that has since been advocated by John Rawls. First, the characteristics of Rawls's method of reflective equilibrium are summarized and traced within Kant's writings. The resulting coherentist interpretation is then defended against the opposing view that Kant's appeal to the 'fact of reason' proves his adherence to ethical intuitionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first objective of this paper is to present an interpretation of Groundwork III which aims to establish two main points: first, that Kant offers there a theoretically-grounded deduction (in a Kantian sense) of freedom/morality-as-autonomy; second, that Kant also offers a separate deduction of the categorical imperative. Thus, contrary to what several commentators have claimed, Groundwork III contains a theoretically-grounded double deduction. The second objective of the paper is to examine and criticize in detail one crucial step in these deductions, namely, Kant's inference from the speculative spontaneity of reason to the noumenal existence of the subject as a free will. I show that Kant himself came to reject this inference in the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, and argue that this explains Kant's rejection, in the Critique of Practical Reason, of the deduction of the moral law he previously offered. Thus, contrary to the "reconciliationist" reading, there is indeed a great reversal in the latter work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four different notions of freedom can be distinguished in Kant's philosophy: logical freedom, practical freedom, transcendental freedom and freedom of choice ("Willkiir"). The most important of these is transcendental freedom. Kant's arguments for its existence depend on the claim that, necessarily, the categorical imperative is the highest principle of reason. My paper examines how this claim can be made plausible.

An ontology of the intelligible world cannot explain the phenomenon of a 'free will', which is able to decide between good and evil. It follows that a Moralontologie also cannot explain an agents freely determining his actions as good or evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an account of the historical development of Kant's understanding of belief ( Glaube) from its early ties to George Friedrich Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre through various stages of refinement. It will be argued that the Critique of Pure Reason reflects an important but not final stage in Kant's understanding of belief. Its structure is further refined and its scope narrowed in later works, including the Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment. After charting these stages, an analysis of how belief relates to the Fact of Reason will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant's attempts to provide a foundation for morality are examined, with particular focus upon the fact of reason proof in the second Critique. The reconstructions proposed by Allison and Korsgaard are analysed in detail. Although analogous in many ways, they ultimately differ in their understanding of the relation between this proof and that presented in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A synthesis of the two reconstructions is proposed which amounts to combining Korsgaard's awareness of the issue of agent-situatedness, with Allison's emphasis upon the pivotal role of the notion of transcendental freedom. The reconstructed proof relies upon a teleological assumption about human agency, and thus does not provide an unconditional grounding for the moral law. After a brief examination of contemporary approaches to the grounding of a universal morality in the broadly Kantian tradition, the paper concludes with a suggestion as to how the value of freedom can form the core of an adequate response to reason's demand for such a ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]