Kant on Freedom and Human Nature (Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy) 9781032195087, 9781032196015, 9781003259985, 1032195088

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Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy

KANT ON FREEDOM AND HUMAN NATURE Edited by Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller

Kant on Freedom and Human Nature

The essays in this volume provide new readings of Kant’s account of human nature. Despite the relevance of human nature to Kant’s philosophy, little attention has been paid to the fact that the question about human nature originally pertains to pure reason. The chapters in this volume show that Kant’s point is not to state once and for all what the human being actually is, but to unite pure reason’s efforts within a unitary teleological perspective. The question about human nature is the cornerstone of reason’s unity in its different activities and domains. Kant’s question about human nature goes beyond our empirical inquiries to show that the notion of humanity represents the point of convergence and unity of pure reason’s most fundamental interests. Kant on Freedom and Human Nature will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on Kant’s philosophy. Luigi Filieri is Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Kant-Forschungsstelle of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. Among his publications: Sellars and Kant on Givenness and Intuition (Phänomenologische Forschungen 2, 2021), Concept-less Schemata: The Reciprocity of Imagination and Understanding in Kant’s Aesthetics (Kantian Review XXVI/4, 2021), and The Highest Good as the Ideal of Reason in the Canon of the first Critique (forthcoming in Kant-Studien). Sofie Møller is Junior Professor of Kant and German Idealism at the Universität zu Köln. She was a research associate at the Research Center “Normative Orders” at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and published Kant’s Tribunal of Reason: Legal Metaphor and Normativity in the Critique of Pure Reason (2020).

Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy

Kant’s Critical Epistemology Why Epistemology Must Consider Judgment First Kenneth R. Westphal The Experiential Turn in Eighteenth-Century German Philosophy Edited by Karin de Boer and Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications Edited by Jan-Willem van der Rijt and Adam Cureton System and Freedom in Kant and Fichte Edited by Giovanni Pietro Basile and Ansgar Lyssy Perspectives on Kant’s Opus postumum Edited by Giovanni Pietro Basile and Ansgar Lyssy Adam Smith and Modernity 1723–2023 Edited by Alberto Burgio Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy Edited by Robb Dunphy and Toby Lovat Kant on Freedom and Human Nature Edited by Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/RoutledgeStudies-in-Eighteenth-Century-Philosophy/book-series/SE0391

Kant on Freedom and Human Nature

Edited by Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-19508-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-19601-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-25998-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

to Olivia Karaman Møller

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

Contents

List of Abbreviations List of Contributors Introduction: Human Freedom and Human Nature

ix xiv 1

LUIGI FILIERI AND SOFIE MØLLER

PART I

The Legislation of the Realm of Freedom

11

1 Freedom Within Nature

13

ALLEN WOOD

2 Kant’s Answer to the Question “What Is the Human Being?”

30

MARCUS WILLASCHEK

3 What Is Humanity?

45

SOFIE MØLLER

4 Maximizing Freedom? Paul Guyer on the Value of Freedom and Reason in Kant

59

HEINER F. KLEMME

5 Putting Freedom First: Some Reflections on Paul Guyer’s Interpretation of Kant’s Moral Theory HERLINDE PAUER-STUDER

77

viii Contents PART II

The Legislation of the Realm of Nature93 6 Kant on the Exhibition (Darstellung) of Infinite Magnitudes

95

ROLF-PETER HORSTMANN

7 The Problem of Intersubjectivity in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

116

KONSTANTIN POLLOK

8 Kant on Conviction and Persuasion

135

GABRIELE GAVA

PART III

Bridging the Gulf between the Realms of Nature and Freedom151 9 Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing? Kant on the Final End of Creation

153

REED WINEGAR

10 Kant’s Philosophy of History, as Response to Existential Despair

173

RACHEL ZUCKERT

11 Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress: A Neo-Stoic Debate

190

MELISSA MERRITT

12 Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters: A Comparison Between Kant and Mendelssohn

209

ANNE POLLOK

Postscript: Kant on Freedom and Human Nature: Responses

232

PAUL GUYER

Index258

Abbreviations

All quotations and references from Kant’s works follow the Akademie Ausgabe (De Gruyter), according to the abbreviations below. Quotations from the Critique of Pure Reason follow the Weischedel edition: A, 17811; B, 17872. All English translations follow, when available, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge University Press). The page(s) of the English translations always appear in () brackets. Abbreviations of Kant’s works AA Anth AP BDG

Akademie-Ausgabe Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (AA 7) Aufsätze, das Philanthropin betreffend (AA 2) Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes (AA 2) Br Briefe (AA 10–13) DfS Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren erwiesen (AA 2) Di Meditationum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio (AA 1) EAD Das Ende aller Dinge (AA 8) EACG Entwurf und Ankündigung eines Collegii der physischen Geographie (AA 2) EEKU Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft (AA 20) FBZE Fortgesetzte Betrachtung der seit einiger Zeit wahrgenommenen Erderschütterungen (AA 1) FEV Die Frage, ob die Erde veralte, physikalisch erwogen (AA 1) FM Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibnitzens und Wolff’s Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (AA 20) FM/Beylagen FM: Beylagen (AA 20) FM/Lose Blätter FM: Lose Blätter (AA 20)

x Abbreviations FRT Fragment einer späteren Rationaltheologie (AA 28) GAJFF Gedanken bei dem frühzeitigen Ableben des Herrn Johann Friedrich von Funk (AA 2) GMS Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (AA 4) GNVE Geschichte und Naturbeschreibung der merkwürdigsten Vorfälle des Erdbebens, welches an dem Ende des 1755sten Jahres einen großen Theil der Erde erschüttert hat (AA 1) GSE Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (AA 2) GSK Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (AA 1) GUGR Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume (AA 2) HN Handschriftlicher Nachlass (AA 14–23) IaG Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (AA 8) KpV Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (AA 5) KrV Kritik der reinen Vernunft (to be cited according to the original pagination A/B) KU Kritik der Urteilskraft (AA 5) Log Logik (AA 9) MAM Muthmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (AA 8) MAN Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaften (AA 4) MonPh Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam (AA 1) MpVT Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee (AA 8) MS Die Metaphysik der Sitten (AA 6) RL Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (AA 6) TL Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre (AA 6) MSI De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (AA 2) NEV Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winterhalbenjahre von 1765–1766 (AA 2) NG Versuch, den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (AA 2) NLBR Neuer Lehrbegriff der Bewegung und Ruhe und der damit verknüpften Folgerungen in den ersten Gründen der Naturwissenschaft (AA 2) NTH Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (AA 1) OP Opus Postumum (AA 21 u. 22) Päd Pädagogik (AA 9) PG Physische Geographie (AA 9)

Abbreviations xi PhilEnz PND

Philosophische Enzyklopädie (AA 29) Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (AA 1) Prol Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik (AA 4) Refl Reflexion (AA 14–19) RezHerder Recensionen von J. G. Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menscheit (AA 8) RezHufeland Recension von Gottlieb Hufeland’s Versuch über den Grundsatz des Naturrechts (AA 8) RezMoscati Recension von Moscatis Schrift: Von dem körperlichen wesentlichen Unterschiede zwischen der Structur der Thiere und Menschen (AA 2) RezSchulz Recension von Schulz’s Versuch einer Anleitung zur Sittenlehre für alle Menschen (AA 8) RezUlrich Kraus’ Recension von Ulrich’s Eleutheriologie (AA 8) RGV Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (AA 6) SF Der Streit der Fakultäten (AA 7) TG Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch die Träume der Metaphysik (AA 2) TP Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (AA 8) TW Neue Anmerkungen zur Erläuterung der Theorie der Winde (AA 1) UD Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral (AA 2) ÜE Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (AA 8) ÜGTP Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie (AA 8) UFE Untersuchung der Frage, ob die Erde in ihrer Umdrehung um die Achse, wodurch sie die Abwechselung des Tages und der Nacht hervorbringt, einige Veränderung seit den ersten Zeiten ihres Ursprungs erlitten habe (AA 1) VAEaD Vorarbeit zu Das Ende aller Dinge (AA 23) VAKpV Vorarbeit zur Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (AA 23) VAMS Vorarbeit zur Metaphysik der Sitten (AA 23) VAProl Vorarbeit zu den Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik (AA 23) VARGV Vorarbeit zur Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (AA 23) VARL Vorarbeit zur Rechtslehre (AA 23)

xii Abbreviations VASF VATL VATP

Vorarbeit zum Streit der Fakultäten (AA 23) Vorarbeit zur Tugendlehre (AA 23) Vorarbeit zu Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (AA 23) VAÜGTP Vorarbeit zu Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie (AA 23) VAVT Vorarbeit zu Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie (AA 23) VAZeF Vorarbeiten zu Zum ewigen Frieden (AA 23) VBO Versuch einiger Betachtungen über den Optimismus (AA 2) VKK Versuch über die Krankheiten des Kopfes (AA 2) VNAEF Verkündigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Tractats zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie (AA 8) Vorl Vorlesungen (AA 24 ff.) V-Anth/Busolt Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1788/1789 Busolt (AA 25) V-Anth/Collins Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1772/1773 Collins (AA 25) V-Anth/Fried Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1775/1776 Friedländer (AA 25) V-Anth/Mensch Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1781/1782 Menschenkunde, Petersburg (AA 25) V-Anth/Mron Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1784/1785 Mrongovius (AA 25) V-Anth/Parow Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1772/1773 Parow (AA 25) V-Anth/Pillau Vorlesungen Wintersemester 1777/1778 Pillau (AA 25) V-Eth/Baumgarten Baumgarten Ethica Philosophica (AA 27) V-Lo/Blomberg Logik Blomberg (AA 24) V-Lo/Busolt Logik Busolt (AA 24) V-Lo/Dohna Logik Dohna-Wundlacken (AA 24) V-Lo/Herder Logik Herder (AA 24) V-Lo/Philippi Logik Philippi (AA 24) V-Lo/Pölitz Logik Pölitz (AA 24) V-Lo/Wiener Wiener Logik (AA 24) V-Mo/Collins Moralphilosophie Collins (AA 27) V-Mo/Kaehler(Stark) Immanuel Kant: Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie (Hrsg. von Werner Stark. Berlin/New York 2004) V-Mo/Mron Moral Mrongovius (AA 27)

Abbreviations xiii V-Mo/Mron II V-Met/Arnoldt V-Met/Dohna V-Met/Heinze V-Met/Herder V-Met-K2/Heinze V-Met-K3/Arnoldt V-Met-K 3E/Arnoldt V-Met-L1/Pölitz V-Met-L2/Pölitz V-Met/Mron V-Met-N/Herder V-Met/Schön V-Met/Volckmann V-MS/Vigil V-NR/Feyerabend V-PG V-Phil-Th/Pölitz V-PP/Herder V-PP/Powalski V-Th/Baumbach V-Th/Pölitz V-Th/Volckmann VRML VT VUB VUE

VvRM WA WDO ZeF

Moral Mrongovius II (AA 29) Metaphysik Arnoldt (K 3) (AA 29) Kant Metaphysik Dohna (AA 28) Kant Metaphysik L1 (Heinze) (AA 28) Metaphysik Herder (AA 28) Kant Metaphysik K2 (Heinze, Schlapp) (AA 28) Kant Metaphysik K3 (Arnoldt, Schlapp) (AA 28) Ergänzungen Kant Metaphysik K3 (Arnoldt) (AA 29) Kant Metaphysik L 1 (Pölitz) (AA 28) Kant Metaphysik L 2 (Pölitz, Original) (AA 28) Metaphysik Mrongovius (AA 29) Nachträge Metaphysik Herder (AA 28) Metaphysik von Schön, Ontologie (AA 28) Metaphysik Volckmann (AA 28) Die Metaphysik der Sitten Vigilantius (AA 27) Naturrecht Feyerabend (AA 27) Vorlesungen über Physische Geographie (AA 26) Philosophische Religionslehre nach Pölitz (AA 28) Praktische Philosophie Herder (AA 27) Praktische Philosophie Powalski (AA 27) Danziger Rationaltheologie nach Baumbach (AA 28) Religionslehre Pölitz (AA 28) Natürliche Theologie Volckmann nach Baumbach (AA 28) Über ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen (AA 8) Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie (AA 8) Von der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks (AA 8) Von den Ursachen der Erderschütterungen bei Gelegenheit des Unglücks, welches die westliche Länder von Europa gegen das Ende des vorigen Jahres betroffen hat (AA 1) Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen (AA 2) Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (AA 8) Was heißt sich im Denken orientiren? (AA 8) Zum ewigen Frieden (AA 8)

Contributors

Gabriele Gava, Università di Torino, Italy Paul Guyer, Brown University, USA Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany Heiner F. Klemme, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany Melissa Merritt, University of New South Wales, Australia Sofie Møller, Universität zu Köln, Germany Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Universität Wien, Austria Anne Pollok, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany Konstantin Pollok, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany Marcus Willaschek, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany Reed Winegar, Fordham University, USA Allen Wood, Indiana University, USA Rachel Zuckert, Northwestern University, USA

Introduction Human Freedom and Human Nature Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller

How can we conceive of the human being as free yet also limited by human nature? The conundrum of uniting the domains of freedom and nature is at the heart of Kant’s philosophy. When we consider human nature in particular, this issue becomes even more pressing, and answering the question What is the human being? consequently becomes the central question of philosophy according to Kant. What unites these two domains is lawfulness: Both are subject to reason’s legislation. Freedom flows from the practical use of reason itself – whereas the domain of nature flows from its theoretical use and the principles of understanding. In this framework, the two domains are autonomous yet somehow connected. This is why Kant is ultimately faced with the problem of unifying them in a single system. He argues that this is not just a problem for his philosophy; rather, reason itself cannot get rid of its drive toward systematic unity. Freedom may well be said to be part of human nature as one of its most distinctive features. Freedom, in a way, is what makes us human. Understanding the human being as free points to a dynamic understanding of human nature itself, whereby being human requires us to understand our moral vocation and fulfill our purposive drive toward the good. For this reason, Kant argues that moralization is the final end of history.1 On Kant’s view, human nature is characterized by freedom, which makes humanity teleologically oriented toward morality. This freedom is the freedom to set ends for action, which in turn makes human beings capable of acting in accordance with moral imperatives. In brief, this endsetting capacity is the basis for Kant’s argument that the human being ought to be regarded as an end in itself. No other natures share the ability to follow imperatives when setting ends for action. This is a point recurring at all stages of Kant’s critical philosophy, leading to a plurality of perspectives that all ultimately point at freedom as one of the most characteristic traits of human nature. The work in which Kant engages most explicitly with human nature, the Anthropology, has a pragmatic orientation in that it is concerned not just DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-1

2  Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller with an alleged given essence but with understanding what human beings actually make, can make, and most importantly ought to make of themselves. This obviously does not mean that the pragmatic-anthropological standpoint should leave aside all empirical considerations about culture, customs, and practices. Instead, Kant aims to show that all of this is still part of what human nature not only is but ought to be. If we switch perspectives and look through the lens of Kant’s aesthetics, we see that the experience of the beautiful and the experience of the sublime are concerned with freedom’s presence in human nature.2 While the beautiful can be the symbol of the morally good, the sublime makes us acquainted with our own freedom’s force as resisting nature’s magnitude and powers. True, neither the pragmatic-anthropologic nor the aesthetic standpoint provides a satisfying answer to the question about human nature. In a way, they also do not explain how freedom is part of human nature. Yet they also make clear that to talk about human nature is to talk about a nature that is also freedom, which means that a merely biological approach concerning the unity of the species is also incapable of providing an exhaustive answer. Still, the unity of the species must also be addressed in a complete account of human nature. Kant’s account of human nature – in that it is concerned with qualifying the predicate human for the substantivized verb being – is no mere account of a given nature. The essence and distinctive features of the human being are moral, meaning intrinsically related to freedom – which is no mere nature. From the outset, the question What is the human being? has a key unifying role. Kant famously raises it when dealing with the unity of reason’s fundamental interests in its two lawful employments – the theoretical and the practical. Reason’s legislation is what unites all aspects of human nature since all reason’s activity necessarily has a lawful structure. Nature as the world of experience underlies theoretical reason’s legislation, which creates the issue of bridging this determinism with the domain of freedom – that is, the domain of practical reason. However, human nature is a nature intrinsically endowed with freedom. In these terms, humanity can be said to be the place where freedom and nature coexist and eventually harmonize. The issue here is to understand how they coexist in defining human nature. A lexical clarification is needed. When dealing with Kant’s account of human nature, one may refer to four different but related points. First, human nature refers to a biological set of traits belonging to a natural species – a nature with sensible needs to be satisfied. Second, human nature is endowed with a specific rational capacity for cognition and science that  is not shared by any other species. Third, from a more genuinely anthropological point of view, human nature involves inclinations and

Introduction 3 dispositions for which Kant accounts in terms of predispositions to be developed in different ways, thereby leading to different characters. Finally, human nature is distinctively marked by freedom and the possibility of moral agency. The human being alone counts as an end in itself and the final end of nature understood in the most general sense. One might be tempted to list these four points as the most fundamental constitutive elements of a given nature we call human. After all, Kant himself refers in various way to the mentioned elements when outlining his views on the different dimensions of human existence: From our boundedness to biological traits to our rational-cognitive means; from the geographical, cultural, and educational development of given dispositions to the duty to act according to the moral law. Accordingly, human nature may seem – in line with other animal natures – as something ready-made and subjected to evolutionary drives altering our physiology throughout centuries. The literature on the topic is extensive and multifaceted. Alix Cohen (2006: 675) has argued for a kind of Kantian biological determinism following from the “biological unity of the human species” combined with the different possible developments “depending on the environment”. While making sense of the fundamental traits of the human species, Cohen does not aim to take into account the moral implications of nature’s design, though the human being in particular is endowed with a predisposition to personality (684–685). Elsewhere Cohen (2008: 506) further argues that Kant “redirects” the question about the human being from what it allegedly is to what it actually does, thereby hinting at some kind of development of human nature. This is not to merge biology and anthropology or claim that habits may alter our biology, but rather to raise the question of the unity between the different dimensions of human nature. The link between the anthropological and the ethical side of Kant’s account of human nature is at the core of Louden’s (2011) wide-ranging engagement. Louden puts great emphasis on Kant’s idea that our capacity for setting ends freely has a determining role to play in a general account of human nature. The very idea of a moral destination (Bestimmung) for the human being has two complementary implications. According to the first, the human being has a natural disposition to develop in the direction of morality; the disposition leads to moral agency and moral education throughout history and finally leads to a peaceful cosmopolitan order. According to the second, the moral disposition concerns what we ought to do, not what we allegedly are. It is an imperative for action and not the determination of an essence. More precisely, what we are should not be detached from the pragmatic standpoint concerning what we do or the moral standpoint concerning what we ought to do. If this is correct, human nature is not a fixed state but rather something to be relentlessly reaffirmed in action.

4  Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller This implies understanding human nature in action. A more dynamic reading of the moral destination of the human being may also be of help in making sense of an alleged radical evil rooted in human nature, which is somehow analogous to the moral disposition toward the good. Paul Formosa (2007) writes that radical evil is a consequence “of the fact that we adopt a maxim to give our sensuous interests priority over moral ones” (242). This view makes sense within the Kantian framework, but it also implies reading both the good and evil dispositions as virtual rather than actual. Already the coexistence of two mutually exclusive dispositions is an issue to be addressed and raises a fundamental question: If both these dispositions are grounded in human nature, what are we made for? It is immediately clear that no answer is possible on a premised dualism between good and evil. A different strategy would instead question the very idea of a human being made for something. Again, the point is to switch perspectives: Instead of approaching Kant’s account of human nature in terms of a given state of affairs, we might conceive of human nature as something relentlessly striving for its own selfrealization. We are not naturally good or evil, for being human is to constantly employ rational means and moral principles to achieve scientific, cultural, and political goals no other natural species will ever be capable of. Two further remarks are in order. The first is that – given the various constitutive elements of human nature – the question about the human being can find a legitimate answer only by means of a comprehensive perspective able to account for the various ways in which the elements at stake combine. The second point is that freedom seems to teleologically orient the physiological, rational, and anthropological elements toward moral ends. Needs, sensible incentives, the lawful theoretical employments of pure reason, and, ultimately, the cultivation of character and dispositions must all be in accordance with the laws of freedom. Already in the first Critique (in the Canon and the Architectonic) Kant addresses this issue in terms of the primacy of pure practical reason. If there is a concept connecting all the key components of human nature, it is the autonomy of the human being – which points toward another exclusively human kind of experience: Politics. As Paul Guyer (2017) notes, the concept of autonomy is a constant feature in Kant’s establishment of a system of critical philosophy: I think the three Critiques each considered its own kind of autonomy, but, of course we can understand Kant’s conception of human being as a unity. Therefore, we have to understand how theoretical reason, practical reason, and feeling are co-present and cooperative in the human being. We have to understand how theoretical autonomy, practical autonomy, and aesthetic autonomy together constitute the

Introduction 5 autonomy of the human being […]. We have to understand how the three Critiques fit together, but we can only understand that if we see each as offering its analysis of its own kind of autonomy and then understand every kind of autonomy as being separately necessary conditions and only jointly a sufficient condition for the realization of human autonomy. I think there is always a constant danger of confusion in understanding Kant, whether we talk about freedom or we talk about autonomy. We can talk about a single act as a free act or as an autonomous act, insofar as it is not determined by anything other than the law. But we also have to think of freedom and autonomy as conditions that have to be achieved and maintained, for human being and human community. We achieve that only when each individual free act of a human being is consistent with other free acts by that human being and when the free acts of individual human beings are consistent with the free acts of other human beings. (17–19) To explore autonomy in Kant’s philosophy is to approach the question about the human being according to a dynamic understanding of human nature. To frame the problem in these terms also means to deal with the most fundamental tenets of Kant’s thought – that is, to deal with all the tensions and the development of his own views throughout the years. No doubt this is a challenge. During the span of a lifelong career, Guyer has explored this space with curiosity and patience, always trying to bring to the fore Kant’s ideas and avoiding oversimplifications. The contributions collected here are also meant as explorations and as the best way not only to thank Guyer for his legacy but also to continue harvesting its fruits. *** Our gratitude to Paul Guyer is hard to describe. Among many things, it has been the root of this volume and the friendship between us as the coeditors. Our stay at Brown in 2016 was a launching pad for our careers. By following Paul in some of the many directions in which he dealt with Kant throughout subsequent years, we had a chance to meet and work with the contributors to this volume. To thank them for all their efforts is, at the same time, to thank Paul for all his time, care, and willingness to help. Overview of the Essays The essays in this volume address the problem of human nature and are organized according to the three types of rational legislation at the center of Kant’s philosophy. The first group of essays consider legislation in the

6  Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller realm of freedom and approach the question of human nature normatively. All four essays share the insight that “humanity” is not a descriptive category but prescribes what humans ought to make of themselves. In the essay Freedom Within Nature, Allen Wood argues against a two-world interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism. His point is that if we distinguish free causes from natural causes, then it follows that human agents as free causes also belong to the empirical world of appearances. Although we will never understand how this is possible, Wood argues, Kant’s ethics is committed to an understanding of free actions as occurring within the natural world and not in a separate realm of freedom. Freedom is also at the center of Marcus Willaschek’s essay Kant’s Answer to the Question “What Is the Human Being?” He considers Kant’s three questions from the Critique of Pure Reason – “What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?” – and their relation to Kant’s fourth question, “What is the human being?” Willaschek argues that this fourth question is not about describing a human essence but rather about a task or vocation that humankind is given in virtue of its freedom. For Kant, these final ends of humankind are moral, and Willaschek consequently argues that the fourth question concerns not what the human being is but rather what it ought to make of itself. The tension between a descriptive and a normative account of humanity is also at the center of Sofie Møller’s contribution. In What Is Humanity?, she considers Kant’s notion of humanity as the ability to set ends freely, and she considers its tension with the conception of humankind as a biological species. Her conclusion is that we ought to consider humanity as a teleological ideal toward which each human being ought to strive when acting. Heiner Klemme considers the relationship between reason and freedom in Maximizing Freedom? Paul Guyer on the Value of Freedom and Reason in Kant. He argues against Guyer’s claim that freedom is the supreme value in Kant’s philosophy and that reason is the means of realizing this value. Klemme takes issue with this naturalistic account of Kant’s ethics and argues that the intrinsic value is not freedom but rationality since ­rational nature exists as an end in itself. Consequently, Klemme concludes that ethics is reason’s means of self-preservation and that freedom is merely the presupposition behind reason’s demands and interests as opposed to a fundamental value on which Kant bases his ethics. Herlinde Pauer-Studer problematizes Guyer’s emphasis on freedom in her Putting Freedom First: Some Reflections on Paul Guyer’s Interpretation of Kant’s Moral Theory. While Klemme focuses on Guyer’s claims in Virtues of Freedom (2016), Pauer-Studer considers his revised account in Kant on the Rationality of Morality (2019), which, while showing that compliance with the ethical imperatives is important and why

Introduction 7 universalizability ensures autonomy, does not address why categorical imperatives are justified. Building on Guyer’s account, Pauer-Studer focuses on what the justification of the categorical imperative would be like when we follow Guyer’s suggestion that morality should preserve autonomy; she further argues that Kant’s idea of a realm of ends provides a justification of the moral law as preserving autonomy. The result is a justification that brings Kant closer to constructivism than realism by emphasizing the procedural role of the categorical imperative in contrast to Guyer’s realist interpretation of Kant’s ethics. Turning from morality to nature, the second group of essays focus on reason’s legislation in the realm of nature. Rolf-Peter Horstmann’s Kant on the Exhibition (Darstellung) of Infinite Magnitudes considers whether Kant’s first and third Critiques can be considered as forming a coherent philosophical system by comparing their different accounts of how infinite magnitudes may be exhibited. In line with Guyer, he argues that within the framework of the first Critique, the notion of a magnitude that is both given and infinite should be abandoned. This notion only becomes tenable in the revised framework of the third Critique, which reconsiders this exhibition as a symbolic representation. In The Problem of Intersubjectivity in Kant’s Critical Philosophy, Konstantin Pollok discusses the role of second-person perspectives in Kant’s transcendental logic, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics and argues that there are key elements of a theory of intersubjectivity in Kant’s philosophy. In ethics, Pollok argues that Kant’s intersubjective notion of autonomy is characterized by the reciprocal relationship between subject and legislator in one and the same person. Pollok shows that for Kant the universal standpoint is the capacity to put ourselves into the standpoint of others. Gabriele Gava follows this engagement with intersubjective cognition in Kant on Conviction and Persuasion. Gava argues that conviction and persuasion are operators that determine whether a taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, depending on whether it rests on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. This puts persuasion and conviction on a different level from opinion, belief, and knowledge since Gava argues that they determine whether we are warranted in taking something to be true. Gava shows that this reading is compatible with both fallibilist and infallibilist approaches to Kant’s theory of knowledge. The third group of essays consider how to bridge the gulf between the realms of nature and freedom, which is the crux of understanding human nature. Reed Winegar’s contribution, Why is there Something, Rather than Nothing? Kant on the Final End of Creation, confronts Kant’s and Leibniz’s answers to the final end of creation. Winegar argues that according to the third Critique, human beings under moral laws are the final end of God’s creation. Winegar’s point is that Kant in the third Critique replaces

8  Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller the Leibnizian theory of life’s meaning with one focused on free moral action. In opposition to Leibniz, Kant does not claim that God created the world for human beings under moral laws but rather that this is a perspective we should adopt. Winegar concludes that for Kant “the third Critique promotes Kant’s view that the ultimate calling of our life is a call to action, rather than contemplation” (169). The meaning of human existence is also the topic of the following essay, Kant’s Philosophy of History, as Response to Existential Despair, by Rachel Zuckert. She argues that Kant’s philosophy of history is a form of reflecting judgment – that is, an interpretation of events that helps human beings make sense of their existence and in particular come to terms with the suffering they face. The aim of Kant’s philosophy of history is thus neither to guide action nor to investigate events but to provide solace for existential conflict and thus become an answer to Rousseau’s happiness challenge. The two final essays explore the relationship between Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. Melissa Merritt’s essay, Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress: A Neo-Stoic Debate, continues the topic of progress discussed in the essay by Zuckert and considers Kant, in his account of progress, in dialogue with Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn’s challenge is that humankind does not progress throughout history, but oscillates within fixed limits. In response to Guyer’s argument that Kant misunderstood his own position since his theory of freedom commits him to this position as well, Merritt argues that the neo-Stoic aspects of the debate lead Kant to reject Mendelssohn’s position. Continuing Zuckert’s argument that Kant’s philosophy of history is aimed at providing consolation for what appears bad, Merritt shows the Stoic background for this genre. In line with the neoStoic view of human development, Kant argues against Mendelssohn that progress cannot be an individual affair and that we must consequently see humankind as a whole as progressing. If we accept that we are capable of doing what morality requires of us, then it follows that progress must be possible and that we can establish the ethical community. In Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters: A Comparison between Kant and Mendelssohn, Anne Pollok discusses Guyer’s argument that Kant’s account of subjective perfectionism in art is close to Mendelssohn’s. Against Guyer, Pollok argues that both Mendelssohn and Kant rely on a dynamic understanding of perfection – whereby the latter does not belong to the object in terms of cognition. Pollok places Mendelssohn within the rationalist camp since for him, judgments about beauty concern the perfection of the state of the subject making the judgment, which then leads to a clearer concept of human perfection. While both Mendelssohn and Kant present dynamic notions of perfection, Kantian purposiveness is non-objectivist in a different way than the one entailed by Mendelssohn’s theory. Through

Introduction 9 a detailed survey of their respective accounts of the ugly, Pollok shows the similarities and differences between Kant’s and Mendelssohn’s theories and the way they put humanity at the center of their aesthetics. She concludes in accord with Rachel Zuckert that Kant’s transition arguments are partial vindications of Mendelssohnian rationalism. In the postscript, Paul Guyer engages with the contributions in this volume. Notes 1 On this point, see Filieri 2021 and Møller 2021. 2 To Paul Guyer’s remark that “the experiences of both the sublime and the beautiful are experiences where nature and our own freedom come into contact” (Guyer 2018: 307), one could then add that both also define human nature, for no other being can have experiences of this kind.

Bibliography Cohen, A. (2006): Kant on Epigenesis, Monogenesis and Human Nature: The ­Biological Premises of Anthropology, «Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences» 37, pp. 675–693.     (2008): Kant’s Answer to the Question ‘What Is Man?’ and Its Implications for Anthropology, «Studies in History and Philosophy of Science» 39, pp. 506–514. Filieri, L. (2021): Historical Duties. Kant’s Path from Nature to Freedom, Cosmopolitanism and Peace, «Ethics & Politics» XXIII/2, pp. 149–171. Formosa, P. (2007): Kant on the Radical Evil of Human Nature, «The Philosophical Forum» 38/3, pp. 221–245. Guyer, P. (2017): Kant and the Autonomy of Reason. An Interview by Luigi Filieri, «Studi Kantiani» 30, pp. 9–26.    . (2018): The Poetic Possibility of the Sublime. In Natur Und Freiheit. Akten Des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. by V. L. Waibel, M. Ruffing, D. Wagner, under M. S. Gerber (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 307–325. Louden, R. B. (2011): Kant’s Human Being. Essays on His Theory of Human Nature (Oxford: OUP). Møller, S. (2021): Kant on Non-Linear Progress, «Ethics & Politics» 23/2, pp. 127–147.

Part I

The Legislation of the Realm of Freedom

1

Freedom Within Nature Allen Wood

If you want to acquire an accurate and sympathetic understanding of what Kant thinks about freedom of the will, the best place to begin is a passage that occurs fairly late in the first Critique. Many readers of that work, exhausted by the Aesthetic, Analytic and Dialectic, never even get to it. The Critique has thus far argued that pure reason in its speculative use has resulted only in its humiliation – its inability to decide whether ideas of reason such as God, freedom, and immortality have objects at all. The Canon of Pure Reason considers these same questions instead in terms of the practical use of reason, as a faculty employed in action (KrV, A 794 B 823). Early in the Canon, Kant says the following: And here the first thing to note is that for the present I will use the concept of freedom only in a practical sense, and set aside, as having been dealt with above, the transcendental signification of the concept, which cannot be empirically presupposed as an explanatory ground of appearances but is rather itself a problem for pure reason. (KrV, A 801–802 B 829–830) The discussion Kant now proposes to set aside is that of the “speculative” or “transcendental” concept of freedom, which was dealt with in the Third Antinomy. That concept Kant declares to be only a “problem” for pure reason: That is, it amounts only to a speculative question about which reason can reach no decision. In the Third Antinomy, Kant argued that all reason can accomplish in regard to this question is to show that there is no contradiction in supposing that our actions are both free and subject to the causality of nature. But it can neither explain how this compatibility would be possible nor can it prove either that freedom is actual or that it is not. To say, as Kant does, that this concept is “transcendental” is to say (in his terminology) that no genuine cognition can result from the use of this concept. For the “transcendental” use of any pure concept is one that refers not to appearances but to “things in general and in themselves”, DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-3

14  Allen Wood and of such things, Kant holds that no speculative cognition of them is possible, and that the concept of them offers no cognition of appearances (KrV, A 238 B 298). Kant repeats that thought in the above passage when he says that it offers no “explanatory ground of appearances” but merely presents pure reason with a “problem” without a solution. Kant then goes on to say the following about freedom when it is considered instead in terms of the practical use of reason: Practical freedom can be proved through experience. For it is not merely that which stimulates the senses, i.e., immediately affects them, that determines human choice, but we have a capacity to overcome impressions on our sensory faculty of desire by representations of that which is useful or injurious in a more remote way; but these considerations about that which in regard to our whole condition is desirable, i.e. good and useful, depend on reason. Hence this also yields laws that are imperatives, i.e. objective laws of freedom”. (KrV, A 802 B 830) Whether human beings have free will; whether this or that particular human being has it, and in regard to which actions that human being acts freely – when considered from the standpoint of practical reason all these are not undecidable problems but answerable empirical questions. They can be answered by determining empirically what rational faculties people have, as shown by their capacity to be guided by rational considerations rather than occurring solely through the influence of sensible impulses. Notice too that practical freedom shows itself not only in moral conduct (following imperatives that are the “objective laws of freedom”) but also in prudential conduct, seeking what is useful or injurious to our overall condition (whether that conduct accords with morality or violates it). I suggest that if Kant had wanted to complete the account of rational conduct through which we can empirically exhibit freedom, he could have added conduct that follows instrumental reason – actions chosen because they are rationally required for the achievement of ends we have adopted at our discretion. When we consider questions of freedom in the course of acting, we do not (and should not) raise the speculative or metaphysical question whether it exists or even whether it is really possible. The only questions we can coherently raise have to do with whether the contingent empirical conditions of free action are met. When they are, we are justified in concluding that a human agent is free in a practical respect. “In some cases”, however, Kant says “[a human being] has no power of free choice, e.g., in the most tender childhood, or when he is insane, and in deep sadness, which is however a kind of insanity” (28: 255). There is nothing practice

Freedom Within Nature 15 can do with the metaphysical or transcendental thought that freedom in general might be an illusion, since while making a choice between two alternatives it would be pointless – self-undermining and incoherent – to worry that the choice we are making is metaphysically impossible. There does, of course, remain the transcendental or speculative question of whether and how the practical freedom we exhibit in these ways can be reconciled with the causal necessity that belongs to the empirical world in general. This is not, however, a question we can settle either empirically or a priori. Thus, to the passage just quoted, Kant adds the following: But whether in those actions through which it prescribes laws reason is not itself determined by further influences, and whether that with respect to sensory impulses is called freedom might not in turn with regard to higher and more remote efficient causes be nature – in the practical sphere this does not concern us, since in the first instance we ask of reason only a precept for conduct; it is rather a merely speculative question, which we can set aside as long as our aim is directed to action and omission. (KrV, A 803 B 831) It was this speculative question alone that Kant took up in his discussion of the Third Antinomy. And there, the question was left unresolved; indeed, the conclusion was that it is in principle unresolvable. For when we act, the thought that we might not possess the faculty we are engaged in exercising would necessarily be idle and pointless. Even speculation cannot decide the question, and practice must treat it as already decided – in favor of our having freedom in those cases where the empirical evidence indicates that we have it. What I have just been saying – what Kant is saying in the passages from the first Critique that I have just quoted – is very much at odds with what is said in a lot of the literature about Kant on freedom. I think it is impossible for any interpretation to reconcile everything Kant says about this topic throughout his long career, or even during his critical period. The best we can do is to find an interpretation that reconciles as far as possible as much as we can of his statements and arguments in different works and yields a plausible doctrine that reflects the force of his arguments. My suggestion in this essay is that we do this most successfully if we follow the passage in the Canon of the first Critique that I have just been expounding. Yet this approach seems to be opposed to much in the literature precisely because to many scholars it seems inconsistent with some things Kant himself says both in the Antinomies section of the first Critique and with his discussion of freedom in the second Critique. It seems even more decisively opposed to some things he says in his lectures on metaphysics.

16  Allen Wood There, Kant bluntly declares that freedom cannot be proved through experience, and even that as a natural being, the human being is not free (28: 773). It is commonly taken to be Kant’s position that we are free only supernaturally, as members of the noumenal or intelligible world, outside space and time, while as parts of nature, members of the sensible world, we are as strictly determined and necessitated as the motions of the planets in their orbits or billiard balls careening about on a felt-covered slate table. In the first Critique itself, Kant asserts: All actions of human beings in the domain of appearance are determined in conformity with the order of nature […] and if we could exhaustively investigate all the appearances of the wills of human beings, there would not be fond a single human action we could not predict with certainty […] So far, then, there is no freedom. (KrV, A 550 B 578) The second Critique makes a parallel declaration: “If it were possible for us to have so deep an insight into a human being’s character […] that every, even the least incentive […] were known to us, then his future conduct would be predicted with as great a certainty as a solar or lunar eclipse” (KpV, 5: 99), and draws the following conclusion: “Since the past is no longer in my power, every action which I perform is necessary from the determining grounds which are no longer in my power; that means that at the time I act, I am never free” (KpV, 5: 94). It is easy to overlook the fact that when it comes to conditionals whose antecedent takes the form of a claim about our having exhaustive knowledge of our incentives and the appearance of our wills, Kant takes such antecedents to be always necessarily false. As Ian Proops has observed, they are not only counterfactual, but even counterpossible (Proops 2021: 301). No one will ever be able to predict human actions in this way, precisely because, as the Canon says, our empirical acquaintance with human actions shows them to be performed through the rational faculty (even when they are contrary to reason); hence freely, not predictable in this way. Kant himself says all this explicitly when he considers how we do predict human actions, and where our ability to do so meets with empirical limits owing precisely to practical freedom: We desire […] a predictive history; [but it cannot be] based on known laws (like eclipses of the sun and moon) […]. Viewed from the earth, the planets sometimes move backwards, sometimes forward, and sometimes not at all. But if the standpoint selected is the sun, an act which reason can perform, according to the Copernican hypothesis they move constantly in their regular course […]. But, and this

Freedom Within Nature 17 is precisely the misfortune, we are not capable of placing ourselves in this position when it is a question of the prediction of free actions […]. For we are dealing with beings that act freely, to whom, it is true, what they ought to do may be dictated in advance, but of whom it may not be predicted what they will do […] These actions, of course, the human being can see, but not foresee with certitude”. (SF, 7: 79, 83–84) My suggestion, then, is that following the Canon, we must distinguish our empirical conception of practical freedom, based on practical reason, from the speculative problem of freedom based on a priori theoretical and metaphysical considerations. We must acknowledge the latter problem to be insoluble. The best we can do is to argue that there is no logical contradiction in claiming both that in the world of appearance we are subject to the causal mechanism of nature, and also that we have the practical freedom that presupposes the capacity to begin a series of appearances from itself or from oneself (von selbst) without this causal power being further dependent on prior natural causes. This bare logical consistency leaves the speculative or metaphysical issue of freedom not only undecided but in principle undecidable. In relation to this purely speculative problem, no argument, whether metaphysical or empirical, can prove that we are free or prove that we are not. But practical reason, on pain of incoherence, must presuppose that we have practical freedom, at least in those cases where empirical evidence indicates that we do. Practice, therefore, also commits us to transcendental freedom, which, however, we can neither establish to be possible or prove to be impossible. Our only option is to set aside as pointless the speculative thought that practical freedom might be an illusion, even though that thought can never be refuted. This is in fact precisely the outcome of his critical treatment of freedom in the Third Antinomy. The Thesis of the Antinomy claims that transcendental freedom is actual, even necessary to complete any causal series. The Antithesis claims, on the contrary, that transcendental freedom is impossible, and that the causal antecedents of any causal series, including any human action, must be naturally necessitated by prior causes ad infinitum. Kant’s claim, based on the appeal to transcendental idealism, is that neither side of the Third Antinomy can make its case. Theoretical considerations (specifically, the Second Analogy), establishes that in the empirical world, every alteration in appearances is necessitated by a natural cause. But transcendental idealism equally allows that this proposition does not preclude the possibility that the actions of these same objects, considered in themselves, may not be so necessitated. The claims of both sides of the Antinomy therefore remain unproven by the arguments offered for them.

18  Allen Wood Natural determinism may hold of objects regarded as appearances, and yet these same objects may, regarded in themselves, exercise the transcendentally free causality required for practical freedom. Kant’s discussion of the issue, therefore, concludes that although the demonstrations of both sides of the Antinomy fail, the claims of both sides may nevertheless be true (KrV, A 532 B 560). Kant’s resolution of the Antinomy appeals to transcendental idealism in order to show that each side might hold consistently with the other if we distinguish actions regarded as appearances, or phenomena, from the same actions regarded as noumena, and the empirical character of the agent from an intelligible character (KrV, A 549–553 B 577–581). What is often missed here is that Kant never pretends to show that this speculative story about the empirical character and intelligible character – about determinism in one metaphysical realm and freedom in another – is how things actually are.1 It would be inconsistent with the critical claims of transcendental idealism for him to try to do so, since any claim about things in general and in themselves would be transcendental and not only its actuality but even its real possibility would be incognizable by us. Kant therefore does not claim to have proven the reality of freedom or even its real possibility. His aim has been only to show “that this antinomy rests on a mere illusion, and that nature at least does not conflict with causality through freedom – that was the one single thing we could accomplish, and it alone was our concern” (KrV, A 558 B 586). Or as he put it a bit earlier: We can know (erkennen) that actions could be free, i.e., that they could be determined independently of sensibility, and in that way they could be the sensibly unconditioned condition of appearances. [But to understand this further] surpasses every faculty of our reason, indeed surpasses the authority of our reason even to ask for it […]. Yet the problem we had to solve does not obligate us to answer these questions, for it was only this: Do freedom and natural necessity in one and the same action contradict each other? And this we have answered sufficiently when we showed that since in freedom a relation is possible to conditions of a kind entirely different from those of natural necessity, the law of the latter does not affect the former; hence each is independent of the other, and can take place without disturbing the other. (KrV, A 557 B 585) The all-too-common notion that Kant claims causal determinism and no freedom in the empirical world but transcendental freedom in the noumenal world would even directly contradict the faculty of freedom that Kant ascribes to the human will. For his claim is that our will is an arbitrium

Freedom Within Nature 19 liberum sed sensitivum, “pathologically affected but not pathologically necessitated” (KrV, A 534 B 562). But a “two worlds” and “two selves” story would require that the empirical self be sensitive but not free, while the (unprovable and incognizable) noumenal self would be free but not sensitive. This misunderstanding therefore invited the criticism of Reinhold, later repeated by Sidgwick, that Kant can hold us responsible only for right actions, not for wrong ones (Sidgwick 1874: 511–516). If we ask how, in relation to the speculative and metaphysical problem of freedom, what account Kant gives of how causal determinism is in fact related to our transcendental freedom, the only answer is that he has no account of this, beyond the claim that there is no logical contradiction involved in this. He does not claim even to be able to give a determinate concept of its real possibility. Or as he puts it in the Groundwork, “freedom cannot be comprehended, nor even can insight into it be gained” (GMS, 4: 459). Nevertheless, that practical freedom is presupposed not only by morality but by all rational judgment (GMS, 4: 448): Freedom must be presupposed as a quality of the will of all rational beings. […] Every being that cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom, is precisely for this reason actually free in a practical respect, i.e. all laws inseparably combined with freedom are valid for it, just as if its will had also been declared free in itself and in a way that is valid in theoretical philosophy. Now I assert that we must necessarily lend to every rational being that has a will also the idea of freedom, under which alone it would act. For in such a being, we think a reason that is practical, i.e., has causality in regard to its objects. Now one cannot possibly think a reason that, in its own consciousness, would receive steering from elsewhere in regard to its judgments; for then the subject would ascribe the determination of its power of judgment not to its reason but to an impulse. It must regard itself as the author of its principles independently of alien influences, consequently it must, as practical reason or as the will of a rational being, be regarded by itself as free, i.e., the will of a rational being can be a will of its own only under the idea of freedom and must therefore with a practical aim be attributed to all rational beings. (GMS, 4: 447–448) Not only in acting morally, prudentially, and instrumentally, but even in making theoretical judgments, it would be incoherent and self-undermining not to be prepared to affirm that I am practically free – that my judgment might be the necessary effect of some external cause rather than of my exercise of my own rational faculties.

20  Allen Wood No doubt sometimes such externally caused judgments do occur: Kant emphasizes that we often deceive ourselves into thinking we judge or act for one reason when we are manipulated or otherwise caused to act from another. But these cases are failures of reason. We could not coherently retain as well-grounded a judgment we have made while at the same time regarding it as having come about through such a causal process. If someone were to claim that all human beings, including him- or herself, were deceived and externally determined in this way, that would necessarily discredit any arguments the person might offer for that claim. Kant’s argument in the Groundwork closely parallels one Kant had used against the “fatalist” J. H. Schulz in a book review only two years earlier: Although [Schulz] would not himself admit it, he has assumed in the depths of his soul that understanding is able to determine his judgment in accordance with objective grounds that are always valid and is not subject to the mechanism of merely subjective determining causes […]; hence he always admits freedom to think, without which there is no reason. (RezSchulz, 8: 14) The arguments I have just quoted lead Kant to claim that he has provided a “deduction” both of freedom and of the moral law (GMS, 4: 447, 463). A “deduction” for Kant is an argument that something of which we are in possession is also something to which we have a right (KrV, A 84–85 B 116–117). In the case of the deduction of the categories, it does not show that we have actual cognition through them, but only that there is a real possibility of such cognition. For actual cognition we would of course require also sensible intuition. Analogously, a deduction of freedom (which is at the same time a deduction of the moral law) would establish only that freedom and actual duties under the moral law are really possible. This subtlety explains the relation in Kant between the argument of the Groundwork and the famous (often misunderstood) doctrine of the “fact of reason” in the second Critique. The Preface to the second Critique tells us that that work presupposes (hence depends upon) the Groundwork insofar as that work “provides and justifies” a formula of the moral law (KpV, 5: 8, emphasis mine). The justification referred to is the deduction of the real possibility of both freedom and the moral law, which provides a reply to the Groundwork’s repeated worry in the first and second sections, that morality might be an illusion, no more than a “cobweb of the brain”. This deduction is what puts Kant, in the second Critique, in a position to appeal to our immediate awareness of obligation in particular cases as a “fact of reason”, which (repeating the Groundwork’s argument) he claims to be equivalent to the claim that our will possesses practical freedom (KpV, 5: 30–33).

Freedom Within Nature 21 It is a common error in the literature to think that the second Critique repudiates the deduction of the law in the third section of the Groundwork, replacing it with a blunt appeal to the “fact of reason”. But without the deduction provided in the Groundwork, he would be in no position to assert such a fact. As Paul Guyer has put it, such an assertion would then be only so much “foot-stomping” or “moralistic bluster”. Without pretending to speak for Guyer here, I must insist that for my part it is a serious misunderstanding to say that I have accused Kant of any of this. It is what his talk of the “fact of reason” would be if (as many scholars now mistakenly maintain) he had abandoned or repudiated the argument of the Groundwork and replaced it with nothing but the second Critique’s “footstomping” appeal to the “fact of reason”. But he did neither. Instead (as was first pointed out to me in conversation by Marilia Espirito Santo), we should see the “fact of reason” as taking us beyond a deduction to an assertion of actual moral cognition, and therefore an awareness of an actual exercise of freedom. It would correspond to empirical intuition in taking us from a deduction of the categories to actual cognition that employs them. In the case of moral cognition, of course, the immediate awareness could not be empirical: It would be not a datum of sense, but has to be a “fact of reason”. Such an awareness, in relation to freedom, establishes the reciprocal relation between morality and freedom that Kant famously claims in the Preface to the second Critique: “Whereas freedom is indeed the ratio essendi of the moral law, the moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom” (KpV, 5: 4n). This is, of course, an awareness of freedom only in relation to the metaphysical or transcendental problem – the problem the Canon tells us we may “set aside” when engaged in the empirical exercise of practical freedom. The essence of the approach I am recommending is that we separate the empirical and practical question whether a given agent in a given action has or lacks the capacity in which practical freedom consists, from the transcendental or metaphysical question whether practical freedom in general is possible. The former question, in Kant’s view, can be answered empirically. For normal human adults, the answer will be yes, and this can be confirmed by interacting with the agent and observing his or her behavior. If we ascribe practical freedom to a person, we assume that in relation to matters about which they deliberate and choose, they have a plurality of genuine possibilities, so that the outcome of their choice is not necessitated by causes independent of that choice, but is rather wholly up to the human agent him- or herself. This presupposes “transcendental freedom”, the capacity to begin a state of the world “from itself or from oneself” (von selbst). One further consequence is that the act chosen is eligible for imputation to that agent, possibly resulting in praise or blame attaching to it. But practical freedom is not only about moral praise and blame, since it

22  Allen Wood applies equally to decisions where the practical issue is not one for moral reason but for prudential or instrumental reason. It is a common error to think the issue of free will is only about responsibility, moral praise, and blame. If it involves these at all, that’s only because moral imputation presupposes free agency, which is a prior question. Many “compatibilist” views in effect presuppose we are not free and think that to solve the problem of freedom all they need to do is somehow rationalize our (often cruel and barbaric) practices of blaming and punishing. To my mind, that approach is dishonest, and even rather sick. In determining when empirically a human being is practically free, we set aside as irrelevant to practice the transcendental or metaphysical question whether transcendental freedom is compatible or incompatible with the natural causal mechanism. Kant’s position on this latter question is that the resolution of the Third Antinomy shows it to be unanswerable. But practical reason necessarily settles this question in favor of not merely the possibility but the actuality of practical freedom, and therefore of transcendental freedom. Neither the metaphysics of causality nor our empirical awareness of practical freedom can provide any proof of transcendental freedom. When Kant denies that freedom is “provable”, this is the claim he is making. But when he considers the unavoidable presupposition of freedom involved in the practical use of reason (in morality, of course, but also in prudential and instrumental reason), Kant does not hesitate to speak of this as a “proof” of freedom, or a claim that freedom is “cognized” (erkannt), though only in a practical respect (KpV, 5: 30, 105; marginal note to KrV, A 558, cf. KrV, A 546–547 B 574–575, FM, 20: 310; 28: 268–269). More clarification can be obtained by being specific about the meanings of the terms “intelligible” and “noumenal” in interpreting Kant on freedom. The principal meaning these terms have depends on the cognitive faculty whose object is being indicated. Both these terms therefore refer to the intellectual faculty, either understanding or reason. If we are talking about practical reason, then these terms refer to norms governing rational choice. It is through understanding or reason that we cognize our empirical actions as part of an “intelligible world”. Kant takes for granted that reason in its practical use relates to actions, and this practical use of reason involves the presupposition that it is free in the practical sense. But this practical use of reason involves no theoretical cognition of the subject. It offers no cognition of a supernatural subject, residing outside space and time, as the agent of our free actions. It is not clear that Kant regards the concept of such an agent as even thinkable, and it certainly is not anything of which we could have either theoretical or practical cognition. “Intelligible world” and “empirical world” as objects of faculties do not refer to different metaphysical realms. “Nature” as the world of

Freedom Within Nature 23 appearances in which we live and as the object of the senses as distinct from the intellect or practical reason. If the human power of choice is free in the form of a supernatural entity outside space and time, then it is nothing of which we could have any cognition or even form a concept through which any object could be cognized. The reason why philosophers speculate that the free self for Kant must be a supernatural entity of some sort is that they cannot accept Kant’s blunt declaration that freedom is incomprehensible to us and that no insight into it is possible. We can cognize or even prove freedom in a practical respect, bit we cannot explain or give any account of how our practical capacity is possible. Those who cannot accept this limitation of our cognitive faculties find this difficult to accept. Therefore, instead of facing up to that frustrating fact, they prefer to attribute to Kant an absurd theory of transcendent entities in a supernatural noumenal world beyond space and time. Such speculations, however, solve no problems but only invite further absurdities and unanswerable questions, such as Ralph Walker’s suggestion that a timeless noumenal self would have to choose the entire empirical series, and thus be responsible for all events occurring in it. You and I would be responsible for the Lisbon Earthquake, the Athenian Plague, and the Holocaust, even if we were not yet born when these events occurred (Walker 1978: 149). The reasonable thing to say in response to such absurd speculations about the imputation of events to the human will is that the free human agent is not a timeless noumenal being at all but the empirical human self, located in a determinate series of events in space and time, who is, however, possessed of the capacity for free choices. How this capacity relates to the empirical causal series is to us unknowable and we cannot even form a determinate concept of its real possibility, but practical reason requires the presupposition of its actuality. Related to this point is the sometimes highly restricted use Kant makes of the terms “nature” and “natural” when discussing causality. In the context of the Third Antinomy, Kant describes the causal mechanism that, as the Antithesis claims, would render all events in the world of appearance necessary as “causality through nature”. He contrasts this with the capacity, claimed by the Thesis, to begin a series of occurrences von selbst, which is described as “causality through freedom”, But he never claims that causality through freedom is “supernatural” or that it takes place anywhere outside the natural world. On the contrary, the Thesis claims that causality through freedom would be necessary to complete the series of natural causes itself. And although that claim is shown to be unproven, Kant is supposing that if human actions display causality through freedom, the series of states they cause belong to the natural world every bit as much as occurrences produced by the causal mechanism he characterizes as “natural”. In other words, both “causality through nature” and

24  Allen Wood “causality through freedom” occur within the natural world, the world of appearance. If following Kant’s terminology, we distinguish “free causes” from “natural causes”, we need to realize that the human agents who are these free causes belong to nature or the empirical world of appearance every bit as much as natural causes do. Human freedom, as my title says, is therefore for Kant a freedom within nature. My proposal, then, is that we resolve the apparent textual inconsistencies we find in Kant by distinguishing the different questions (practicalempirical vs. metaphysical-theoretical, and within the latter between issues of causal metaphysics and issues of what is presupposed in a practical respect). I would not claim that drawing these distinctions would enable us to resolve all tensions or apparent contradictions between different Kantian texts. But it surely does resolve many or even most of them, and it offers us a Kantian position that is far more plausible and attractive than what is usually presented as the “Kantian” account of freedom. When Kant discusses human actions in the context of empirical anthropology or the theory of duties presented in a metaphysics of morals, he routinely makes claims both about actions and their circumstances, and also about our commonsense empirical knowledge of these matters, that presuppose free actions as belonging to the natural world – both in regard to their effects and in regard to their human psychology. The instances of this claim are ubiquitous in Kant’s writings about morality, anthropology, history, and education, too prevalent to list them all. But a discussion of a few examples should make clear how deeply the presupposition of freedom pervades Kant’s account of human actions as we are empirically aware of them. Besides, it is the goal of this chapter, as indicated by its title, to make clear how completely Kant’s ethics is committed to treating our free actions as occurring entirely within the natural world, as empirical common sense does as a matter of course. We can begin simply with Kant’s conception of the empirical study of human nature or what he calls “pragmatic anthropology”: A doctrine of the knowledge of the human being, systematically formulated (anthropology), can exist either in a physiological or in a pragmatic point of view. Physiological knowledge of the human being concerns the investigation of what nature makes of the human being; pragmatic, the investigation of what he as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself. (Anth, 7: 119) What the human being makes of himself he does through free agency, so the distinction drawn here between physiological and pragmatic anthropology would make no sense if we were unable to distinguish acts of

Freedom Within Nature 25 freedom empirically from states and occurrences due to the causal mechanism which Kant calls “natural causality”. A parallel distinction, which is the foundation of Kant’s empirical treatment of the human faculty of desire, is that between “temperament” or natural aptitude (Naturell) and “character”. Temperament and natural aptitude come from nature, while character is what the human agent makes of itself through freedom (Anth 7: 285–295). Kant does not think we can always clearly separate what belongs to a person from each of them, but he clearly regards this as an empirical distinction, and some of our moral judgments about virtue and vice depend on it. The opacity Kant attributes to our judgments about our own mental processes is not due to metaphysics but to the contingent, empirical fact that we are prone to self-deception and must struggle with ourselves in order to fulfill what Kant calls the “first command of all duties to oneself” – the duty to strive (always with imperfect success) for selfknowledge (MS, 6: 441, cf. Anth, 7: 132–140). When we turn to Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue, it is clear that he takes the distinction between what belongs to freedom and what does not to be an empirical distinction among occurrences in nature. For Kant (as for Aristotle), moral virtue is something we acquire in time through practice and (rational, not mechanical) habituation (MS, 6: 396–397). It is a “free aptitude (habitus libertatis), that proceeds from freedom”, not a mere mechanical assuetudo: “a necessity [acquired] through frequent repetition” (MS, 6: 407). The acquisition of moral virtue is what gives us “inner freedom, [the capacity through free choice] to subdue our affects and govern our passions” (MS, 6: 406–407). These are matters involving an empirical acquaintance with our feelings and inclinations and our free choices relating to them, with which we are empirically acquainted through inner sense and our conduct in the natural world of which we are a part. Although virtues and vices are dispositions belonging to freedom, they include matters pertaining to feeling and desire. (Here again, Kant agrees with Aristotle: Virtue and vice are displayed by what we desire and by what pleases and pains us.) The virtue of beneficence includes taking pleasure in the welfare of others when it is our own work (MS, 6: 453, cf. GMS, 4: 398). The virtue of gratitude shows itself both in active and affective gratitude; the disposition to return good for good, and the feeling of love for those who have benefited us (MS, 6: 454–455). The duty of sympathy involves the will to share in the feelings of others, which Kant calls “humanity” (humanitas)” (MS, 6: 456–457). The vice of envy involves not only the active desire to harm our rivals for its own sake, but also the propensity to view their well-being with distress, even when this feeling and desire do not break forth into action (MS, 6: 458). The duty of respect for others is shown not only when we outwardly manifest contempt for them, but even when we feel it: “Although we

26  Allen Wood cannot help looking down on some in comparison to others” when their conduct deserves it, nevertheless “I cannot deny all respect to a vicious man as a human being” (MS, 6: 463). It is also contrary to this duty to “take scandal” – “to feel disapproval for behavior that is merely unconventional” (MS, 6: 464). The vice of arrogance extends even to our wishes regarding the feelings of others, since it includes “the demand that others think little of themselves in comparison with us” (MS, 6: 465). The vices of “defamation” include not only spreading reports (even if true) of what detracts from another’s honor, but even taking malicious pleasure in them, while the vice of “ridicule” includes not only actively making fun of others but also being amused when others do this (MS, 6: 466–468). What I have just done is provide a brief review of Kant’s account of our duties toward others, and the principal virtues and vices associated with them, emphasizing the way these involve the intimate association of our freedom with empirical propensities to feel and desire. More could be said if we explored the Doctrine of Virtue and its theory of duties in greater detail. Another important area in which Kant treats the empirical psychology of human freedom is in the Religion’s consideration of the thesis that human nature contains a radical, innate, and inextirpable propensity to evil, and the duty to combat it through a conversion from an evil heart to a good heart (RGV, parts one and two). There have been attempts to treat these matters based on a two-selves metaphysics, but they typically lead to speculative nonsense. It would take more space than I can devote here to sort out all these issues, but I have recently had my say on them and I refer my readers to that (Wood 2020, especially Chapters 3 and 4). All this, in Kant’s account of it, belongs to our empirical psychology as members of the natural world. If Kant considers us also to be members of an intelligible world, that means only that we can view both our actions and our desires and feelings from the normative standpoint of understanding and reason. When the Religion relates our moral condition to theological questions, it does so through religious symbolism (see Wood 2020: Chapters 5–6). There is no indication that Kant considers the obvious facts of moral psychology to involve an interaction between two metaphysically distinct realms, one of which lies outside space and time and wholly transcends our empirical cognition. Some of the literature on Kant attempts to show that a theory involving such a thing could, after all, be consistent with the claims of common sense. But such accounts always amount to a sort of theoretical Rube Goldberg machine, requiring a whole contraption of gears and pulleys, bells and whistles, to do something that is simple and obvious. More to the point, Kant himself does not appear to have the least interest in such an enterprise. Why should he? For as he has told us in the Canon, the sphere of practical freedom is one in which this freedom is demonstrated empirically and needs no transcendent

Freedom Within Nature 27 metaphysical assistance. The purely theoretical transcendental problem of freedom is forever insoluble and, therefore, moot. Freedom can even be defended and “proven” theoretically if we take account of arguments based on the coherence of assent with action when we adopt the standpoint of practical reason. It, therefore, can and should simply be set aside when we take that standpoint. Soon after the publication of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, it was reviewed in Athenaeum, the journal of early German Romanticism, by Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher (Schleiermacher 1799). Schleiermacher’s polemical review dismissed Kant’s lectures as “a collection of trivialities”, but he also expressed perplexity over the fact that “pragmatic anthropology” claims to be an empirical inquiry into human psychology and conduct based on the presupposition that human beings are free agents. Like many scholars since (both Kant’s self-described friends and his critics), Schleiermacher thought that Kant could have no business treating freedom empirically, since the free agent is a noumenal being in another world, outside space and time, while the human being in this empirical world is only a mechanism necessitated by natural causes. The interpretations of Kant that ascribe to him a theory of free causality in a noumenal world, in effect, accept Schleiermacher’s charge while seldom making any effort to deal with it. One scholar who thinks Schleiermacher’s criticism must be taken seriously is Patrick Frierson, who attempts a reply to it (Frierson 2003). It is to his credit that he addresses a problem so many others ignore. Frierson accepts Schleiermacher’s premise that Kant’s resolution to the Third Antinomy and the traditional problem of free will and determinism requires all free agents to inhabit an unknowable transcendent supernatural realm. He then attempts to meet Schleiermacher’s challenge by showing how we humans, as inhabitants of two vastly different metaphysical worlds, might nevertheless be studied empirically in the way Kant tries to do. More recently, Frierson has explored the prospects of a Kantian theory of moral responsibility and the empirical conditions of freedom and imputability (Frierson 2008). His conclusion is that owing to the transcendental problem of freedom no empirical conditions could ever be either necessary or sufficient for moral responsibility. His detailed study of Kant’s writings on the topic, however, identify the conditions for freedom and imputability as Kant sees them. Frierson concludes that these could not be genuine empirical conditions of freedom but are instead only what Frierson calls “empirical markers” of responsibility used by Kant to express common sense judgments which, in Frierson’s view, apparently cannot be actually defended intellectually. Frierson’s approach is clearly at odds with what Kant says in the Canon of Pure Reason, and with what I have been defending in this essay.

28  Allen Wood His interpretation, however, or something like it, seems inevitable if one tries to give a “Kantian” account of freedom that combines transcendent metaphysics with empirical cognition in a single philosophical story. But this is just what Kant avoids doing in the Canon. There, he distinguishes the resolvable empirical questions about the conditions of freedom and imputability from the forever unresolvable transcendental metaphysical issue whether and how human freedom is compatible with the causal mechanism of nature. He argues that in its practical use, reason can “set aside” the latter question and treat practical freedom as something whose occurrence in the natural world can be empirically investigated and even “proved through experience”. The conditions of free agency, regarding a rational agent’s cognitive capacities and the circumstances of its action, are knowable empirically. They are not mere “markers” used by common sense – apparently floating free of all genuine knowledge and expressing our shared human prejudices. Frierson implies that Kant must concede that reason cannot defend any set of empirical conditions for practical freedom – which is why he calls them only “markers”. He even suggests that there could be competing sets of “markers” and no way to settle differences between those who favor one set and those who favor another. I see no reason why Kant should make any such concessions as those Frierson would force upon him. I would agree that there are controversies about freedom and moral responsibility that are still unresolved and may forever remain so. But I would endorse what I think is Kant’s own position on this matter, namely, that these disputes, like the conditions of imputability themselves, are about empirical questions; they do not involve unresolvable metaphysical issues about free will and determinism that Kant says practical reason should set aside. Note 1 It is sometimes claimed that in my 1984 paper Kant’s Compatibilism, I myself attributed the fantastic story about noumenal freedom to Kant (for example see Hudson 1994). Such misrepresentations totally ignore the following passage from my essay Kant’s Compatibilism: “Kant is not committed to his theory of the case as an account of the way our free agency actually works. Indeed, Kant maintains that no such positive account can ever be given. Kant does not pretend to know how our free agency is possible but claims only that the impossibility of freedom is forever indemonstrable” (Wood 1984: 99). I think my account of Kant’s fantastic story of noumenal freedom has attracted attention (and misguided criticism) because I was concerned to stress some of its counterintuitive implications. There are some accounts that do embrace the transcendent (“noumenal”) absurdities: Allison (1990), Frierson (2003), Watkins (2005), and Adams (2018). But my point was precisely not to embrace metaphysical absurdities.

Freedom Within Nature 29 Bibliography Adams, R. M. (2018): Introduction to: Kant, Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings, ed. and transl. by A. Wood, G. Di Giovanni (Cambridge: CUP). Allison, H. E. (1990): Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: CUP). Frierson, P. (2003): Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2008): Empirical Psychology, Common Sense, and Kant’s Empirical Markers for Moral Responsibility, «Studies in the History of the Philosophy of Science» 39, pp. 473–482. Hudson, H. (1994): Kant’s Compatibilism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Proops, I. (2021): The Fiery Test of Critique (Oxford: OUP). Schleiermacher, F. D. (1799): Rezension: Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, «Athenaeum». Sidgwick, H. (1874): Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett). Walker, R. C. S. (1978): Kant (London: Routledge). Watkins, E. (2005): Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (Cambridge: CUP). Wood, A. (1984): Kant’s Compatibilism. In Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. by A. Wood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), pp. 73–101.    . (2020): Kant and Religion (Cambridge: CUP).

2

Kant’s Answer to the Question “What Is the Human Being?” Marcus Willaschek

2.1 Introduction According to Kant, the central question of philosophy, properly understood, is the question “What is the human being?” (“Was ist der Mensch?”) (9: 25/LL 538; 11: 429; 28: 533–534).1 As I will argue, however, Kant does not provide an answer to this question, as long as it is understood as a descriptive question about the essential characteristics and defining features of human beings. I will first discuss the famous three questions from the Critique of Pure Reason: “What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?” (Section 2.2). Then, I will ask why Kant later adds a fourth question, namely “What is the human being?” (Section 2.3). The reason for this, I will argue, does not lie in the (real or supposed) anthropocentric character of Kant’s philosophy (Section 2.4). Next, I will argue that as long as we understand the question “What is the human being?” as concerning the “essence” or descriptive characteristics of human beings, we find an answer to it neither in Kant’s published Anthropology (Section 2.5) nor in the claim that freedom is what distinguishes us from other animals (Section 2.6). As I will show, the fourth question is ultimately aimed not at something like the “essence” of human beings but at what in Kant’s time (following the title of a book by Johann Joachim Spalding) was called the “vocation of the human being” (“die Bestimmung des Menschen”) (Section 2.7). This “vocation” consists in the final ends of humankind, which, according to Kant, are moral. Thus, Kant’s fourth question is not so much about what human beings are as about what they ought to be. 2.2 The Three Kantian Questions in the Critique of Pure Reason In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously sets out three questions in which “all interest of my reason” is united: “What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?” (KrV, A 805 B 833). The questions appear in the Canon section of the first Critique, which aims to provide DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-4

Kant’s Answer to the Question  31 the rules for the correct use of pure reason. Following the devastating results of the Transcendental Dialectic concerning the theoretical use of pure reason, this use can only be practical (KrV, A 797 B 825). As Kant explains, while the first question is “merely speculative” in that it concerns the scope of purely rational knowledge, the second is “practical” insofar as it concerns our moral obligations, and the third is “both practical and theoretical” because it concerns the theoretical presuppositions of these obligations (KrV, A 805 B 833).2 The three questions have often been understood as being about the scope and limits of human knowledge, the extent of our moral obligations and the objects of rational hope in general (e.g., Recki 1998; Höffe 2014), but I think that Kant has more specific questions in mind. This is clear from the fact that the questions are formulated in the first person singular. While the “I” who asks them is of course not Kant (or any other particular person) but rather stands for every rational human being, the question “What can I know?”, for instance, is not quite the same as the question “What can human beings know?” By formulating the questions in the first person, Kant emphasizes that they are asked not from a disinterested third-person perspective, but from the “involved” perspective of the individual subject who is seeking to understand his or her place in the world. Moreover, reason’s interest in these questions is limited in a particular way, since they relate back to two metaphysical questions raised by pure reason, namely “Is there a God?” and “Is there a future life?” (KrV, A 803 B 831). As Kant makes clear in the pages before he introduces the three questions, the “final aim to which in the end the speculation of reason in its transcendental use is directed concerns three objects: the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God” (KrV, A 798 B 826), which in turn have “their more remote aim, namely, what is to be done if the will is free, if there is a God, and if there is a future world” (KrV, A 800 B 829). In the Canon, free will then drops out of the picture (only to resurface in the second Critique) because, so Kant argues, it can simply be presupposed in all matters practical (KrV, A 803 B 831). Kant concludes: “So in a canon of pure reason we are concerned with only two questions that pertain to the practical interest of pure reason, and with regard to which a canon of its use must be possible, namely: Is there a God? Is there a future life?” (KrV, A 803 B 831). It is specifically with respect to these two questions that Kant claims that the interest of “my reason” (that is, everyone’s reason, but considered from a first-personal perspective) is united in the three famous Kantian questions. This is reflected in the answers Kant offers to these questions in the paragraphs that follow, which relate the questions specifically to God and immortality. First, Kant explains, we cannot know whether there is a God and an individual afterlife: “If, therefore, the issue is knowledge, this much

32  Marcus Willaschek at least is certain and settled, that we can never partake of knowledge with respect to those two problems” (KrV, A 805 B 833). On the other hand, we can at least know that God’s existence and the immortality of the soul are not impossible and cannot ever be ruled out by any scientific knowledge (cf. KrV, A 805 B 833). Secondly, although Kant sets aside the question “What ought I to do?” as not belonging to transcendental philosophy (KrV, A 805 B 833), his answer to the third question also provides an answer to the second, namely that I ought to act in such a way that I morally deserve to be happy – Kant speaks of “worthiness to be happy” (Glückswürdigkeit) (KrV, A 806 B 834). Only then, thirdly, may we hope that in the afterlife, God will provide us with the happiness we deserve (but no more) (KrV, A 811 B 839). Thus, the answers Kant himself provides to his three questions relate them specifically to the two “speculative” issues of God’s existence and the immortality of the soul. And these two topics in turn derive their particular importance for us not from the role they play in our theories about the world, but because of their importance for us as moral agents (KrV, A 800 B 829). This suggests that the three Kantian questions are not on a par, since what is fundamental is the question “what is to be done if the will is free, if there is a God, and if there is a future world[?]” (KrV, A 800 B 829; emphasis added), which gives special weight to the second question: “What ought I to do?” We will briefly return to this point later. In any case, we can now see that the three famous Kantian questions point to Kant’s practical transformation of traditional metaphysics, whose two central concerns – God and immortality – turn out not to be objects of knowledge, as traditionally assumed, but objects of a morally grounded belief. While Kant had argued in the Transcendental Dialectic of the first Critique that human beings cannot have cognition of supersensible objects such as God and immortal souls, in the Canon section he now adds that we are nevertheless rationally committed to believing in God and immortality as necessary conditions of the “highest good” – a world where everyone is as happy as they morally deserve to be – which in turn is a necessary ideal of reason (KrV, A 810–819 B 838–847). By thus presenting God and immortality as “postulates of pure practical reason” (as Kant calls them in the second Critique, where he also adds freedom to the list, 5: 132), Kant can claim to have reconstructed, in a “practical” mode, the central tenets of traditional metaphysics, which he had criticized as theoretically unwarranted in the Transcendental Dialectic.3 Thus when Kant says that “all interest of my reason” is united in the three questions “What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?”, he does not mean that all philosophical questions can be summed up in them, which clearly is not the case. For example, whether the world is finite or infinite in space and time is a philosophical question that interested

Kant’s Answer to the Question  33 Kant greatly and that he discusses at length in the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV, A 426–433 B 454–461). This question is of course related to the question of what we can know, insofar as it is questionable whether we can know whether the world is finite or infinite (Kant famously denies that we can know this). Nevertheless, the question of whether the world is finite or infinite is not the same as the question of whether we can know this or the question of what we can know at all. And the negative result of the Critique of Pure Reason – that we cannot know anything specific about supersensible objects – does not contradict Kant’s insight that as rationally thinking beings we necessarily take an interest in these speculative questions and try to find answers to them (cf. Willaschek 2018). This confirms our assumption that the interest of reason that is summed up in the three Kantian questions is primarily practical, which leaves room for philosophical questions that are purely speculative and do not relate directly to the three questions or the interest that drives them. 2.3  The Fourth Question: “What Is the Human Being?” As we have just seen, the interest in the three Kantian questions feeds on a deeper interest, namely our interest in God and immortality, and “all interest of my reason” boils down to the three Kantian questions only because they relate to God and immortality, which in turn matter to us as presuppositions of moral agency. Against this background, it is surprising that Kant’s Logic (as published in 1800 by Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche on the basis of Kant’s notes and lecture manuscripts) states: “The field of philosophy in this cosmopolitan sense can be reduced to the following questions: 1) What can I know? 2) What ought I to do? 3) What may I hope? 4) What is the human being? Metaphysics answers the first question, morals the second, religion the third, and anthropology the fourth. Fundamentally, however, we could reckon all of this as anthropology, because the first three questions relate to the last one” (9: 25; LL 538). We find similar formulations in the transcript of a late logic lecture (28: 533–534) and, in Kant’s own hand, in a letter to Carl Friedrich Stäudlin (11: 429). What is surprising is not only that the three questions in which “all interest of my reason […] is united” (A 804 B 833) are now joined by a fourth, to which the latter in turn “relate”, but also that these four questions are now supposed to mark out “the field of philosophy”. Does the question of whether the world is finite or infinite no longer belong to philosophy, according to the later Kant?4 Of course it does, but not to philosophy “in the cosmopolitan sense”.5 Kant here relies on his distinction between two conceptions of philosophy, first introduced in the Critique of Pure Reason (A 838 B 866), namely between philosophy according to its “school concept” and according to its “cosmopolitan concept”. The

34  Marcus Willaschek question of the finitude or infinitude of the world belongs to the mere “school concept” of philosophy, that is, to philosophy as an academic discipline driven by theoretical curiosity. Kant is not at all opposed to this kind of philosophy – he himself took great interest in it and contributed to it in many of his works. But philosophy cannot stop with academic questions; it must ultimately, as Kant puts it in the Critique of Pure Reason, contribute something to the achievement of the “essential ends of human reason” (KrV, A 839 B 867). Philosophy according to its “cosmopolitan concept” is concerned with promoting these ends, which must ultimately be united in an overarching end (KrV, A 840 B 868; 9: 24), namely “the entire vocation of man” (“die ganze Bestimmung des Menschen”, KrV, A 840 B 868). I will return to this point later. Thus, when Kant says in Logic that all questions of philosophy relate to the question “What is the human being?” and can be reckoned as anthropological questions, he explicitly restricts this to philosophy in the cosmopolitan sense (9: 25), thereby allowing for philosophical concerns that are not anthropological. On the other hand, philosophy according to its school concept and philosophy according to its cosmopolitan concept are not two distinct disciplines but two aspects of the same endeavor. These aspects are not on an equal footing, according to Kant, since only philosophy in the cosmopolitan sense responds to the fundamental interests of human reason. Thus, there remains a sense in which all questions of philosophy, even the most remote and speculative ones, according to Kant, are ultimately related to the question “What is the human being?”, even though an answer to that question is not supposed to contain the answer to all other philosophical questions. 2.4  The Anthropocentric Character of Kant’s Philosophy What, then, gives the question “What is the human being?” such a prominent place in Kant’s conception of philosophy? One possible answer, suggested by Reinhardt Brand, is that Kant means to express the anthropocentric character of his philosophy (Brandt 2015: 1509). And indeed, Kant makes human beings the center of his philosophy like no philosopher before him. The Critique of Pure Reason, according to Kant, engages in a “revolution of the way of thinking” (B XI–XXII), which consists in placing the human observer at the center of things. Thus, according to Kant, space and time are nothing but the specifically human forms in which we intuit the world. Other beings may have quite different forms of intuition. Since we can only cognize things in space and time, Kant argues, the world in which we live and which we can experience – from the smallest parts of matter, to animate nature, to the most distant regions of the universe – is a thoroughly human world, because it is shaped by our forms of intuition.

Kant’s Answer to the Question  35 As Kant points out: “We can speak of space, of extended beings, etc., only from the standpoint of a human being” (KrV, A 26 B 42).6 Kant places the human being at the center of his ethics as well. Although the moral law is supposed to hold not only for all human beings but for all rational beings in general, including God, it requires us never to treat “humanity”, both in our own person and in that of anyone else, merely as a means but always also as an end (4: 429; cf. Guyer 2019). By contrast, all other parts of nature, including animals, are mere means to our human ends. As Kant puts it starkly in the Conjectural Beginning: The first time he [the human being] said to the sheep: Nature has given you the skin you wear not for you but for me, then took it off the sheep and put it on himself (Genesis 3: 21), he became aware of a prerogative that he had by his nature over all animals, which he now no longer regarded as his fellow creatures, but rather as means and instruments given over to his will for the attainment of his discretionary aims (8: 114) Similarly, Kant begins his 1784 lecture on Natural Law (Naturrecht Feyerabend) by saying: “For the will of the human being all of nature is subjected, as far as his power can only reach, except human and other rational beings. Things in nature considered by reason can only be regarded as means to ends, but only the human being can be regarded as an end himself” (27: 1319). Even God, Kant argues, ultimately turns out to be a necessary but nevertheless profoundly human posit. This is particularly explicit in the late Opus postumum. God, Kant states, is “not a hypothetical thing” but “pure practical reason itself” (22: 118): “est deus in nobis” (22: 130) – God is in us, i.e., in human beings. In fact, Kant now takes this anthropocentric idealism to such an extreme that he writes: “That something else exists apart from me is a product of myself. I make myself […] We make everything ourselves” (22: 82). Even though these are unpublished drafts that may not express Kant’s considered position even at the time of writing, they fit into the general tendency of Kant’s philosophy to place the human being at the center not only of his philosophy but of the world itself. In this sense, it would then only be consistent to claim that all questions of philosophy ultimately relate to the single query “What is the human being?” Moreover, this would explain how Kant can say that “we can reckon all this” – namely metaphysics, morals, and religion – “as anthropology” (9: 25). The reason for this is the anthropocentric character of Kant’s ontology, ethics, and theology. Even if this explanation contains more than just a kernel of truth, it nevertheless seems to me to fall short. It may be true that we can only speak

36  Marcus Willaschek of space and time from the standpoint of a human being, but according to Kant, it is at least conceivable that other beings have the same forms of perception as we do. And while it is “humanity” that we ought to respect, by this Kant means a moral quality that is by no means restricted to the human species but consists in our reason, which we potentially share with other beings (cf. Guyer 2019).7 And even if the idea of God is a human idea “in us” and a mere personification of practical reason, this does not mean that its object, if it exists, is “in us” as well. Many passages in Kant’s published works make it abundantly clear that, according to him, belief in God is belief in “a single, most perfect, and rational primordial being” (A 814 B 843) and a “supreme cause of nature” (cf. 5: 125) – and hence, belief in something outside of and above us. The question of whether God exists, therefore, no more coincides with the question of what human beings are than does the question of the finitude or infinitude of the world. As we have seen, it is not Kant’s view that an answer to the question “What is the human being?” contains the answers to all other philosophical questions. 2.5 Kant’s Anthropology and the Question “What Is the Human Being?” Perhaps we can make some progress by looking more closely at the discipline that Kant, in the context of the question “What is the human being?”, appears to identify with philosophy, namely anthropology. The kind of anthropology that Kant is thinking of here is not the empirical science he calls the “physiological knowledge of the human being” (7: 119), but the discipline he calls “anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”, which was the topic of a yearly lecture course that he had been giving since 1772. In fact, Kant explains in his letter to Stäudlin in 1793 that the question “What is the human being?” was treated in “anthropology; about which I have been reading an annual Collegium for more than 20 years now”, thus suggesting that it is in this “Collegium” that he answers the question “What is the human being?” But if we turn for an answer to Kant’s published Anthropology, which he presented to the public in 1798 as one of his last published works, it is at least controversial whether such an answer can be found. On the one hand, there are those like Brandt, who flatly denies this: “Pragmatic anthropology […] does not answer the question, ‘What is the human being?’ […] Neither the Lectures on Anthropology nor the Anthropology of 1798 refers to the question, ‘What is the human being?’ as its central problem; they do not mention it once” (Brandt 1999: 16; transl. Louden 2021: 28). And in fact, only after offering a wide array of empirical observations about human beings, their faculties and pathologies, and the character (distinguishing traits) of the individual person, the sexes, peoples, and

Kant’s Answer to the Question  37 human races does Kant in his book on anthropology finally turn to the “character of the species” (7: 321). But there we learn that it seems “that the problem of indicating the character of the human species is absolutely insoluble, because the solution would have to be made through experience by means of the comparison of two species of rational being, but experience does not offer us this” (7: 321). Kant argues that to define the character of the human species, we would have to empirically determine its specific differences from other (non-human or non-terrestrial) rational species. But since we know of no other rational beings, this is impossible. Hence, Brandt seems right to claim that the question “What is the human being?” remains unanswered in Kant’s anthropology.8 On the other hand, commentators such as Thomas Sturm claim that Kant does provide an answer to the question “What is the human being?” in his published Anthropology. According to Sturm, Kant answers that question “in the final section on the ‘character of humankind’ ” (Sturm 2009: 407). While Kant “points to the problems of determining the concept of humankind, he does not say that a definition is impossible” (Sturm 2009: 541), but only that it “seems” to be impossible. In fact, according to Sturm, Kant offers such a definition by claiming that the human being “is an animal rationabile”, that is, a being capable of rationality (although it has yet to fully realize that capacity) (Sturm 2009: 451, quoting from 7: 321). But while Sturm is certainly correct to insist, against Brandt, that Kant in some sense does provide an answer to our question by characterizing the human being as an “animal rationabile”, it seems to me that Sturm misrepresents the point of that claim by treating it as a definition of what human beings are.9 While Kant indeed only says that a definitional characterization of human beings “seems” impossible – not that it is impossible – and then goes on to say that human beings are capable of rationality, in between these two claims Kant admits that to place the human being in the “system of living nature”, “nothing remains for us than to say that he has a character, which he himself creates, insofar as he is capable of perfecting himself according to ends that he himself adopts” (7: 321). It is only as a specification of that claim that Kant goes on to write: “By means of this the human being, as an animal endowed with the capacity of reason (animal rationabile), can make out of himself a rational animal (animal rationale)” (7: 321). Thus, I think that if Kant wanted to give a definition-like characterization of human beings by claiming that they are rationabile, his point was, paradoxically, that they are not given a fixed character but must create one for themselves. Specifically, it is their nature to be capable of self-perfection by making themselves more and more fully rational, and thus moral, beings. But note that rationality here is not a descriptive trait to be investigated empirically but rather a normative property or

38  Marcus Willaschek task (as becomes clear from the fact that approximating it is a means of self-perfection). In sum, while both Brandt and Sturm clearly have a valid point, their views share a questionable presupposition, namely that Kant’s question – “What is the human being?” – is asking for a definition, or the “essence” of the human being, in descriptive terms. While this assumption is only implicit in Brandt, Sturm states it explicitly: “The question of what the human being is a question for a definition of the human being, that is, for the specific characteristics that distinguish the human species from other species” (Sturm 2009: 407; my transl.). Similarly, Alix Cohen takes the question “What is the human being?” to be about the “essence” of human beings, which is why, according to her interpretation of “the pragmatic turn operated by Kant’s anthropology”, that question should be “replaced by the question ‘what can man make of himself?’: an enquiry into meaning thus being substituted for an enquiry about essence” (Cohen 2008: 514). However, Kant’s claim that the human being “has a character, which he himself creates” suggests that Kant himself does not believe that human beings have a fixed, descriptive essence – not even that of being capable of self-perfection. Rather than an essence, self-perfection is a task and obligation (or so I will go on to show). But if Kant himself denies that human beings have an essence (understood as a fixed set of descriptive characteristics), it makes little sense to read Kant’s fourth question as asking what that essence is.10 2.6  Freedom as the Essence of the Human Being? But perhaps there is a way to salvage the idea of an essence of the human being. As we have just seen, according to Kant, the character of the human species consists in not having a character but in having to create one.11 While this claim sounds highly paradoxical, even contradictory, it resonates well with Kant’s conception of “anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”, which is concerned with what the human being “as a freeacting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself” (Anth, 7: 119). We might thus try to dissolve the air of paradox by taking Kant to be saying that the essence of the human species is to be free, which quality distinguishes it from all other animals.12 When Kant describes pragmatic anthropology as the doctrine of human beings as free-acting beings, this is precisely what he seems to have in mind. Thus, we would seem to have found a descriptive answer to the question “What is the human being?” after all: Humans are those beings, Kant claims, who are free to act as they please and to create their own character along the way.13 This hypothesis seems to be confirmed in Kant’s little bravura piece, the essay the Conjectural Beginning of Human History (1786), which is

Kant’s Answer to the Question  39 meant to provide a “history of the first development of freedom from its original predisposition in the nature of the human being” (8: 109). Accordingly, at least a “predisposition” to freedom appears to be an essential part of human nature. In the essay, which mocks Herder’s theological account of the origin of the human being by playfully re-interpreting the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), Kant locates the beginning of specifically human life in the “first attempt at a free choice” (8: 112). Kant interprets the biblical story of Eve and the serpent as follows: The first humans observed an animal (for example a snake) eating a fruit (for example something that looked like an apple) that they had hitherto instinctively spurned but which, inspired by the animal’s example, they tried for themselves: “Now the harm might have been as insignificant as you like, yet about this it opened the human being’s eyes […]. He discovered in himself a capacity of choosing for himself a way of living and not being bound to a single one, as other animals are” (8: 112). Once in the “estate of freedom”, human beings could never return to the “dominion of instinct” (8: 112). This, again, suggests that the essence of the human being, and thus Kant’s answer to the question “What is the human being?”, consists in freedom, that is, the ability “to choose for oneself a way of living” or to “create [one’s] own character”. The problem with this proposition becomes clear when we look again at Kant’s explanation of what constitutes a specifically pragmatic anthropology, namely that it examines the human being in terms of what it “as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself” (7: 119). The final qualification is important: Can and should. According to Kant, the freedom of human beings is not a given quality like their upright gait, their manual dexterity, or their intelligence. If we consider only their observable and measurable abilities, then human beings differ from other animals not essentially but only as a matter of degree. They can walk upright longer than gorillas, are more manually dexterous than chimpanzees and (we hope) are more intelligent than octopodes. But freedom is not such a measurable quality; strictly speaking, it is not a quality at all but a task. To be sure, there is an aspect of freedom that Kant regards as an empirically given property of human beings, namely their ability to set aside the short-term satisfaction of needs in favor of long-term advantages – Kant calls this “practical freedom” or arbitrium liberum (KrV, A 802 B 830). But this ability, too, distinguishes us not essentially but as a matter of degree from other animals, as the squirrel’s instinctive stockpiling shows. Perhaps Kant would object that practical freedom requires reason and concepts, which squirrels lack. But still, as an empirical feature of human beings, our arbitrium liberum is continuous with the arbitrium brutum of the other animals.

40  Marcus Willaschek The very freedom that characterizes human beings as such is not an empirical property or ability but a capacity any account of which, to borrow Wilfrid Sellars’s expression, is “fraught with ought”. It is the freedom that consists in our moral autonomy (GMS, 4: 446–447) – the capacity to act only on laws one has given to oneself. These laws, Kant argues, are moral laws, whose supreme principle is the moral law (in the singular): Act only on maxims you can will as universal laws (GMS, 4: 421). Our only cognitive access to that capacity (its “ratio cognoscendi”, KU, 5: 3) is through our consciousness of the moral law. And rather than consisting in the freedom to choose among different options as one pleases, it is the capacity to be guided in one’s choice by the moral law (GMS, 4: 447). This is why, in Kant’s essay the Conjectural Beginning, the first act of free choice is only the first step in the development of our predisposition to freedom, which is followed by three further steps, the last of which consists in recognizing all rational beings as ends in themselves and human beings as “the end of nature” (Anth, 8: 114). For this reason, it is impossible to fully characterize the predisposition to freedom other than in normative terms, since it is none other than the predisposition to develop into a moral agent. In sum, while it is correct to say that for Kant freedom – understood as moral autonomy – is essential to human beings, this does not provide us with an answer to the descriptive question of what human beings essentially are. 2.7  Conclusion: The Moral Human Being as the Final End What Kant actually means when he says that the three philosophical questions – “What can I know? What shall I do? What may I hope?” – refer to the fourth question – “What is the human being?” (9: 25) – becomes clear when we remember that Kant is here speaking exclusively about philosophy “in a cosmopolitan sense”, i.e. philosophy not as the satisfaction of theoretical curiosity but as a contribution to the realization of the “final purpose[s] of human reason”: “For philosophy in this [i.e. cosmopolitan] sense is in fact the science of the relation of all cognition and of all use of reason to the ultimate end of human reason” (9: 24; cf. A 840 B 868). But what is this ultimate end? In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant says that it consists “in the entire vocation of human beings, and the philosophy of it is called morality” (KrV, A 840 B 868). In speaking of the “vocation of human beings” (Bestimmung des Menschen), Kant is referring to an extensive debate among German philosophers in the second half of the eighteenth century that started with J. J. Spalding’s book of that title and included contributions by Mendelssohn and Herder, among many others (cf. Macor 2013; Guyer 2020: Chapter 9). Its focus was clearly not anthropological, concerning descriptive features of humankind, but theological and moral, concerning the place and prospects of human beings in God’s creation and

Kant’s Answer to the Question  41 their purpose in life. For Kant, the “vocation” of human beings, which defines both their place in nature and their final purpose, is clearly to become moral beings with a morally good will. Thus, in the Critique of Judgment, Kant writes that if we consider nature as a purposeful creation, “then man is the final end of creation; […] and only in man, but also in him only as subjects of morality, is the unconditional legislation in regard to ends to be found, which therefore alone makes him capable of being a final end to which all of nature is teleologically subordinated” (5: 435–436). Philosophy in a cosmopolitan respect is directed toward a final end, and this final end is the human being as a moral subject.14 This, I want to suggest, is why all of the questions of philosophy turn on the question “What is the human being?” The “interest of human reason” is directed at the questions “What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope for?” because we must answer these to grasp the “entire vocation of human beings”. This “vocation”, according to Kant, lies in the moralization of human beings, in their gradual moral improvement, individually and as a species. This is also confirmed in Kant’s published Anthropology, where he “sums up” the “total of findings generated by pragmatic anthropology as to the vocation of man (Bestimmung des Menschen) and the characterization of his development” as follows: “The human being is destined (bestimmt) by his reason to live in a society of other people, and in this society he has to cultivate himself, civilize himself, and apply himself to a moral purpose by the arts and sciences” (7: 324; emphasis added). The “vocation” of human beings (“Bestimmung des Menschen”, cf. also 7: 330; 6: 26; 5: 146), which lies in their gradual cultivation, civilization, and moralization, both individual and collective, thus “sums up” the findings of pragmatic anthropology, thereby answering the question “What is the human being?”15 As we know from Kant’s writings on the philosophy of history, the final end of moralizing human beings is an eminently political one, since it presupposes their gradual cultivation and civilization, which can fully succeed only within the legal framework of constitutional republics and a global peace order (cf. e.g., 8: 17–31). Unlike his friend Moses Mendelssohn, Kant did not think that such progress was impossible. Unlike optimistic thinkers such as Leibniz and Wolff, however, nor did he think that it was necessary. Rather, on Kant’s view, everything depends on what we human beings make of ourselves (cf. 7: 79–93; 8: 307–312; cf. Guyer 2020: Chapter 12).16 Notes 1 While the traditional translation is “What is man?”, I will follow the current usage by translating “Mensch” as “human being” and adapt citations from the Cambridge Edition accordingly.

42  Marcus Willaschek 2 By saying that the first question is “speculative”, Kant implies that it is theoretical (“speculation” being a species of theory; KrV, A 634 B 662), so that the third question, by being both theoretical and practical, combines features of the first two questions. 3 For discussion, see Guyer 2000b. 4 Robert Louden claims that according to the passage from the Jäsche Logic under discussion, “an answer to the question ‘Was ist der Mensch?’ will itself provide an answer to all of philosophy’s questions” (Louden 2021: 34). 5 Kant speaks both of philosophy in the “cosmopolitan” sense (“weltbürgerlichen Sinn”, 9: 25) and of the “world concept” (“Weltbegriff”, 9: 24) of philosophy. For reasons of uniformity, and following the Guyer/Wood translation of the first Critique (e.g., A 838 B 866), I will here render “Weltbegriff” as “cosmopolitan concept”. 6 For critical discussion, see Guyer 1987: Chapter 16. 7 It remains true, however, that Kant explicitly denies any moral status to nonrational animals (which we are not allowed to harm without good reason only because this would morally harm us; 6: 443). For a recent Kantian attempt to include non-human animals in the “kingdom of ends”, see Korsgaard 2018. 8 For a similar but more nuanced view, see Louden 2021: 28. 9 By “definition”, I mean what Kant himself calls the “explication” of a concept (cf. A 728 B 756), that is, an open list of defining characteristics or “marks” of an empirical concept. Clearly, the question “What is the human being?” does not ask for a merely “nominal” definition (Worterklärung). According to Kant, however, a “real” definition (Realdefinition, Sacherklärung) is possible only in mathematics, not in philosophy (cf. A 727 B 755 – A 732 B 760; 9: 141–145). It seems that Kant would view the definition of the human being as an “animal rationabile” as a mere nominal definition (cf. 9: 144–145, where he points out that the schema “genus proximum plus differentia specifica” is required only for nominal definitions, not for real definitions). Thanks to Fabian Burt for alerting me to the importance of Kant’s account of definitions in this context. 10 My reading thus differs from Cohen’s, who claims: “I argue that Kant in fact redirects the question ‘what is man?’ from defining man in terms of what he is to defining him in terms of what he does” (Cohen 2008: 506). By contrast, I will argue that Kant’s question, without redirection or replacement, is about what man ought to be. In all fairness to Cohen, this difference may be a matter of nuance, however, since Cohen likewise emphasizes the practical orientation of Kant’s fourth question. In her paper, Cohen is not so much interested in the very meaning of Kant’s question as in the scope of Kant’s project of a pragmatic anthropology. 11 This claim has a decidedly existentialist ring to it, with echoes in Sartre, who famously claimed: “The human being is nothing else but what he makes of himself” (Sartre 1993, 15; cited in Frierson 2013). 12 The centrality of freedom in Kant’s mature ethics has been a major theme in Paul Guyer’s work on Kant over several decades. See e.g. Guyer 2000a; Guyer 2013. 13 On the “inclination to freedom” and the concept and unconditional value of freedom in Kant’s anthropology lectures, see Guyer 2014. 14 We thus again find confirmation of our earlier assumption that among the three original Kantian questions that unite “all interest of my reason”, it is the second (“What ought I do to”) that is most fundamental, since, as Kant puts it in the Critique of Practical Reason, “all interest is ultimately practical and even

Kant’s Answer to the Question  43 that of speculative reason is only conditional and is complete in practical [that is, moral; MW] use alone” (5: 121). 15 For a similar reading, but without reference to the “vocation of the human being”, see Frierson: “At its core, the question ‘What is the human being?’ combines careful description of human characteristics with a normative, aspirational account of what about “us” is or would be truly valuable, an account rooted in the sense that each human questioner has of herself” (Frierson 2013, 4). “In a sense, Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View provides his answer to the question ‘What is the human being?’ For Kant, the question is a pressing practical one about humans’ place in the universe, about who we are and also, crucially, about what we can and should make of ourselves” (Frierson 2013, 130–131). 16 I would like to thank Claudia Blöser, Fabian Burt, Gabriele Gava and Sofie Møller for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter, Carolyn Benson for correcting my English, and Paul Guyer for more than four decades of exemplary scholarship and, on a more personal note, his long-lasting encouragement and friendship.

Bibliography Brandt, R. (1999), Kritischer Kommentar zu Kants Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798) (Hamburg: Meiner). Brandt, R. (2015): Mensch. In Kant-Lexikon, ed. by M. Willaschek, J. Stolzenberg, G. Mohr, S. Bacin (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 1508–1515. Cohen, A. (2008), Kant’s answer to the question ‘what is man?’ and its implications for anthropology, «Studies in History and Philosophy of Science» 39, pp. 506–514 Frierson, P. (2013): Kant’s Questions: What Is the Human Being? (London: Routledge). Guyer, P. (1987): Transcendental Idealism and the Forms of Intuition. In Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 345–370.    . (2000a): Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2000b): From a Practical Point of View: Kant’s Conception of a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason. In Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 333–371.    . (2007): Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Reader’s Guide (London: Continuum).    . (2013), Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).    . (2014): The Inclination Toward Freedom. In Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide, ed. by A. Cohen (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 114–132.    . (2019): Kant on the Rationality of Morality (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2020): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP). Höffe, O. (2014): Kant (München: C.H. Beck). Korsgaard, C. M. (2018): Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals (Oxford: OUP). Louden, R. (2021): Anthropology from a Kantian Point of View (Cambridge: CUP). Macor, L. A. (2013): Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748–1800): Eine Begriffsgeschichte (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog).

44  Marcus Willaschek Recki, B. (1998): Der Kanon der Reinen Vernunft. In Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. by G. Mohr, M. Willaschek (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag), pp. 597–616. Sartre, J.-P. (1993): Existentialism and the Human Emotions (New York: Carol Publishing Group). Sturm, T. (2009), Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen. (Paderborn: Mentis). Willaschek, M. (2018): Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics. The Dialectic of Pure Reason (Cambridge: CUP).

3

What Is Humanity? Sofie Møller

3.1 Introduction Central to Kant’s account of humanity is his question “What is a human being?”, which ties together the three central questions of philosophy: What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?1 While these last three questions relate to reason and guide philosophical inquiry, his question concerns the person asking those fundamental questions. His question relates to the three others because they all explore different aspects of the task of perfecting oneself as a human being. Asking what the human being is and how it might develop determines the perspective of philosophical inquiry and allows the inquirer to orient themselves and understand the necessary limitations of philosophical understanding. In inquiring about human beings, Kant is aiming not to provide a list of empirical characteristics that would allow an observer to identify a human being but to understand what an individual human being and the collective humankind might develop into. This approach is clearly different from a merely biological account of a human being. As Marcus Willaschek demonstrates in his contribution to this volume, Kant is interested in providing a determination of the human being in the tradition of Spalding’s Die Bestimmung des Menschen (Spalding 2006), which initiated an extensive discussion in Kant’s time.2 A determination of the human being is an account of how humankind may develop and whether humankind has progressed over the course of history and will continue to progress. It focuses on humankind rather than the individual human being. While the individual human being ought to contribute to the collective development, a determination of the human being involves understanding how humankind as such may develop. The question “What is a human being?” has many layers, not only because all human beings are empirically different, but because humans possess a rational nature that distinguishes them from all other animals. Human beings are characterized by a particular empirical nature and by a noumenal nature. To better distinguish between various concepts, I refer throughout to DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-5

46  Sofie Møller empirical individuals as “human beings”, the empirical group as “humankind”, and the moral concept as “humanity”. In addition to these three concepts, I refer to the teleological understanding as the determination of the human being. The tensions and overlaps between the empirical and moral groups are decisive for understanding a possible development of humanity and Kant’s account of a possible determination of the human being. Although some philosophers might have a purely theoretical interest in understanding the possible historical development of human beings, Kant’s interest in humanity is also of practical interest. In addition to using humanity to explain the content of moral duty in the second formula of the categorical imperative, he wishes to show how human beings can develop morally and this is why he presents a moral concept of humanity. In the Groundwork, Kant refers to humanity in one of the central formulations of the categorical imperative.3 When he writes that you should not treat humanity merely as a means, he is not referring to a group of empirical human beings. Instead, the notion of humanity is an idea of an end-setting being, which not all members of humankind might live up to empirically. While means-ends rationality is observable empirically, it is impossible to know whether another human being is exercising their noumenal freedom morally. Their observable behavior might be the same regardless of whether they are pursuing moral ends. In the cases of very young children and the severely cognitively impaired, it would seem that empirical circumstances limit the exercise of rational capacities, either because of impairment or because these abilities are still being developed. Nevertheless, these individuals also belong to the transcendental idea of humanity and should be treated accordingly. Kant does not give a specific argument for this point but instead argues that even though duty requires us to treat different people in accordance with circumstance, this does not mean that there are different concepts of duty: How should people be treated in accordance with their differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty and so forth? These questions do not yield so many different kinds of ethical obligation (for there is only one, that of virtue as such), but only so many different ways of applying it (corollaries). Hence they cannot be presented as sections of ethics and members of the division of a system (which must proceed a priori from a rational concept), but can only be appended to the system. Yet even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system. [MS, 6: 469 (583)] Even though Kant does not tie the normative understanding of humanity to empirical circumstances, he still hints at a tension between the moral

What Is Humanity? 47 concept of humanity and empirical human nature. Empirical nature is crude and uncultured, and the lack of education and culture leads us to give in to empirical inclinations. Here the account of teleology from the Critique of the Power of Judgment helps us understand the role of culture in promoting the moral conception and resisting human animal nature and its tendency to follow empirical inclinations. In this chapter, I consider how Paul Guyer’s teleological reading of Kant’s ethics helps us understand the relationship between the transcendental ideal of humanity and empirical humankind, and I argue that Guyer’s teleological interpretation helps us understand how Kant reconciles empirical with transcendental human nature by understanding humanity as an ideal toward which agents ought to strive. To show this, I first consider Kant’s description of humanity as the ability to set ends freely and its role in the humanity formulation of the categorical imperative. I then confront this ideal with different empirical impediments to rational endsetting that Kant considers in his Anthropology (1798) and his reflections on education. In the final section, I discuss how the two come together in a teleological conception of humanity. 3.2  Humanity as the Ability to Set Ends Kant’s conception of humanity is central in his ethics since he sees ethics as respecting the “pride in the dignity of humanity in one’s own person” [MS, 6: 459 (577)]. This conception of humanity has practical importance because acting ethically consists in respecting the humanity of others. As the guiding idea in one formulation of the categorical imperative, the conception of humanity has a normative aspect that guides action. Because human beings can set rational ends in their actions, they are capable of acting ethically, and this ability to set ends is the normative grounding of the categorical imperative. Without the ability to set ends, there could be no ethical duties. This relationship between humanity and end-setting is the foundation for the humanity formula of the categorical imperative: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”4 The opposition here is between persons as end-setting beings who have worth and things that may be used as mere means. This formula of the categorical imperative demands that action always be consistent with humanity as an end in itself.5 Crucially, Kant does not limit this conception of humanity to the human species, but includes “every rational nature, as an end in itself.”6 Because humanity in this formulation is synonymous with rational nature, the conception is not necessarily co-extensive with the human species. Other beings with rational natures, such as angels or aliens, would also be members of humanity in this formulation. All that is

48  Sofie Møller required to be a member of humanity is to possess an end-setting rational nature. Respecting this end-setting nature is not a specific, subjective aim that all rational agents must set for themselves, but rather a formal aim that concerns the structure of all subjective ends. To avoid using humanity as a means, all agents ought to allow themselves and others to set their own ends in action. Kant conceives of “humanity as rational nature” [GMS, 4: 439 (88)], and it does not automatically follow that empirical human beings belong to humanity in this sense. Instead, humanity becomes an aim toward which human beings ought to strive. This theme is particularly strong in Kant’s writings on history, in which he accounts for the progress of humanity. In the Doctrine of Virtue (1797), he writes, “A human being has a duty to raise himself from the crude state of his nature, from his animality (quod actum), more and more toward humanity, by which he alone is capable of setting himself ends; he has a duty to diminish his ignorance by instruction and to correct his errors.”7 This description sets up animality, or the crude state of human nature, as the starting point and humanity as the end point of a development that every human being has a duty to carry out. But although every human being has a duty to strive toward humanity, this does not mean that they will reach it permanently. The expression quod actum in this passage is a legal term for the circumstance that the will behind an act needs to be investigated further. A human being in this “crude state” might be performing movements that appear as if they were the result of rational end-setting, but this is unclear from an observer’s point of view. The incentives behind an act are not empirically observable, which is why Kant comments that they need to be investigated. This also means that for two reasons, it is impossible for an observer to assess the extent to which a human being is living up to the ideal of humanity: First, because rational end-setting is not observable and second, because the extent to which an individual lives up to the ideal might change over time. Someone might succeed in making humanity their end in one moment and fail the next. Instead of trying to judge or categorize others, the individual has a duty to strive toward humanity by setting rational ends in their own actions. Kant’s implication is that this requires both instruction from others and correcting one’s own errors. This means there is an educational component to humanity since instruction helps overcome our crude nature and become better at setting rational ends rather than acting on impulse from one’s empirical inclinations. Because humanity is not an empirical concept, it is not necessarily coextensive with biological humankind. We have seen that humanity encompasses any kind of rational end-setting being. In addition, it is impossible to determine empirically whether a human being belongs to humanity. Kant sets humanity up as an ideal to be pursued in action, not as a category

What Is Humanity? 49 that allows for a neat separation between those who belong to humanity and those who do not. Consequently, we should not discriminate against other human beings based on an empirical assessment of whether they belong to humanity. Instead, we should understand humanity as an ideal toward which we ought to strive when acting and that no individual human being ever fully realizes. For this reason, Guyer reads the end-setting understanding of humanity as the teleological aim of Kant’s ethics. He understands humanity (the capacity to set ends freely) as the teleological aim of the categorical imperative. Reading the categorical imperative teleologically entails understanding this imperative as part of a development. As an individual develops and educates themselves, they become better at following the categorical imperative and setting humanity as their own end. On Guyer’s account, humanity becomes a regulative idea that guides action and thereby assists human beings in perfecting themselves. Having humanity as our end makes us better at rational end-setting because Kant understands humanity as the ability to set rational ends. Although interpreters usually situate Kant’s teleology in his philosophy of nature, Guyer argues that we should also understand Kant’s ethics as teleologically oriented. Kant invites us to think of actors as imperfect beings who should always strive to make humanity their end when acting. The conception of humanity in the categorical imperative is just one of several teleological elements that Guyer identifies in Kant’s ethics. Still, he warns that we should not conflate these teleological elements with the teleological development of natural phenomena. Unlike the teleology of natural phenomena, the teleology of Kant’s ethics is connected to the ability to set aims freely. This type of teleology is normative rather than descriptive; it is a telos that actors ought to set for themselves. For this reason, Guyer argues that Kant’s ethical account of humanity contains several teleological elements that go beyond Kant’s early attempt at mapping a natural teleology of human development in history in Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784). In this text, Kant argues that humankind is driven to develop its natural predispositions through its own “unsociable sociability”, which refers to the circumstance that human beings both need to live together and are vulnerable to attacks and abuse from one another.8 The driving force of this development is not humankind itself but nature operating through the natural mechanism of unsociable sociability. This mechanism does not depend on individual agency, but might also happen without anyone willing it: Both in On the Common Saying (1793) and Perpetual Peace (1795), Kant echoes Seneca’s dictum that “fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt”.9 In these texts, the historical development of humankind is a natural matter. Humankind develops its natural predispositions through a natural mechanism that does not depend on any individual agency. The development happens almost behind the backs of

50  Sofie Møller those involved: Humankind progresses because nature drives it to fully develop its natural predispositions. However, this mechanistic view of human progress changes in Kant’s later works. In The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), Kant also sets forth an agent-centered view of humanity’s progress. Here, the moral agency of individuals comes to the fore and is decisive for developing the moral concept of humanity. This is the view of human progress that fits with Guyer’s teleological reading of Kant’s ethics. While the mechanistic view sees no need for moral agency, the moral view of humanity depends on moral end-setting for human progress. According to Guyer, “Kant’s moral theory is teleological in no fewer than four ways” (2005: 170). First, adherence to the moral law must serve humanity as its ultimate end. This is what we saw expressed in the humanity formula of the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative imposes a particular end on action. This end is a formal one: It requires the ability to freely set ends as our end. Guyer emphasizes that for Kant, humanity is a formal rather than a material aim. Promoting the human capacity to set ends is not a determined end in itself. Having humanity as an end means promoting the ability to set ends. Failing to do this would entail a contradiction. Guyer argues that it is “nothing other than the capacity freely to choose ends of actions that in [Kant’s] view distinguishes humankind from all other animals. To make humanity always our end and never merely a means thus requires that we make the human capacity freely to choose ends itself our end and never merely a means” (Guyer 2005: 174). Guyer emphasizes that humanity in its normative formulation is synonymous with the capacity to set our own ends freely. Treating a human being merely as a means would contradict this idea because it negates the human ability to set one’s own ends freely in practice. Second, “the moral requirement [is] that we preserve and promote human capacities to choose and realize particular ends” (Guyer 2005: 171). This point concerns the realization of rational end-setting in practice. It is not enough to promote end-setting in theory; Kant’s ethics require us to promote end-setting in practice as well, which means promoting the capacity for end-setting. As for the third and fourth dimensions, Guyer explains: These two conclusions then lead to two further teleological dimensions of Kant’s thought: the recognition that both the cultivation of freedom in the choice of ends and the realization of human ends, in the systematic and collective form that Kant calls the highest good, must be conceived of as possible within nature. (Guyer 2005: 171) Guyer’s point follows from Kant’s focus on progress in history and the idea that moral progress must be possible. His reading of the teleological

What Is Humanity? 51 elements of Kant’s ethics ties Kant’s philosophy of history to his ethics. On this reading, the requirement of moral progress is to humankind as the categorical imperative is to the individual agent. The development of humankind happens on the individual level through the categorical imperative, and on the collective level this leads to the moral development of humankind.10 This reading recovers teleology in Kant’s philosophy of history through the categorical imperative, arguing against the common understanding that the two are at odds. Guyer thus adopts a different standpoint from that of Reinhard Brandt (2003: 128), who argues that Kant’s views on progress and history developed over time. According to Brandt, The Conflict of the Faculties marks a break in which humanity comes of age in history and no longer needs providence to ensure its development. While Kant’s earlier texts on the philosophy of history focus on unsociable sociability as a driving force of history, his later texts focus on moral action as promoting human progress. Guyer’s reading offers a way of seeing this as a new type of teleological development that does not rely on providence or unsociable sociability but rather the teleological aspect of the categorical imperative. Like Brandt, Lea Ypi argues for a change in perspective in Kant’s philosophy of history. Ypi focuses in particular on Kant’s account of revolution: “[F]ollowing the systematic developments of The Critique of Judgment, The Conflict of the Faculties is agent-oriented and centred on the dispositions of historically existing human beings” (Ypi 2014: 269). Although Ypi reads Kant as turning to an agent-oriented account of history, we should understand this as “the development of human beings as institutionally embodied collective agents” (Ypi 2014: 269). In an argument similar to Brandt’s, Ypi argues that Kant’s reflections on history and the possibility of progress are: both future-oriented and past-oriented. We look back to previous experiences and find evidence of the power of moral ideas in the feelings of enthusiasm aroused by transformative political events… Its occurrence, be it future-oriented or past-oriented, reveals that the force driving human beings towards historical progress is not of a natural but of a moral, historically reflexive kind. (Ypi 2014: 280) While Kant’s earlier texts focus on historical progress as driven by the natural force of unsociable sociability, Brandt and Ypi make the convincing point that Kant’s later works take an agent-centered approach to humanity’s development. As noted, Kant’s earlier texts argue that unsociable sociability will drive humanity toward perfection, either willingly or unwillingly (nolentem trahunt). However, in The Conflict of the Faculties,

52  Sofie Møller humanity’s development is driven by moral action. Guyer’s point is that this is also a teleological development, which has humanity as its end. In correspondence with Kant’s theory of action, this development also needs a driving force, which Guyer does not mention in his contribution. The authors of the collection The Emergence of Autonomy have convincingly argued that Kant puzzles with the notion of an incentive of moral action in all his philosophical publications. However, the early texts do not yet have the notion of autonomy or respect as a moral incentive. As Jens Timmermann argues, “The incentive needed to complete internal imposition is respect. That is why the twin notions of autonomy and respect for the moral law, both absent from the Canon [of the Critique of Pure Reason], emerge at the same time” (Timmermann 2019: 116). For this reason, Kant can only make moral action with a moral incentive the driving force of human development after his introduction of autonomy in the Groundwork. Since this provides all of humanity with the same incentive, humanity can now drive its own development without external assistance from nature or providence. Guyer’s teleological interpretation of humanity is a variation of the standard interpretation of humanity as practical rationality, but this interpretation has been challenged by some authors. While Guyer holds that by humanity, Kant means beings with practical reason who can act on principle rather than inclination, Richard Dean (2006) challenges this standard interpretation of humanity and argues that identifying humanity with the capacity for practical rationality creates interpretational problems for the categorical imperative. Dean argues that we should understand humanity as identical with good will rather than practical reason since only this interpretation invests humanity with the necessary moral value. Mere practical reason does not warrant the type of respect that Kant reserves for humanity according to the categorical imperative. However, it seems that Dean conflates moral status with moral value. As Joshua Glasgow (2007: 298) correctly points out, the good-will interpretation conflates humanity as an end in itself with goodness: While humanity has moral status, it does not necessarily have moral goodness. Glasgow explains the difference well: “Moral status is the value that, for value-based theories of rightness, attaches to the property that fundamentally makes right acts right; moral goodness is the value that attaches to persons whose characters are morally admirable” (Glasgow 2007: 300). Guyer’s standard interpretation can thus account for the special moral status assigned to humanity qua practical rationality without claiming that humanity has any moral value since only the good will has moral value. Distinguishing between value and status allows us to distinguish between humanity as having moral status in virtue of its practical rationality and the good will as what confers moral value. Glasgow’s rebuttal of Dean thus provides a helpful clarification of the conception of humanity that helps us understand its place in Kant’s ethics.

What Is Humanity? 53 3.3  Empirical Human Nature Although humanity is a transcendental concept, it is combined with the empirical nature of human beings since “nature has grounded two predispositions in us for two different ends, namely humanity as an animal species and humanity as moral species” [MAM, 8: 117 (170)]. This aspect of human nature is not Kant’s main concern in his works on ethics; rather, they are concerned with providing a systematic metaphysics of morals, abstracted from empirical differences.11 The Doctrine of Virtue does contain references to empirical human nature and shows that respect for different people might take different forms because of their different circumstances. Nevertheless, Kant carefully specifies that treating different people differently is the result of applying the same concept of duty rather than an expression of different duties.12 The duty remains the same although its empirical application takes different forms. These applications to different empirical circumstances would be part of a complete system of ethics of which Kant mainly provides the abstract metaphysical foundation for a subsequent empirical application. There may be different versions of respect, but Kant leaves no doubt that we have a duty to treat all human beings with respect. In a dense passage from the Doctrine of Virtue, he explicates the relationship between humanity and respect: Every human being has a legitimate claim to respect from his fellow human beings and is in turn bound to respect every other. Humanity itself is a dignity; for a human being cannot be used merely as a means by any human being (either by others or even by himself) but must always be used at the same time as an end. It is just in this that his dignity (personality) consists, by which he raises himself above all other beings in the world that are not human beings and yet can be used, and so over all things. [MS, 6: 462 (579)] Here, Kant links the dignity of humanity to personality, which is what distinguishes human beings from things. Unlike things, human beings are owed respect in virtue of their humanity. This passage suggests an additional step between humanity and respect: Humanity as practical rationality grants humans the ability to act freely, and this confers on them the status of moral persons. Crucially, Kant does not distinguish among individuals who live up to the ideal of humanity, but specifies that all human beings have a claim to respect arising from their status as moral persons. According to the preliminary concepts of The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), a “person is a subject whose actions can be imputed to him. Moral personality is therefore nothing other than the freedom of a rational being under

54  Sofie Møller moral laws” [MS, 6: 223 (378)]. This fits with the rationality interpretation of humanity, according to which humanity is synonymous with practical rationality. We now have a third element in a chain of identities: Humanity is the capacity for practical rationality, which is identical with moral personality understood as being imputable for free actions. While practical rationality is a capacity, personality is a moral status. We thus might say that humanity is the rational capacity presupposed by moral status. While the ideal of humanity remains ahistorical and fixed, the ability of empirical human beings to live up to this ideal needs development and strengthening. Pursuing humanity as an end means cultivating one’s ability for rational end-setting through culture. In § 83  of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant describes culture as the “production of the aptitude of a rational being for any ends in general (thus those of his freedom)” [KU, 5: 431 (299)]. Kant distinguishes between two types of culture: A “culture of skill” (Geschicklichkeit) and a “culture of discipline” (Kultur der Zucht). The first provides technical knowledge and helps pass on technological progress to future generations. The second promotes selfdiscipline and rational autonomy because it “consists in the liberation of the will from the despotism of desires” [KU, 5: 432 (300)]. The culture of discipline is what allows human beings to rise beyond natural determinism and perfect the moral aspect of humanity. This means that discipline is a crucial cultural tool for the teleological development of humanity: “[T]here is also no mistaking nature’s end of prevailing ever more over the crudeness and vehemence of those inclinations, which belong more to our animality and are most opposed to our education for our higher vocation” (KU, 5: 433 [300]). To move toward humanity, human beings have to struggle against their animal nature. Kant describes people whose animal nature is not checked by rational agency as living in a crude condition. In the Anthropology, he writes against those claiming that human beings are happier and fulfil their purpose better when living in an original natural state: The human being is destined by his reason to live in a society with human beings and in it to cultivate himself, to civilize himself, and to moralize himself by means of the arts and sciences. No matter how great his animal tendency may be to give himself over passively to the impulses of ease and good living, which he calls happiness, he is still destined to make himself worthy of humanity by actively struggling with the obstacles that cling to him because of the crudity [Rohigkeit] of his nature. [Anth, 7: 324–325 (420)] According to the Doctrine of Virtue (1797), developing humanity to emerge out of crudeness is a duty for all: “A human being has a duty to

What Is Humanity? 55 raise himself from the crude state of his nature, from his animality (quoad actum), more and more toward humanity” [MS, 6: 387 (518)]. The development of humanity thus takes place both on the individual and collective levels. Humanity is developed in humankind because individuals strive to cultivate and develop themselves to live more ethical lives. Culture is consequently not an end in itself, but a means that helps develop humanity by promoting discipline and helping people resist inclination. Even though the moral conception of humanity is in tension with animal nature, the empirical aspect of humanity remains a fixed condition, which cannot be completely overcome by any individual. For this reason, Kant argues that moral progress is to be understood collectively rather than individually. 3.4  The Teleological Understanding of Humanity Kant’s account of teleology changes over the years from his early Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim, in which he describes unsociable sociability as a driving force of history, to his later reevaluation of teleology as an interpretation of appearances in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The teleological understanding of humanity implies that humanity develops throughout history. This development, however, is to a certain extent paradoxical: How can an atemporal notion of humanity entail a teleological development? If humanity is defined as the ability to set aims that is presupposed by observable purposeful action, then how may such an ability develop over time? In the previous section, we saw that Kant argues for an individual duty to develop one’s own humanity and improve the ability to resist inclinations through education and culture. However, we also saw that the individual has no hope of overcoming empirical nature completely. Does this mean that humankind is incapable of perfecting itself over time? In On the Common Saying, Kant argues that the development of culture shows that humankind is progressing: I shall therefore be allowed to assume that, since the human race is constantly advancing with respect to culture (as its natural end) it is also to be conceived as progressing toward what is better with respect to the moral end of its existence, and that this will indeed be interrupted from time to time but will never be broken off. I do not need to prove this presupposition; it is up to its adversary to prove [their] case. [TP, 8: 308–309 (306)] This teleological development is in line with Kant’s rethinking of teleology in the third Critique. He does not claim that humanity is progressing but rather that it is to be conceived of as progressing. While it might not be

56  Sofie Møller possible to prove that humanity is progressing, it is enough to show that humanity can be conceived of as progressing. This is the same approach that Kant takes to teleology in general in the third Critique. In early texts on the philosophy of history, Kant argues that progress is guaranteed either by nature or by means of unsociable sociability. These natural mechanisms allow for historical progress in ethical and rightful relations because humans are both in need of others’ assistance and vulnerable to their abuse. They even allow for progress to happen unwittingly since they do not require a specific motivation from individual actors. In this period, Kant accounts for historical progress as the development of given socalled germs (Keime) that were fully developed over the course of history through the mechanism of unsociable sociability. This approach changed in Kant’s later works, in which he focuses on how individual moral action promotes the collective progress of humanity. The turn follows two new elements in Kant’s thinking: The introduction of moral autonomy and the reformulation of teleology. Despite these developments in his philosophy, Kant does not abandon the idea that history represents the progressive development of humanity. However, since humanity is not an empirical concept, proving its prevalence in history becomes problematic. How can one prove the development of a transcendental capacity over time? According to the first Critique, we cannot prove intelligible causes [KrV, A 542 B 570 (537–538)]. Kant’s answer in The Conflict of the Faculties is to search for what he calls a sign of history – a sign that ethical agency is possible and thus that moral progress is at least possible. Therefore, an occurrence must be sought which points to the existence of such a cause and to its effectiveness in the human race, undetermined with regard to time, and which would allow progress toward the better to be concluded as an inevitable consequence. This conclusion then could also be extended to the history of the past (that it has always been in progress) in such a way that that occurrence would have to be considered not itself as the cause of history, but only as an intimation, a historical sign (signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon) demonstrating [beweisen] the tendency of the human race viewed in its entirety, that is, seen not as [a sum of] individuals (for that would yield an interminable enumeration and computation), but rather as divided into nations and states (as it is encountered on earth). [SF, 7: 84 (301)] Kant’s idea in this text is that a single example of moral progress in history will show a tendency in empirical human beings that will then develop

What Is Humanity? 57 fully over time. Whereas Guyer’s arguments about the teleological aspects of Kant’s ethics provide the moral side of this development, the sign of history is meant to show that this moral development is possible and that empirical human beings are capable of moral agency. In other words, Kant believes that one instance of moral agency can prove that the transcendental ideal of humanity has a chance of prevailing in the empirical world. While the teleological development of humanity is an ethical duty, this duty would still have to be realizable. What Kant tries to understand in this essay is whether the “totality of human beings” [SF, 7: 79 (297)] will progress morally throughout history. Even though an individual has little hope of reaching moral perfection, they might contribute to the collective progress of humanity. 3.5 Conclusion Paul Guyer’s interpretation of humanity as the aim of teleological development shows how Kant combines a transcendental ideal of humanity with empirical human nature. Understood as the ability to set ends on action, humanity is an ideal toward which all human beings ought to strive. This teleological development seeks to overcome humanity’s crude animal nature through culture and education. At the same time, the transcendental conception of humanity allows Kant to argue for equal respect for all human beings since one cannot empirically determine who lives up to the ideal of humanity and to what extent. Instead, humanity as a capacity confers the status of moral personality on all human beings regardless of the extent to which they exercise this capacity. 13 Notes 1 Cf. KrV, A 805 B 833 (677) and Log, 9: 25. 2 On the tradition of providing a determination of the human being, see Macor 2013. 3 GMS, 4: 429. 4 GMS, 4: 429 (80). 5 Pauline Kleingeld (2020) expands on this. 6 GMS, 4: 430 (81). 7 MS, 6: 387 (518). 8 “The means nature employs in order to bring about the development of all its predispositions is their antagonism in society, insofar as the latter is in the end the cause of their lawful order. Here I understand by ‘antagonism’ the unsociable sociability of human beings, i.e. their propensity to enter into society, which, however, is combined with a thoroughgoing resistance that constantly threatens to break up this society” (IaG, 8: 20 [111]). 9 “The fates lead the willing, drive the unwilling” (ZeF, 8: 365 [335] and TP, 8: 313 [309]). 10 See also Allison (2011: 209–218).

58  Sofie Møller 11 On the empirical aspects of Kant’s theory of human nature, see Cohen (2009) and Louden (2000). 12 MS, 6: 469 (584). 13 I would like to thank Luigi Filieri and Marcus Willaschek for feedback on earlier versions of this chapter.

Bibliography Bernasconi, R. (2011): Kant’s Third Thoughts on Race. In Reading Kant’s Geography, ed. by S. Elden, E. Mendieta (Albany: State University of New York Press), pp. 291–318. Brandt, R. (2003): Universität zwischen Selbst- und Fremdbestimmung. Kants >Streit der FakultätenRektoratsrede< (­Berlin: Akademie Verlag). Cohen, A. (2009): Kant and the Human Sciences. Biology, Anthropology and History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Dean, R. (2006): The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory (Oxford: OUP). Glasgow, J. (2007): Kant’s Conception of Humanity, «Journal of the History of Philosophy» 45/2, pp. 291–308. Guyer, P. (2005): Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom. Selected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Kleingeld, P. (2020): How to Use Someone “Merely as a Means”, «Kantian Review» 25/3, pp. 389–414. Louden, R. B. (2000): Kant’s Impure Ethics. From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford: OUP). Lu-Adler, H. (2022): Kant on Lazy Savagery, Racialized, «Journal of the History of Philosophy» 60/2, pp. 253–275. Macor, L. A. (2013): Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748–1800). Eine Begriffsgeschichte (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog). McCarthy, T. (2009): Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development (Cambridge: CUP). Mensch, J. (2017): Caught Between Character and Race. “Temperament” in Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology, «The Australian Feminist Law Journal» 43/1, pp. 125–144. Spalding, J. J. (2006). Die Bestimmung des Menschen, hrsg. by A. Beutel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck). Timmermann, J. (2019): Emerging Autonomy. Dealing With the Inadequacies of the “Canon” of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). In The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, ed. by S. Bacin, O. Sensen (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 102–122. Ypi, L. (2014): On Revolution in Kant and Marx, «Political Theory» 42/3, pp. 262–287.

4

Maximizing Freedom? Paul Guyer on the Value of Freedom and Reason in Kant Heiner F. Klemme

4.1 Introduction In the small group of world-renowned Kant specialists, Paul Guyer stands out as a premier example of a philosopher who seeks to combine questions of interpretation with his own philosophical perspective. In this chapter, I examine two of Guyer’s theses. The first thesis, which is exegetical, states that freedom is the supreme value of Kant’s moral philosophy and that reason is only a means to maximize our freedom: Reason is not identical to freedom, nor is it of intrinsic value, but it is necessary in order to figure out how to maximize rather than undermine or minimize the intra- and interpersonal use of freedom. We might thus say that while freedom is the only thing of intrinsic and unconditional value, reason is thus first among things of instrumental value. (Guyer 2016: vii) Although Kant himself does not use the “apparently maximizing phrase ‘the greatest use of freedom’ ” (Guyer 2016: 88) in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, the Categorical Imperative prescribes just that. As Guyer observes, it “prescribes the exercise of one’s own capacity to set ends on any occasion only in a way that does not undermine but rather expands the possibility of oneself and others freely exercising that capacity throughout their lives – in other words, the greatest possible use of freedom” (2016: 88, 89–90). With the second thesis, Guyer makes a philosophical claim. He is convinced that the doctrine of transcendental idealism and the concept of transcendental freedom should be discarded. For this reason, we must supposedly naturalize Kant’s ethics. The idea of maximizing our freedom of choice is compatible with naturalism. Thus, we do not need metaphysics to understand human beings as ends in themselves who strive to maximize their freedom. DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-6

60  Heiner F. Klemme In this chapter, I take issue with these theses. While space prohibits a complete treatment of each, I make a prima facie case to reject both the interpretation that Kant’s ethic is based on the maximization of freedom and Guyer’s proposal to naturalize Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that Guyer’s first thesis is problematic insofar as freedom qua value cannot function as a premise on which Kant’s ethics are based. For all the importance of freedom, Kant’s ethics revolve around reason. At their core, Kant’s practical philosophy and anthropology constitute a theory of the self-preservation of reason.1 We value our freedom not because it is intrinsically valuable; rather, we value our freedom because we value our rationality. To do so is a demand of pure reason. To value our rationality means to follow the “maxim of reason’s self-preservation” [WDO, 8: 147n (18)]. Concerning the second thesis, I argue that recasting Kant’s ethics in naturalism cannot do justice to two ethical intuitions central to Kant’s moral philosophy: The notion of one’s own will and the idea that even the worst human being deserves our moral respect. The chapter proceeds as follows. In a first step (§2), I outline Guyer’s understanding of the value of freedom as the fundamental ­presupposition of Kant’s ethics. In a second step (§§ 3–8), I will point out alternative readings of the relation between freedom and reason and of the idea of maximizing our freedom. Finally, I discuss the philosophical dimension of his naturalization (§9). 4.2  The Value of Freedom and the Failure of Justification Guyer holds that, since the 1760s, Kant advocates “normative essentialism” (Guyer 2016: viii), which Guyer characterizes as the view “that human beings are capable of setting their own ends and that to treat them otherwise is as it were to deny the most obvious truth about them, the impermissibility of which needs no explanation other than logic alone” (Guyer 2016: viii). Although he does not find Kant’s “normative essentialism” of the critical period convincing, he does share the philosophical perspective associated with it, namely that human beings exist as ends in themselves. This is because they have freedom, and freedom is the supreme value of moral philosophy. Kant’s error is not in elevating the concept of freedom to the foundation of his entire moral philosophy; rather, his error consists in invoking a metaphysical concept of freedom. The latter entails that freedom is a special kind of causality radically different from natural causality. If we want to rescue Kant’s ethics in a contemporary context, then it must be naturalized. For Guyer, to naturalize Kant’s ethics means, above all, to dispense with the concept of transcendental freedom as a kind of causality distinct from natural causality. There is only one kind of causality, and freedom is a mode of it. Because we value our freedom of

Maximizing Freedom?  61 choice, we ought to preserve and promote it “in the actual conditions of contemporary human existence” (Guyer 2001: 84). According to Guyer, in Kant’s early lectures on anthropology, we find a concept of freedom without any of the metaphysical implications of its transcendental counterpart. Thus, in the Anthropologie-Friedländer (1775/76) we read the following: “Freedom is the greatest life of the human being, thereby he exercises his activity without hindrance” (V-Anth/Fried 25: 560 [118]) (cf. Guyer 2001: 81). Here, Kant understands freedom as a natural property of human beings. We do not need transcendental idealism to become aware of it. However, this freedom is not unbridled; its value is conditioned by the use we make of it. The more we exercise our freedom under the conditions of lawful reciprocity determined by reason, the better: Kant is telling us to make freedom itself our most fundamental value – although, to be sure, since humanity is supposed to be the form that rational being takes in human beings, this must be freedom of choice governed by reason, not freedom of choice unhindered by any rule. (Guyer 2001: 78–79; cf. Guyer 2016: 18) Guyer also connects the concept of autonomy to this conception of freedom as our most fundamental value: what Kant means by autonomy is nothing less than that condition in which human beings both individually and collectively can preserve and promote their freedom of choice and action to the greatest extent possible, that this is in his view the most fundamental value of human beings. (Guyer 2007: 11) Thus, autonomy conditions the preservation and promotion of our freedom governed by reason. In recent work, Guyer emphasizes the importance of the student lecture notes of Kant’s lectures on natural law (Naturrecht-Feyerabend, 1784) and on morality (Moralphilosophie-Collins, 1784/1785), which he delivered precisely at the time Kant composed the Groundwork. According to Guyer, it is in these lecture notes that Kant expresses himself most clearly on the premise of his entire moral philosophy, namely that it is based on the value of freedom. Hence, freedom alone has an “intrinsic and unconditional value” (Guyer 2016: vii). Reason, on the other hand, is of merely secondary importance. It has a merely “instrumental value” (Guyer 2016: vii). As evidence for this interpretation, Guyer quotes from the Naturrecht-Feyerabend: “The inner worth of the human being rests

62  Heiner F. Klemme on his freedom, that he has his own will […]. If only rational beings can be ends in themselves, it is not because they have reason, but because they have freedom. Reason is merely a means” (V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1319, 1321 [81, 84]) (cf. Guyer 2016: vi). We will turn to the above quotation in more detail in §8. Here, it suffices to point out that, according to Guyer, although the conception of the intrinsic value of freedom and the merely instrumental value of reason featured in the lecture transcripts is not to be found in the Groundwork verbatim, it is nevertheless there in substance.2 Thus, as is well known, Kant asserts in the Groundwork that every rational being exists as an end in itself, and in the Metaphysics of Morals, he defines humanity as “the capacity to set oneself an end – any end whatsoever” (MS, 6: 392 [522]). Accordingly, Guyer conceives of humanity as “the capacity to set one’s own ends, to set them in some sense freely, free from domination by other agents but also from domination by one’s own inclinations” (Guyer 2016: vii). However, Guyer maintains, Kant fails to justify this freedom as the supreme value of his moral philosophy. In Groundwork II, Kant simply asserts “that the human being and in general every rational being exists as an end in itself” (GMS 4: 428 [79]) and makes a promissory note to justify this postulate in Groundwork III (cf. Guyer 2016: vii). But the argument in Groundwork III for freedom as the fundamental normative premise of Kant’s ethics is far from convincing in Guyer’s view. First, it rests on the controversial metaphysical premise of transcendental idealism and, second, Kant is unable to explain how immoral actions are possible on its basis. The validity of the moral law cannot be derived from a metaphysical insight into our “noumenal self-activity” (Guyer 2016: 17). To be sure, Kant replaces this argument in the Critique of Practical Reason with his doctrine of the “fact of reason”. With the latter, he recognizes that there can be no a priori argument for the validity of the moral law and thus for “autonomy as our fundamental value” (Guyer 2016: 18). However, the doctrine of the fact of reason also presupposes the distinction between a noumenal and a phenomenal self in order to demonstrate the “possibility of the freedom of will” (Guyer 2016: 17). If we want to save Kant’s philosophy of freedom philosophically, then we must try to reach a reflexive balance between our “fundamental commitment to the value of autonomy and the moral law erected on that and our fundamental commitment to the truth of determinism in the natural world of which we are a part” (Guyer 2016: 18). 4.3  Good Will as the Highest Value Guyer’s interpretation gives rise to a number of questions: Is freedom (or autonomy) the highest value in Kant’s moral philosophy? Does reason in fact have a merely instrumental value for maximizing our freedom? Does

Maximizing Freedom?  63 the Groundwork fail concerning Kant’s a priori derivation of the moral law from the concept of the “proper self” (GMS, 4: 458 [104]), which is free and autonomous? A thoroughgoing treatment these three questions is, of course, beyond the scope of the present chapter. Below I make some provisional remarks about their plausibility and suggest alternatives to Guyer’s interpretation. That freedom is the supreme value in Kant’s moral philosophy seems to be anything but certain. If the value of freedom were the fundamental premise of Kant’s moral project, why would he not explicitly say so in the Groundwork? Would it not be strange that he only comment on it in his lectures? In fact, Kant expresses his view on supreme value in the very first sentence of the first section of the Groundwork. He famously begins with the assertion that “[i]t is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will” [GMS, 4: 393 (49)]. Good will alone has an “inner unconditional value” [GMS, 4: 394 (50)], an “absolute value” [GMS, 4: 394 (50)].3 The “true vocation” of reason is to “produce a will that is good […] in itself” [GMS, 4: 396 (52)]; good will must be “the highest good and the condition of every other, even of all demands for happiness” [GMS, 4: 396 (52)]. If good will is the highest good of our will, it is (according to Kant) a value that I am obliged to promote in this world. Besides good will – and not freedom – being the highest good, it is not clear how to make sense of Guyer’s suggestion of maximization along these lines. Either I have a good will or I do not. I cannot have a more-orless good will. Whether I have a good will is always measured by whether I act out of respect for the moral law. Moreover, whether I have a good will is always measured by my maxim’s conformity to the moral law. The test is a negative one: All maxims that can be thought of or willed as a general law are morally permitted or commanded. Maximization (were we to apply this term here) would thus be, in a sense, a negative maximization, not a positive one: Maximize the exclusion of maxims by which you are morally forbidden to act. If the concept of maximization were to make positive sense with regard to the concept of good will, then it would have to be related to the concept of character. The human will is not a holy will. There is always room for improvement. Since Kant assumes that even the worst villain wishes to have a good will, the villain becomes a better person if he refrains from justifying egoistic exceptions to the validity of the moral law. Or when he restores (according to the doctrine of radical evil in Kant’s Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason) the good moral order of his maxims. Thus, to maximize one’s good will means to maximize the sum of one’s actions performed out of respect for the moral law. However, the object of

64  Heiner F. Klemme maximization is direct respect for the moral law, not respect for freedom in the sense of the power of choice. Why is there no imperative of “maximize the number of your actions out of respect for the moral law” in Kant? Perhaps this is explained by the fact that good will expresses a way of thinking (Denkungsart or Gesinnung). A way of thinking cannot be maximized (or minimized). Either a person has a certain way of thinking, or not. Let us think about Kant’s essay An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784) and his essay What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (1786). In both essays, Kant addresses a mode of thinking or attitude that cannot be maximized. Either a person has the courage to use his own understanding to overcome his self-inflicted immaturity, or he is lazy and cowardly. The value of the former attitude, the value of the person’s attempt to enlighten himself, remains even if he fails to enlighten himself in all respects. Very much in keeping with this, Kant defines enlightenment as “the maxim of always thinking for oneself” [WDO, 8: 146n (18)]. Kant even thinks that it is quite easy to “ground enlightenment in individual subjects through their education” [WDO, 8: 147n (18)]. Accordingly, what we value is the maxim by which a person acts, not the actual success. But Guyer’s notion of maximization seems to concern the latter: To value the maximization of freedom means to value the outcome of our endeavor to do so. A note is in order on good will as the highest good of Kant’s ethics. In his Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, John Rawls assumes that good will is the highest good of Kant’s ethics. At the beginning of Groundwork I, Kant “introduces a fundamental part of Kant’s moral doctrine: The idea of the absolute value of a good will and this value’s being estimable beyond all comparison” (Rawls 2000: 154). It is interesting that Rawls’ constructivist reading of Kant not only emphasizes the absolute value of good will, but also focuses exclusively on the concept of rationality. The difference between Rawls’ and Guyer’s readings of Kant becomes particularly clear in view of concept of humanity. Rawls also characterizes this concept in terms of concepts such as rationality and reasonableness, and he does not mention the concept of freedom at all. Furthermore, for Rawls, the passages on humanity in the Metaphysics of Morals make it clear that our humanity consists in our good will based on practical reason. Although Rawls starts with the concept of good will and proposes a reading of Kant based on rationality, his constructivism represents a kind of naturalization of Kant’s ethics. From an exegetical perspective, I think it is quite right to emphasize the importance of good will. Philosophically, I fail to see why a naturalization of Kant based on freedom, as proposed by Guyer, should be preferable to one based on rationality. What is the philosophical advantage of prioritizing the maximization of freedom over

Maximizing Freedom?  65 maximization of our rationality? What’s wrong with Rawls’ reading of Kant from the perspective of Guyer’s interpretation? 4.4  Rational Nature and the Concept of an End in Itself Kant not only claims that good will has unconditional value, he also specifies the condition under which the will is good. The starting point of his argument is the claim that “rational nature exists as an end in itself” [GMS, 4: 428 (79)] Rational beings (persons) exist as “objective ends” and, to that extent, are “an object of respect” [GMS, 4: 428 (79)]. Why does the person exist as an end in itself? Kant’s argument seems indeed to be question begging, since he simply asserts the following: The human being necessarily represents his own existence in this way; so far it is thus a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being also represents his existence in this way consequent on just the same rational ground that also holds for me; thus it is at the same time an objective principle. [GMS, 4: 429 (79)] This quotation from Groundwork II casts in a new light Kant’s claim in Groundwork I that the “true vocation”4 of reason is “to produce a will that is good” (GMS, 4: 396 [52]) and the claim in Naturrecht-Feyerabend that reason is merely a means. Groundwork II makes clear that reason does not have a merely instrumental function in producing good will. Quite the contrary: Reason itself constitutes the norm to which the will must refer in order to be good will. The “ground of […] obligation” [GMS, 4: 389 (44)] is “rational nature” [GMS, 4: 428 (79)] itself. If rational nature did not exist as an end in itself, then there would be “nothing of absolute worth”, no “supreme practical principle”, and no “categorical imperative” [GMS, 4: 428 (79)]. Why would there be “nothing at all of absolute worth” if rational nature did not exist as an end in itself? Kant’s argument rests on a particular understanding of reason. If all worth were “conditional and therefore contingent, then no supreme practical principle for reason could be found anywhere” [GMS, 4: 428 (79)] Reason is the ground of unconditional worth. It confers this worth upon itself. We ourselves attach “an absolute worth” to our own existence as rational beings. To value our rational nature is an achievement or product of our reason. (I discuss this point in more detail in §6.) Kant’s statements about the value of good will and our rational nature do not contradict each other; they form a unified conception. Good will is good because it acts out of respect for rational nature (or humanity) as end in itself [GMS, 4: 429 (79–80)]. In this respect, Rawls’

66  Heiner F. Klemme interpretation of Kant as providing a theory of rationality, although uninterested in the self-preservation of reason, seems to capture the letter and spirit of the Groundwork better than that of Guyer. Although reason assigns an unconditional value to itself, reason also performs an instrumental function. This function, however, in no way degrades reason as a whole into a mere means for maximizing freedom as an independent value. Reason is the means by which a human being can preserve itself as a rational being in the world. Kant explains what this means and how we should use reason with regard to human beings’ real circumstances, above all, in a smaller writings and writings on the concepts of enlightenment, orientation in thinking, and anthropology. In these works, it becomes clear that independent thinking, self-mastery, enlightenment, and maturity are expressions of the use of “one’s own reason” [WDO, 8: 146n (18)]. Whoever thinks for himself merely makes use of “the maxim of reason’s self-preservation” [WDO, 8: 147n (18)] (cf. Klemme 2023). This maxim of self-preservation goes far beyond freedom of choice and ethics in the narrower sense of the word. It includes all of the manifestations of our lives as rational subjects. Thus, in Kant’s lectures on anthropology from winter 1781/82, he speaks of the “maxim” and “principle” of the “self-preservation of sound reason, not of the human being but of reason, i.e., I must accept nothing that would make the free use of reason impossible” [A-Anth/Human, 25: 1049–1050].5 4.5  The Value of Reason and the Idea of Freedom We have seen that, in Kant’s view, without reason there would be nothing of absolute value. Rational nature posits itself as its own end. “The principle, so act with reference to every rational being (yourself and others) that in your maxim it holds at the same time as an end in itself” [GMS, 4: 437–438 (87)], is a principle of our rationality. It grounds the significance of freedom as a value, but it is not based on that value. That the significance of reason cannot be reduced to its instrumental character is also clear from another of Kant’s claims: Freedom is an idea of reason. Reason “contains in the idea of freedom the law of the world of understanding” [GMS, 4: 454 (100)]. Reason not only gives the law of freedom (autonomy), it is also the faculty that produces this idea. How does reason do this? A difficult question. In the Groundwork, Kant asserts that “every being that cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom” [GMS, 4: 448 (95)] is really free in a practical respect. Why is this so? Kant refers to the concept of thinking: If a being has reason and a will, then “we think of a reason that is practical, that is, has causality with respect to its objects” (GMS, 4: 448 [96]). Why do we think this? Because, for us, reason entails “pure spontaneity” and “pure self-activity” [GMS, 4: 452 (99)]. If a being

Maximizing Freedom?  67 has a will, then we necessarily think of this will as subject to the law of this self-activity. If we did not think this, then we would have a will that could be determined by reason, but is not determined by reason necessarily. In the next section, I explain reason’s actual determination of will through the concept of interest. For now, it is sufficient to understand that the idea of freedom is a product of reason. Reason itself, in the form of the idea of freedom, thinks of itself as a faculty that can determine the will, i.e., become practical through its concepts. This achievement of reason is anything but instrumental. 4.6  The Interest of Reason and the Concept of Thinking Why should I care about my freedom? This question leads us to the concept of interest. As is well known, this is a central concept in Kant’s moral philosophy. In the Groundwork II, Kant defines interest as the “dependence of a contingently determinable will on principles of reason” [GMS, 4: 413n (67)]. The subject of interest is the will, which takes a “practical interest” in actions determined by reason. There is another long passage in Groundwork III that is even more telling. It is entitled “Of the Interest Attaching to the Ideas of Morality” [GMS, 4: 448–453 (96–100)]. It concerns the question of why, I as a human being, should submit to the moral law. Why should I determine my will by pure reason, if I do not have to do so? After all, Kant is not Christian Wolff, who holds that the will always follows reason. Instead, the moral law must be something I consider so important that I am prepared to subordinate to it the pursuit of the satisfaction of all my inclinations. Is this subjugation of my will to a supremely authoritative, self-legislated norm a realization of value? Obviously not. What I think under the idea of freedom is a kind of rationally determined causality. I have a will of my own because, and in so far as, I act under the idea of freedom. I discover in myself a “pure self-activity” and “pure spontaneity” [GMS, 4: 452 (99)]. Because I recognize myself as the cause of my actions, I thereby acknowledge myself as having absolute value. With the idea of my own will comes the idea of freedom. The “human being can never think the causality of his own will otherwise than under the idea of freedom” [GMS, 4: 452 (99)]. What follows from this? In the first place, nothing at all. Something follows from it only if I also take an interest in my “own will”. And the answer as to why I take an interest in the “ideas of morality” is as follows: Only through them can I have a will of my own. This argument has a selfreflexive structure: Reason takes an interest in itself in the use we can make of it. We ought to determine our will by terms of morality because we will it as rational beings. If we discard reason’s interest in itself, we discard the supreme premise of Kant’s moral philosophy. If we do not value our

68  Heiner F. Klemme rationality, then there is nothing that we would value as an end in itself.6 Reason’s interest in itself cannot be explained on the basis of reason being a mere means to maximize our freedom. 4.7  The Value of Freedom and Its Justification How can Kant justify freedom? In one sense, he can provide a justification, in another he cannot.7 Kant can justify freedom (and the categorical imperative) insofar as he gives the conditions under which it is possible. “Possible” has two meanings here. We cannot know how transcendental freedom is possible. On the other hand, transcendental idealism creates conceptual space for the possibility of transcendental freedom as a form of causality. Above all, transcendental idealism can show that any attempt to prove the impossibility of freedom as intelligible causality must fail. This is a hallmark of critical (and Socratic) philosophy: To show how the opponent asserts more than he can prove.8 However, Kant cannot justify freedom in one central respect. He cannot prove that a tangible, flesh-and-blood human being actually acts under the idea of freedom. No human being can be forced to think of himself as the subject of his own life, as a being who has a will of his own that is under the universal law of reason. However, Kant is an optimist. He assumes that people would concede to act under the idea of freedom if only they were to sufficiently enlighten themselves on the rational structure of their will. In this sense, Kant writes that all human beings “think of themselves as having free will” [GMS, 4: 455 (101)]. If they do not, there is no argument that could convince them that they should. That people think of themselves as free certainly has a metaphysical significance, and Guyer’s notion of “rational essentialism” can be applied here. But what is so bad about rational essentialism? If we were not essentially rational, neither could we think of ourselves as rational. For this thinking is not fantasizing. It is a practical thinking, a thinking, therefore, that shows itself in the act of determination of our will. Besides this metaphysical basis, however, Kant’s theory also has an extremely modern touch. For thinking here means as much as doing something. Although “freedom is only an idea of reason, the objective reality of which is in itself doubtful” [GMS, 4: 455 (102)], it has a practical reality. This reality is manifested in people determining themselves to act out of respect for the moral law. It is this performative meaning of making use of the idea of freedom that I believe to be the bedrock of Kant’s philosophy of reason, freedom, and law (cf. Klemme 2017: 211). Those who do not perform this act of self-determination out of respect for their (universal) rationality cannot be addressed by the voice of pure reason. Who seriously asks why he should preserve himself as a rational being, shows his moral immaturity

Maximizing Freedom?  69 by this very question. Whoever does not “claim for himself a will [GMS 4: 457 (103)],9 whoever allows himself to be called to account for actions he did not even perform, whoever knows not the pang of conscience concerning actions he should have and could have performed but did not, no argument of this world will be able to convince him that pure reason can become practical. Guyer contends that the Groundwork fails because Kant cannot prove that pure practical reason is our “proper self”. For this reason, Kant can only recommend to his readers that they bring their lives into conformity with the ideal of autonomy: If that ideal seems deeply moving to you, then Kant has shown how a formal principle of morality and a complete system of duties can be founded upon it. If that ideal does not seem moving to you, then he has nothing more to say to you. (Guyer 2007: 171) But this criticism seems to underestimate the value of Kant’s argument. What does Kant have to say to a person who is not persuaded by metaphysical arguments and who does not care about the ideal of autonomy? Perhaps, very briefly, this: If you do not want to understand yourself as the subject of your own thinking and willing, if your own use of reason is not important to you, then do not complain when other people take you at your word and treat you like a mere thing. 4.8  What Kant Is Said to Have Said in the Lecture Notes In Naturrecht-Feyerabend we read: “Reason is merely a means”. If this statement correctly reflected Kant’s position (which we cannot know), there would be a contradiction between it and the Groundwork as I have interpreted it. But let us turn a little more closely to the full passage as Guyer quotes it: “If only rational beings can be ends in themselves, it is not because they have reason, but because they have freedom. Reason is merely a means” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1321 (84)] What does Kant mean by the statement, “[r]eason is merely a means”? Let us turn to the context in which this claim is made. Kant first claims that although the human being exists as an end in himself, it is “incomprehensible” how a being can be an end in itself. Why does the human being exist as an end in himself? Because “our reason” has the “need” to “have everything complete” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1321 (84)]. If reason did not have this need, the human being would not exist as an end in himself. Thus, the proposition that the human being exists as an end in himself is derived directly from a need of reason. The end-in-itself thesis is a thesis about what reason is by its very nature.

70  Heiner F. Klemme Kant also comments on the way in which reason allows us to know ourselves as an end in itself: “Without reason a being cannot be an end in itself for it cannot be conscious of its own existence, cannot reflect on it” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (84)]. Reason is the principle of cognition of our self-purposiveness. However, we still lack decisive indication of the property by which reason’s desire for completeness can be satisfied. At this point, freedom comes into play: “But freedom and freedom alone makes us an end in itself. Here we have an ability to act in accordance with our own will. If our reason were directed according to universal laws then my will would not be my own but the will of nature” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (85)]. But now the question arises, how can we gain knowledge of our freedom? Do we have direct knowledge of it? Obviously not. For Kant asserts the following: “I must presuppose the freedom of a being if it is supposed to be an end in itself. Such a being must thus have freedom of the will. I do not know how to understand freedom; it is nonetheless a necessary hypothesis if I am to think of a rational being as an end in itself” [V-NR/ Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (85)]. Freedom is “a necessary hypothesis”!10 “Necessary” here means two things: First, if we want to ascribe to ourselves a will of our own, then we must ascribe to ourselves freedom. Without freedom we would be only a part of nature. Second, freedom is a necessary requirement for reason’s interest or need in totality (completeness). Without freedom, reason would be unsatisfied. How does this relate to Kant’s claim that reason is only a means? Kant argues that if “only rational beings are ends in themselves, they cannot be so because they have reason, but because they have freedom” [V-NR/ Feyerabend, 27: 1321 (84)]. Does this passage not strongly support Guyer’s reading of Naturrecht-Feyerabend? Not necessarily. Why would the reference to the human being’s reason alone be insufficient to explain selfhood? For two reasons: First, because Kant conceives of reason and will as two distinct faculties. If the human being were able to know the world only by means of speculative reason, it would not be understandable how he could exist in the world as an end in itself. Rather, he must also be able to act rationally in the world. Only if reason can determine our will, can the human being, as a rational being, be the ultimate end of our will. The idea of freedom is the idea of a faculty of desire that can be determined to act on concepts of pure reason. In this respect, the idea of freedom is the idea of “one’s own will”. For Kant, to have a “will of one’s own” means to be able to determine oneself to act through a causality that is not identical to the causality of nature. Reason here is a “means” insofar as it recognizes the conditions under which we can act from freedom. “But freedom and freedom alone makes us an end in itself” (V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322) This is true. But it does not mean that freedom as such is a value; rather, it

Maximizing Freedom?  71 means that freedom is a concept based on a need of reason. Reason needs the idea of freedom to determine itself as being of absolute worth. Second, Kant’s claim that reason is merely a means can be understood as a clear rejection of an alternative conception of practical rationality that makes no distinction between a causality from freedom and one from nature. Every listener of Kant’s lectures on natural law was familiar with Wolff’s “universal practical philosophy” (Allgemeine praktische Weltweisheit). If we follow Wolff, however, we fail to understand how the human being could exist as an end in itself. For, in Wolff, reason is nothing more than a means of perfecting ourselves. Wolff does not recognize the independent value of freedom because he holds, with Leibniz, that will always follows our reason. To Kant’s mind, Wolff erroneously thinks that reason alone grounds the exceptional status of human being in the world. Wolff has no concept of pure practical reason. His concept of reason is merely speculative. It is on the basis of Wolff’s concept of reason that Kant claims that “[r]eason does not give us dignity. For we can see that nature produces through instinct in animals what reason first discovers only through a long process. Now nature could have directed our reason entirely in accordance with natural laws” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (85)]. Wolff’s error is symptomatic of “all teachers of natural right” [VNR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (85)]. They presume that freedom falls under the law of nature and of speculative reason. If their conception of reason were true, then reason would be a mere means. 4.9  Philosophical Dimensions The moral law is a principle of pure reason’s self-preservation under the conditions of our human existence. To preserve oneself as a rational subject in this world means to act under the idea of freedom. The maxim of reason’s self-preservation has a much wider scope than morality. It aims at preserving and promoting reason in all its various uses. To preserve oneself as a rational being (Vernunftwesen) has a double meaning, as becomes clear from the German word erhalten. For erhalten can mean, on the one hand, “to preserve” and “to conserve” (Latin conservare). On the other hand, it can also mean “to obtain” or “to achieve” (Latin obtinere). The maxim of reason’s self-preservation is, thus, a principle of preservation and promotion of all our abilities and capacities, insofar as these can be determined by reason. Reason itself calls upon us for its realization. That the “human being as a natural being that has reason (homo phaenomenon)” [MS, 6: 418 (544)] takes an interest in the preservation of its rationality is the supreme premise of Kant’s practical philosophy. But let us assume for the sake of argument that Kant is wrong and that people are just natural beings who are satisfied with enjoying their natural freedom

72  Heiner F. Klemme of choice. They are interested in maximizing their freedom, but not at any price. This is because they are willing to limit their own freedom for the sake of the same freedom enjoyed by others. What is wrong with this picture that can only be corrected by the a priori means of Kant’s philosophy? Guyer suspects that Kant has nothing relevant to offer that we can obtain only by the means of his a priori and metaphysical philosophy: the possibility of a rational use of freedom seems to be consistent with nature, although a guarantee that every human being can always live up to the ideal of reason would not seem to be. But would settling for such a limited possibility really be sacrificing something we could enjoy on a priori rather than empirical construal of Kantian ethics? That is not so clear. (Guyer 2001: 84) Since Kant also cannot and does not wish to show that people always act morally, we seem to lose nothing by naturalizing his ethics. If Kant’s ethics are to withstand naturalization, then they must account for concepts whose naturalization is at least not obviously tenable. Which concepts could these be? In the following, I briefly discuss the concepts of dignity and one’s own will. In Groundwork I, Kant writes that the value of the human being depends on his character. Whoever acts from duty and not on inclination gives “himself a far higher worth” [GMS, 4: 398 (54)] than if he did not. The reader gets the impression that the human being has more or less dignity on account of his own actions. But he cannot be entirely deprived of his dignity either by his own actions or by the actions of others. Due to his rational nature, every human being is always a being worthy of respect. The concepts of dignity and freedom protect him from the loss of dignity, which cannot be grasped in empirical terms. Perpetrators and victims remain bearers of dignity no matter what. One can never completely become or make oneself into a mere thing. Can this moral intuition be saved by means of naturalism? Or would a naturalistic ethics necessarily conclude that persons lose their dignity completely as a result of their own immoral actions, that they make themselves into a thing when they are particularly ruthless and cruel? During Kant’s lifetime, Christian Wolff, for example, argues in his German Politics that a person who allows himself to be tempted by the impulse of his senses and affects […] to commit acts of shame and evil […] is to be regarded as nothing more than a beast and especially as a raging dog, which is good for nothing more than to be beaten to death and thrown on the knacker’s yard to the ravens and other birds of prey for food. (Wolff 1721: §351)

Maximizing Freedom?  73 That all human beings have an “absolute intrinsic value” is a thought that would surely have alienated Wolff. Perhaps Kant’s position is wrong. But it is not obvious that it could be readily reconstructed by means of empiricism. By the latter’s lights, why should we accord some degree of respect to a human being if his “natural” attributes show him to be a criminal? Let us turn to the concept of one’s own will. A person is a subject “whose actions can be imputed to him” [MS, 6: 223 (378)]. He thinks of himself as “having free will” [GMS, 4: 455 (101)] because he “claims for himself” [GMS, 4: 457 (103)] a will of his own. Kant’s notion of one’s own will presupposes a kind of causality that turns on the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy. Guyer also maintains this distinction. However, he interprets it differently than Kant, namely as two different perspectives on natural self-determination. What are the implications of the naturalistic redefinition of one’s will for our self-understanding as persons who value and wish to maximize their freedom? I would like to answer this question via a detour. The detour starts with the concept of the human being. Guyer assumes that freedom has an intrinsic value for us and that we want to maximize it. This is a proposition about our nature. As with Kant, we find an “essentialism” in Guyer. However, in this case it is an “anthropological essentialism”. If we grant Guyer that humans value their freedom, two problems arise: (1) Is the possibility of maximizing freedom under the conditions by which we could maximize it today an essential part of our valuing freedom? Would it not be better if we could enjoy maximum freedom without having to engage in the business of maximizing and optimizing it? Why not enjoy the supreme value from the very beginning? (2) Why should we not value a maximization of freedom that transcends the present state of anthropological essentialism? Both problems are closely related, since both are thought of as the possibility of changing what and how we human beings are. What sounds like a purely academic question here is, in my view, actually a problem for the naturalization of Kant’s ethics. At its center is a certain conception of the human being. But what the human being is according to his biological basis is no longer set in stone. Today we have technological-scientific capabilities of reinventing ourselves and the generations to come. We could, if we wanted to, radically change our future will or the will of future generations through manipulative interventions in the human genome. If we have the capability, why should we not revise the scope of freedom itself or the necessity of exploiting it by means of our own efforts at maximization? Guyer’s conception of maximization may seem to follow from a certain anthropology. But I do not see why, on its basis, we should not also have a debate about whether it would be better to value a different freedom and a different maximization of freedom. Guyer can avoid this debate only if he could give a reason why it is good that people who value their freedom and

74  Heiner F. Klemme maximization of freedom today should value the same freedom tomorrow. But this means that he would have to judge the question of whether we should value our freedom and the maximization of freedom today from a perspective that is not identical with valuing that freedom. If we have the technical possibility to change human beings by natural means (and technology and science are also nature in this sense), why should we not do so? More than two decades ago, Jürgen Habermas attempted to solve the problem formulated here from a perspective that is at once Kantian and post-metaphysical (Habermas 2001). He argued that we should not allow interventions in our genome because it is intrinsic to our self-understanding to always be a part of nature, that is, not to have been made (designed) according to the will and purposes of another human being. Our freedom is always a freedom whose opportunities and limits are determined by a nature that is removed from our will. Whether Habermas’ distinction between geworden and gemacht is convincing is an open question here. At any rate, it is an argument to which Guyer could not have recourse. Why not? Because Guyer (unlike Habermas) does not put the idea of intersubjective communication between equals, which includes communication with future generations, but the idea of maximizing our freedom at the center of naturalistic ethics. If we could expand our freedom and the freedom of future generations by interfering with our genome these days, why should we not do so? Future generations value their freedom, but they do not value having to maximize it. Why is it good to have people in the future value and want to maximize the same freedom that we value and want to maximize today? If there is something that distinguishes Kant’s ethics from its naturalized variant, it is that Kant’s a priori concepts of freedom and reason shield us from such a debate. And if they did not, they would nevertheless give it a normative structure that lays claim to validity in the course of our changing of our empirical convictions. We cannot rationally will that future generations be unable to make use of their reason as pure practical reason. It is contrary to reason. We cannot rationally will that we will be unable to communicate rationally with future generations of human beings. That may not be much, but it is more than nothing. At the very least, it shows that the debate about the future of human nature based on Kant’s philosophy must be conducted otherwise than on the basis of its naturalistic interpretation. Our concepts not only express who and what we are, to a certain extent they also constitute, through their use, what we aspire to become and what we might one day be.11 Notes 1 The importance of the idea of self-preservation of reason goes far beyond Kant. Large parts of modern philosophy can be assigned to this theme. A ­ lthough the importance of it has been pointed out on in the older literature, not least

Maximizing Freedom?  75 for Kant’s philosophy, it has been largely neglected in recent scholarship. See Horkheimer (1970), Blumenberg (1970), Ebeling (1976), Sommer (1977), Forschner (1981), Henrich (1982), Sommer (1988), Klemme (2015 and 2023). In my view, the ­notion of self-preservation (and related notions such as selfownership, enlightenment, and maturity) is more important than Kant’s notion of the determination (“Bestimmung”) of the human being (on this, see Brandt 2007). 2 “To be sure, Kant does not use the apparently maximizing phrase‚ the greatest use of freedom’ in the most prominent published statement of his mature moral philosophy, the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. However, the greatest possible use of freedom is in fact what his statement of the categorical imperative prescribes as the goal of morality” (Guyer 2016: 88). 3 Reading “value” for Wert. 4 The German wahre Bestimmung could also be translated as “true function” – as in the revised edition of J. Timmermann and M. Gregor (2011) – or even as “true determination”. 5 This passage is omitted in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. 6 In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant emphasizes the overall importance of the interest of reason: “To every faculty of the mind one can attribute an interest, that is, a principle that contains the condition under which alone its ­exercise is promoted. Reason, as the faculty of principles, determines the interest of all the powers of the mind but itself determines its own” [KpV, 5: 119–120 (236)]. 7 For the various meanings of justification, see Qian (2022). 8 Elsewhere I have called this Kant’s negative deduction of the idea of freedom (cf. Klemme 2014). 9 The German reads sich eines Willens anmaßt. The verb anmaßen is much stronger than what is expressed by the English “to claim” or – as in the r­ evised edition of J. Timmermann and M. Gregor (2011) – “to resume”. It is the ­highest form of claiming, which is almost above measure. It is related to the juridical sphere, e.g., juridical claim (Rechtsanspruch). 10 In the Doctrine of Right, Kant makes a revealing connection between interest and hypothesis. If someone can neither prove nor disprove that a thing exists, “he can still ask whether he has any interest in assuming one or the other (as a hypothesis), either from a theoretical or from a practical point of view”. From a practical point of view, we assume something “in order to achieve a certain end, which may be either a pragmatic (merely technical end) or a moral end, that is, an end such that it is the maxim of adopting it is itself a duty” [MS, 6: 354 (490)] 11 For comments on an earlier version of this chapter, I thank Kang Qian (Shanghai) and especially John Walsh (Halle).

Bibliography Blumenberg, H. (1970): Selbsterhaltung und Beharrung. Zur Konstitution der neuzeitlichen Rationalität (Mainz: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur). Brandt, R. (2007): Die Bestimmung des Menschen bei Kant (Hamburg: Meiner). Ebeling, H. (ed.) (1976): Subjektivität und Selbsterhaltung. Beiträge zur Diskussion der Moderne (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp).

76  Heiner F. Klemme Forschner, M. (1981): Vernunft und Selbsterhaltung, «Philosophische Rundschau» 28, pp. 228–247. Guyer, P. (2001): Naturalizing Kant. In Kant verstehen/Understanding Kant. Über die Interpretation philosophischer Texte, ed. by D. Schönecker, T. Zwenger (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), pp. 59–84.    . (2007): Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Reader’s Guide (London: Continuum).    . (2016): Virtues of Freedom. Selected Essays on Kant (Oxford: OUP). Habermas, J. (2001): Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur? (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp). Henrich, D. (1982): Selbstverhältnisse. Gedanken und Auslegungen zu den Grundlagen der klassischen deutschen Philosophie (Stuttgart: Reclam). Horkheimer, M. (1970): Vernunft und Selbsterhaltung (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp). Klemme, H. F. (2014): Freiheit oder Fatalismus? Kants positive und negative Deduktion der Idee der Freiheit in der Grundlegung (und seine Kritik an Christian Garves Antithetik von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit). In Deduktion oder Faktum? Kants Rechtfertigung des Sittengesetzes im dritten Abschnitt der Grundlegung, ed. by H. Puls (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 61–103.    . (2015): Freiheit, Recht und Selbsterhaltung. Zur philosophischen ­Bedeutung von Kants Begriff der Verbindlichkeit. In Normativität des Lebens – ­Normativität der Vernunft?, ed. by M. Rothhaar, M. Hähnel (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 95–116.    . (2017): Kants »Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten«. Ein systematischer Kommentar (Stuttgart: Reclam).    . (2023): Die Selbsterhaltung der Vernunft. Kant und die Modernität seines Denkens (Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann). Qian, K. (2022): Transzendentale Deduktion und Rechtfertigung. Eine Studie zu Kants »Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten« (Diss. phil, Halle), MartinLuther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Rawls, J. (2000): Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. by B. Herman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Sommer, M. (1977): Die Selbsterhaltung der Vernunft (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog).    . (1988): Identität im Übergang: Kant (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp). Wolff, C. (1721): Vernünfftige Gedancken von dem gesellschaftlichen Leben der Menschen und insonderheit dem gemeinen Wesen zu Beförderung der Glückseligkeit des menschlichen Geschlechts (= Deutsche Politik) (Halle: Rengerische Buchhandlung).

5

Putting Freedom First Some Reflections on Paul Guyer’s Interpretation of Kant’s Moral Theory Herlinde Pauer-Studer

5.1 Introduction Understanding Kant’s metaethics is controversial. One prominent interpretation is that Kant presents a rationalist foundation for ethics. Another holds that Kant’s ethics is based on transcendental idealism. For some philosophers, Kant endorses realism, while, more recently, several philosophers, inspired by John Rawls’s seminal work, have explained Kant’s metaethical framework in terms of constructivism. Given the complexity of Kant’s ethical theory, it may be that settling on a single label is insufficient to capturing his views. Rather, whether it is appropriate to characterize Kant’s understanding of ethics in terms of rationalism, realism, transcendental idealism, or constructivism might depend on the particular metaethical question and problem at hand. Paul Guyer suggests a nuanced reading along these lines. In his recent book Kant on the Rationality of Morality (Guyer 2019), he associates Kant’s theory of ethics with rationalism and realism. Kant is a rationalist, Guyer argues, insofar as his derivation of the categorical imperative relies on principles of pure reason, foremost the principle of noncontradiction. And Kant’s moral philosophy amounts for Guyer to “a form of realism”, because its starting point is the claim that every human being has a will of his or her own. This assumption is, as Guyer stresses, “a fact which cannot be denied on pain of self-contradiction” (Guyer 2019: 64). Guyer admits that his interpretation in Kant on the Rationality of Morality represents a change from his former views. While he once considered both the value of humanity and the fact that we ought to accept the intrinsic value of freedom as crucial for Kant’s derivation of the morality principle, he now takes the human possession of a will to be central. Guyer’s idea is that this simple fact about humans, in combination with the principle of noncontradiction, allows the derivation of the principle of morality, the categorical imperative. Accordingly, he characterizes his new position as a shift from a version of moral realism to a plain realism. DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-7

78  Herlinde Pauer-Studer Nevertheless, Guyer sees room for constructivist considerations in Kant’s ethical theory. The constructivist aspects, he suggests, are apparent in the derivation of duties. He thus argues that applying the categorical imperative to our maxims helps us to construct our specific obligations by asking whether these maxims, when followed by all, would contradict the fact that we possess a will of our own. Guyer, however, rejects Kantian constructivism in its more sweeping forms, as defended, for instance, by Christine Korsgaard and Onora O’Neill. This chapter will examine Paul Guyer’s account of Kant’s ethics in Kant on the Rationality of Morality. In particular, I focus on how the justification of the categorical imperative might look like when we follow Guyer’s suggestion that morality should aim at preserving autonomy, i.e., people’s capacity to set their own ends. I will argue that Kant’s idea of a realm of ends and the requirement to shape our moral relations in terms of that ideal provide the clues for a grounding of the moral law. The chapter is structured as follows. Section 5.2 outlines in detail Guyer’s analysis of Kant’s derivation of the categorical imperative from principles of reason. In line with Kant’s methodology, Section 5.3 presents a transcendental argument for why concern for freedom of action provides us with a normative reason for accepting the moral law, understood as the requirement to treat one another with respect. I then show how this general principle, exemplified by the idea of a realm of ends, is connected to the ethical formulas of the categorical imperative, the Formula of Universal Law (FUL) and the Formula of Humanity (FH). The chapter concludes with some remarks on how the proposed account of Kantian moral theory relates to Guyer’s views on rationalism, realism, and constructivism. 5.2 Guyer on Kant’s Derivation of the Fundamental Principle of Morality Guyer’s thesis is that Kant anchors the moral law in the principles of pure reason. In his view, Kant’s ethical theory is not based on a conception of specifically practical reason, but on reason as such, which consists of a priori principles that are then applied either to theoretical problems (questions of knowledge) or to practical questions (questions of what one ought to do). Guyer identifies three a priori principles relevant to Kant’s moral philosophy: The principle of noncontradiction, the principle of sufficient reason, and the principle of systematicity. In his view, these principles function thus: The principle of noncontradiction attains the fundamental principle of morality; the principle of sufficient reason is relevant for explaining Kant’s doctrine of the highest good, i.e., the connection between happiness and virtue (Guyer 2019: 11–12); and the principle of systematicity, when

Putting Freedom First 79 applied to the practical sphere, demands a complete and systematic enumeration of our duties such that “moral maxims must form an intra- and interpersonal system” (Guyer 2019: 45). According to Guyer, the demand that our principles of action should form a complete and coherent system finds expression in a particular version of the categorical imperative, namely in the Formula of the Realm of Ends (FRE). In what follows, I will focus on the principle of noncontradiction to which Guyer attributes the central role in deriving the categorical imperative. How do we get from noncontradiction to the categorical imperative? Guyer’s argument is not easy to reconstruct. The essential point is that Guyer ties fundamental properties of moral principles, such as universality and universalizability, to the principle of noncontradiction. The link to noncontradiction is that a morally permissible maxim must be “consistently adoptable by all agents in circumstances similar to those in which one agent proposes to act upon it” (Guyer 2019: 12). Since the principle of noncontradiction is a purely formal principle, it must, Guyer stresses, be “applied to something” (Guyer 2019: 13). This “something” for Guyer is that human beings have the capacity to set their own ends. He considers this a plain, unquestionable fact. The argument that leads to the categorical imperative thus “start(s) from the premise that human beings are free agents” (Guyer 2019: 14; italics in the original). In conjunction with the principle of noncontradiction, it follows, Guyer states, that it is “logically contradictory to assert that a being with a will of its own has no such will” (Guyer 2019: 19). Furthermore, Guyer claims that the principle of noncontradiction, when applied to the acting principles of a free agent, entails that an immoral maxim leads to such a contradiction. This might play out in two ways. First, Guyer establishes a link to universalizability and thus to the FUL by claiming that “only universalizable maxims can avoid both asserting and denying the fact that human beings are free agents” (Guyer 2019: 14). The idea is that, if you cannot universalize your maxims, then you deny others the freedom to act on maxims of their own choice, which contradicts the fact that human beings have the capacity to set their own ends (Guyer 2019: 24). Second, for Guyer, the principle of noncontradiction is linked to the FH because treating human beings as mere means contradicts the fact that they are free to set their own ends. Our freedom of choice is denied when others reduce us to “tools” for the pursuit of their own interests. For Guyer, domination in the way of being instrumentalized by others is immoral. Acting in such a way is, as he puts it, equivalent to asserting “that a being with its own will does not have such a will” (Guyer 2019: 19; italics in the original).1 That we have wills and are free should be recognized by others, which requires that others always treat us as ends.

80  Herlinde Pauer-Studer In my opinion, Guyer here sets out the application of two main formulas of the categorical imperative, namely FUL and FH, to maxims rather than the argument of how Kant arrives at these formulas. The question of whether maxims lead to a kind of contradiction is a test criterion for assessing whether acting on them is morally impermissible. That Guyer’s discussion of the principle of noncontradiction refers primarily to the role it plays in Kant’s testing procedures is apparent, since his discussion of the FUL and the FH in Kant on the Rationality of Morality addresses mainly the question of what kind of duties are generated by their application to maxims (Guyer 2019: 22–25). With respect to FUL, Guyer mentions the well-known contradiction in conception and contradiction in willing test, i.e., whether we can coherently think or will a maxim to be universalized. In the former case, the universalization leads to a conceptual problem; in the latter case, to a tension in our willing. Similarly, Guyer outlines the duties that follow from the requirement to treat others, including our own person, not as mere means but as an end (FH). Accordingly, Guyer outlines the system of dividing duties into perfect and imperfect duties and duties against oneself and others (Guyer 2019: 25–27). Still, Guyer’s approach is important, not least because it offers an interpretation of Kant’s ethical theory that avoids some of its well-known problems. Kant attempts to derive the principles of morality from the notion of rational agent. However, Kant defines the concept of “rational agent” in terms of the very properties that make the transition to the categorical imperative compelling. A rational being, in Kant’s sense, would not choose to follow any principle of conduct, but rather that which displays such features of morality as universality. For instance, Kant’s definition of autonomy as self-legislation, and his claim that the principle of self-legislation must have the formal feature of being a law, and thus hold universally, ensures the step to the Universal Law Formula of the categorical imperative. Consequently, autonomy and freedom of the will seem restricted to morally good action. Guyer’s transition from ideal rational agents in Kant’s sense to ordinary human beings avoids the problems associated with Kant’s account of bad and evil action – for instance, that given his conception of rational agency and autonomy, committing evil actions autonomously and willfully seems, strictly speaking, unintelligible. Ordinary human beings tend to give in to their impulses and inclinations. They might, following the temptations of self-love, pursue their egoistic interests and advantages. They might even go so far as to use their capacity for free agency to invert the moral order, thus placing the principle of self-love above that of morality. They would thus be susceptible not only to bad actions, but even capable of radical evil – a condition that Kant identifies with such a reversal of the moral order (RGV, 6: 37).

Putting Freedom First 81 In contrast to Kant, Guyer intends to defend a form of plain realism by relying on a concept of person for which the ability to set one’s own ends is central. In this way, Guyer achieves that the realm of morality includes all human beings, and not just those rational agents who, qua rationality, are committed to the moral law. The downside is that the question of how to get from the freedom of choice of ordinary people to the moral law becomes contingent – they might choose to comply with the demands of morality, but they might also choose to ignore the call of morality. By focusing on the freedom of action of ordinary people, Guyer also changes the conditions for deriving and justifying the moral law. He fully acknowledges the gap that arises when one moves away from Kant’s “derivation of the fundamental principle and complete object of morality from his conception of rationality” (Guyer 2019: 65). In Kant on the Rationality of Morality, he does not say much about the argument required to fill the void. However, Guyer’s ingenious and perceptive, but also critical, analyses of Kant’s reflections on freedom, autonomy, and the conditions of morality provide, I think, a guideline for how such an argument might look. 5.3  An Alternative Justification of the Categorical Imperative According to Guyer, freedom is central to Kant’s practical philosophy. Guyer has defended this thesis in many of his works. In his view, freedom also provides the link between Kant’s ethics and philosophy of right.2 Both spheres share the commitment to freedom, a commitment that is reflected by the structure of their guiding normative principles, the ethical categorical imperatives (FUL and FH), on the one hand, and the Universal Principle of Right, on the other. Ethics preserves our inner freedom, whereas a rightful condition protects our outer freedom. Thus, there is a relationship between autonomy and the moral law in that the recognition of our autonomy leads us to the recognition of the fundamental moral principle. In other words, the insight that morality guarantees our autonomy and freedom of choice gives us reason to accept and follow the ethical categorical imperatives. In his article The Value of Reason and the Value of Freedom, Guyer expresses this thought thus: It is because of the immediately recognized dignity of autonomy that humanity presents itself to us as a necessary end, which in turn requires us to conform to the categorical imperative, because we see that so conforming, and in particular requiring the universalizability of our own maxims, is the only means to preserving and promoting the autonomy that our potential for humanity makes possible for us. (Guyer 1998: 32)

82  Herlinde Pauer-Studer But Guyer’s main explanation concerns why compliance with the ethical imperatives is important and why universalizability (the test criterion associated with FUL) ensures autonomy, not why the categorical imperatives FUL and FH are justified. However, such a justificatory argument can be provided. I will now sketch a justification of the ethical categorical imperatives that draws on the main ideas Guyer states in the passage quoted above.3 To start, it might be helpful to recall Kant’s methodological approach. Kant seeks to justify the categorical imperative by a transcendental argument. The structure of such an argument consists of a two-step procedure: First, to lay bare the conditions for the possibility of X (in our case: The categorical imperative), and then, secondly, to provide normative reasons for the reflective endorsement of those conditions and thus the principle that meets them. Reflective approval completes a transcendental argument. Note that a transcendental argument consists not merely in the exposition of necessary presuppositions of X (i.e., the conditions of the possibility of X), but has a reflexive structure: In the process of exposing the presuppositions we gain insight as to why those presuppositions are indispensable and, hence, why their assumption seems plausible and, hence, why the principle embracing those presuppositions seems justified. The condition of “reflective approval” appeals to the normative reasons that rational (in the sense of reasonable) agents have for agreeing on the principle whose content responds to the conditions of the possibility of X. Kant’s reasoning in the Groundwork leading to the FUL and the FH follows that line. The first step, namely exposing the categorical imperative as a condition for the possibility of moral reasoning and, thus, of acting morally, is performed by what Kant calls a “regressive argument”. FUL, as we know, appears at the end of an analysis intended to identify the principle underlying good will. Kant proceeds by exposing the conditions such a principle has to meet. The required principle must have the form of a categorical, not a hypothetical, imperative, and must amount to a merely formal law. The argument ends by stating that those conditions – formality, universality, and categorical bindingness – are exactly met by the FUL. Kant’s regressive argument for FH draws on two assumptions: First, that our capacity for setting ends defines us as human beings; second, that  the rational capacity for ascribing objective values to ends presupposes that one must ascribe objective, and thus unconditional value, to oneself and one’s rational willing, which amounts to respecting our humanity. Kant derives FH by a regressive depiction of the conditions that underpin our valuing ourselves as human beings and rational agents. The argument begins by claiming that rational beings are characterized by the capacity of self-determination by a will. Kant then states that the ground of the will’s self-determination has to be an objective end, not an end that

Putting Freedom First 83 is only conditionally valuable.4 He concludes that all rational and all human beings meet this condition; they can never have merely conditional value and can never serve merely as means. Again, Kant states the conditions the sought principle has to meet, namely: It must hold categorically, it must be “an objective principle of the will”, and it must be able to “serve as a universal practical law” [GMS, 4: 429 (79)]. These conditions are exactly fulfilled by FH. Kant acknowledges that the regressive arguments do not amount to a full justification of the categorical imperative. This is why he undertakes a “deduction” of the categorical imperative in section III of the Groundwork. The deduction proceeds from the claim that a rational will is an autonomous will and that an autonomous will and a moral will are one and the same, to the conclusion that a rational will is a moral will. It is assumed here that freedom of will is a property that characterizes the will of all rational beings. In so far as we are rational, we are, qua freedom of the will, committed to the moral law. That a human will as a rational and free will is under the moral law establishes the validity of the categorical imperative.5 However, Kant himself was uneasy with his argument; he suspected it of being circular, simply presupposing the autonomy of the will without further argument. That he indeed had every reason to be concerned is evident given his underlying assumption: “If, therefore, freedom of the will is presupposed, morality together with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of its concept” [GMS, 4: 447 (95)]. Kant’s argument relies on an analytic connection between autonomy and morality. Thus, Kant fails to provide additional reasons why the reflective endorsement of the categorical imperative seems compelling. He does not succeed in convincingly completing the second step of a transcendental argument. Can we present another argument, one that provides the normative reasons for endorsing the ethical categorical imperatives that resulted from the regressive arguments? Note that the argument must, when we follow Guyer, make the guarantee of freedom and autonomy pivotal. Moreover, the argument must not rely on an analytical connection between autonomy and the moral law, but must show why commitment to the basic principles of ethics protects our autonomy. Here is a suggestion as to how such an argument might run: I live in a world in which the actions of others impact me. Hence, I have a normative reason to endorse the ethical principles that grant me the normative status of an autonomous agent and obligate others to treat me accordingly. Otherwise, I would be at the disposal of others’ arbitrary wills – degraded to an object, a kind of instrument. In addition, others could give precedence to their maxims of action without considering whether their subjective principles of action pass the test of universalizability. To avoid

84  Herlinde Pauer-Studer such a condition, I have a reason – note, a normative reason beyond mere instrumental reasoning – to recognize the normative force of the ethical categorical imperatives. One might object that this line of reasoning brings into focus only a limited section of Kant’s explanations of the form and role of the categorical imperatives. However, the above argument can be extended to include the various formulas of the categorical imperative that Kant provides. Kant offers us five formulas of the categorical imperative, three main formulas (the Formula of Universal Law, the Formula of Humanity, the Formula of Autonomy) and two variants, namely the Formula of the Law of Nature (which is a variant of the Formula of Universal Law) and the Formula of the Realm of Ends (as a variant of the Formula of Autonomy).6 Kantian philosophers disagree as to which of those formulas they consider to be paramount, but usually either the Formula of Universal Law, the Formula of Humanity, or the Formula of Autonomy (FA) are singled out as the overriding principle of morality.7 However, when we focus on morality as a social practice for the preservation of our autonomy, then it seems that Kant’s FRE and the corresponding requirement to “act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible realm of ends” [GMS, 4: 439: (88)] becomes pivotal. Kant introduces the FRE in section II of the Groundwork following his exposition of the FH and the FA. His claim, connecting FH and FA, is that attributing unconditional value to human beings involves ascribing them a rational will that is self-legislating and thus autonomous. An autonomous will focuses on maxims that can be willed as a universal law. Such a conception of human beings, Kant argues, gives rise to a realm of ends: The concept of every rational being as one who must regard himself as giving universal law through all the maxims of his will, so as to appraise himself and his actions from this point of view, leads to a very fruitful concept dependent upon it, namely that of a realm of ends. By a realm I understand a systematic union of various rational beings through common laws. [GMS, 4: 433 (83); italics in the original] And Kant adds: A rational being belongs as a member to the realm of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other. [GMS, 4: 433 (83); italics in the original]

Putting Freedom First 85 The idea of a realm of ends embraces the main idea of FH – that rational beings should treat others and also themselves as ends in themselves, i.e., as dignified beings who deserve respect. Equally, the realm of ends is linked to the FUL by including the condition that rational agents should act according to maxims that can be thought or willed as universal laws. The realm of ends also makes use of the FA since its members are selflegislating and thus autonomous rational agents. As Kant explains, the realm of ends takes shape once we “abstract from the personal differences of rational beings as well as from all the content of their private ends” so that we are “able to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself)” (GMS, 4: 433 [83]). What Kant means is that members of a realm of ends must consider whether their maxims involve ends that are – in principle – compatible with the ends of others. This entails not pursuing maxims involving ends where the corresponding maxims must be reasonably rejected by others. As Paul Guyer expresses it, only the promotion of those ends is permissible which can form “a systematic whole of private ends” (Guyer 2007: 100). In other words, FRE demands pursuing ends for reasons that rational agents can share. Meeting this requirement results in a community of rational beings whose relations to each other are regulated by common laws. The suggestion to consider FRE as central is supported by some passages of the Groundwork, though, admittedly, Kant himself did not fully work out this option. According to Kant, FRE provides the complete form of moral reflection by including the moral ideas emphasized by the other formulas of the categorical imperative, namely universal lawgiving (unity of the will), the kind of ends (set by the requirement to treat human beings as ends in themselves), and the possibility of shared ends (system of ends). And, he adds, that “a complete determination of all maxims” is achieved by the FRE, that is, the requirement “that all maxims from one’s own lawgiving are to harmonize with a possible realm of ends as with a realm of nature” [GMS, 4: 436 (86); italics in the original]. Shifting the main focus on FRE suggests, I think, seeing the different formulas of the categorical imperative as being related to each other in the following way: FRE is fundamental and the other formulas of the categorical imperative such as FUL and FH are particular ways of spelling out the normative elements embraced by FRE in terms of criteria for evaluating our maxims. As previously mentioned, an important part of Kant’s ethics consists in a procedural assessment of the moral permissibility or impermissibility of one’s subjective principles of action, one’s maxims. The test criterion in the FRE is the requirement that all maxims are “to harmonize with a possible

86  Herlinde Pauer-Studer realm of ends”, which means that we have to ask ourselves whether our maxims can function as common laws. Other than in the case of FUL and FH, Kant does not illustrate the working of this directive by examples. But it obviously helps moral deliberation to ask whether our subjective principles involve claims on others that can or cannot pass the test of mutual recognition. This means to examine whether those affected by a maxim do (or do not) have a normative reason for reasonably rejecting it. Let us turn now to the main issue raised earlier: In what sense does the move to the idea of a realm of ends contribute to a justification of the ethical categorical imperatives? A viable reply must, as explained, draw on the connection between autonomy and the realm of ends. We are brought directly to the idea of a realm of ends by asking: On what fundamental principles must our relations to each other be based so that we, as free and rational agents, have reason to consent to them? A reasonable response leads to the Kantian principles, the ethical categorical imperatives. They are the principles that grant our equal standing and our autonomy. They have the potential to save us from the ethical state of nature – a state in which we are at the mercy of others and enjoy no protection against instrumentalization and humiliation.8 Forming our relations on the model of a realm of ends – an ideal that commits rational agents to agreement on shared laws – grants us the status of autonomous and self-legislating agents who relate to each other with respect. Our recognition of the value of humanity and autonomy provides us with a normative reason to consent to the ethical principles that are constitutive of autonomy in the sphere of inner freedom. Regulating our relations to each other by “common laws” commits us to FUL and FH. The argument presented here is, I think, consistent with the essentials of Guyer’s approach, namely, to see freedom as the central value of Kant’s ethics and to make the ability to pursue one’s own ends the starting point of a justification of those specific formulas of the categorical imperative that give rise to procedures for judging our maxims. One might object that the realm of ends presents an ideal that is far removed from our ordinary life and ways of interacting. In particular, the requirement to act according to common principles seems difficult to achieve. This is certainly true, but the relevant question is whether it might not be important for our living together to regard morality as constituted by such an ideal – even if this ideal poses a challenge to our natural dispositions and inclinations. As Guyer writes, taking seriously “what morality would entail under ideal circumstances” does not require “any superhuman efforts possible in another world than that of our actual experience”, but only that we, as natural human beings, aim to do “the best that we can under the empirically given, actual circumstances of human life” (Guyer 2019: 66; italics in the original).

Putting Freedom First 87 5.4  Concluding Remarks Let us return to Kant’s metaethics and the question of whether Kant is a rationalist, a realist, or a constructivist. Kant was educated in the rationalist-theological tradition and familiar with Christian Wolff’s doctrine of moral principles. According to a number of interpreters, Kant, especially in the period of developing his critical philosophy, sought to distance himself from this school of thought. In his ethical philosophy, Kant altogether turned away from the rationalism of the Wolff-Leibniz School. Others see Kant’s ethical theory as deeply influenced by Wolff. Kant’s entire thinking was, as Josef Schmucker argues in his detailed study of the intellectual sources of Kant’s ethics, a constant confrontation with Wolff’s rationalist system. According to Schmucker, Kant adopted decisive basic ideas from Wolff (Schmucker 1961: 28–38). A discussion, let alone assessment, of these differing interpretations, is beyond the scope of this chapter. Certainly, Guyer’s exposition of Kant’s derivation of the categorical imperative is consistent with the thesis that Kant is deeply indebted to the rationalism of the Wolff-Leibniz school. The crucial question, however, is whether Kant’s argument is viable from a systematic point of view. Guyer himself is critical of Kant’s derivation of the categorical imperative and tends toward an alternative justification, focusing on the categorical imperative’s freedom-preserving role. In this chapter, I have suggested how to expand Guyer’s considerations on freedom of choice so that we achieve a fairly plausible vindication of the categorical imperative. My proposed argument is methodologically in the spirit of constructivism, and also contractualism, insofar as it seeks to justify the fundamental principles of morality by way of a reasonable agreement.9 It claims to provide the normative reasons for why we should consent to the ethical categorical imperatives. However, my proposal does not rule out realism altogether. The notion of “normative reason” is open to either a realist or constructivist interpretation. Constructivists tend to explain reasons in terms of principles of rationality. Principles of rationality thus have a say in what counts as a reason. For metaethical constructivists, reasons are tied to rational procedures. To probe which reasons are, all things considered, valid and binding, depends on the correct deliberation procedures of practical rationality.10 Metaethical realists, in contrast, consider reasons as the central and fundamental building block of normativity. They maintain that rationality should be defined exclusively in terms of reasons.11 Rationality consists, so the well-known phrase, just in “responding correctly to reasons”. Some realists simply identify reasons with facts. Reasons, however, are not facts, but rather propositions we form in response to facts (see Peter 2019).

88  Herlinde Pauer-Studer Note that constructivism does not rule out a relationship between rationality, reasons, and facts; facts lead to reasons, but what constitutes good reasons is mediated by our rules or principles of rationality. Such principles, which can be fleshed out in specific testing procedures, are, constructivists point out, crucial to assessing various considerations from a rational practical standpoint.12 This is a rough characterization of the two positions that might not pay due respect to all the nuances in the debate between constructivists and realists. However, it suffices to show that Kant’s ethical philosophy is certainly close to constructivism, especially when we take into ­account the major procedural role of the categorical imperatives in assessing the permissibility or impermissibility of our principles of acting. Kant’s regressive arguments to arrive at the formulas of categorical imperatives (especially FUL and FH) also identify him as a constructivist – at least if we follow Korsgaard’s definition of constructivism, which states that one formulates a problem and then comes up with the solution (Korsgaard 2008c: 321–324). In Kant’s case, the task is to find the principle of good will, i.e., the principle of morality. Starting from intuitively plausible assumptions about morality, Kant then proceeds to find the formulas of the categorical imperatives that correspond to these conditions. For Guyer, Kant’s moral philosophy amounts to a form of realism insofar as it relies on the “fact that every human being has a will of his or her own” (Guyer 2019: 64; italics in the original). I have my doubts that this reference to a feature of being human is sufficient to read Kant’s ethics as a version of realism.13 But there are definitely realist elements in Kant’s assumptions about human nature and human capacities. Note that any appeal to realism is not excluded by using the notion of “normative reason” the way I did, since we might combine a fact-based realist reading of reasons with a constructivist understanding of the practical standpoints from which one’s judgments about reasons are assessed.14 However we interpret the details of Kant’s ethics, an enduring message of his practical philosophy is that we must rely on principles to determine the practical standpoint and thus our reasons for action. *** Acknowledgment Research for this chapter has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 740922, ERC Advanced Grant “The Normative and Moral Foundations of Group Agency”.

Putting Freedom First 89 Notes 1 Guyer concedes that self-contradiction in the form of a denial of our freedom is not discussed by Kant in the Groundwork. However, he emphasizes that one finds passages in the Lectures indicating that for Kant such a self-contradiction arises in case one turns oneself into a mere means. 2 For a more detailed discussion see Pauer-Studer (2016: 134–138). 3 The proposed argument expands the account offered in Pauer-Studer 2018. 4 An end is conditionally valuable if it depends on certain subjective desires and incentives. Such relative ends are, as Kant argues, “only the ground of hypothetical imperatives” [GMS, 4: 428 (78)]. 5 This interpretation of Kant’s deduction is controversial. Dieter Schönecker, for instance, considers another passage in Kant’s Groundwork relevant. He thinks that the deduction of the categorical imperative relies on the “ontoethical principle”, which is, Schönecker argues, present in Kant’s claim that the laws of the intelligible world (the world of understanding) also hold for the sensible world and that therefore I, as part of the sensible world, must recognize that “the laws of the world of understanding must be regarded as imperatives for me” [GMS, 4: 453–454 (100)]; (Schönecker 2006: 311–318). Schönecker does not find this form of deduction convincing either. 6 The various formulations of the categorical imperative are: Formula of Universal Law (FUL): “(A)ct only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” [GMS, 4: 421 (73); italics in the original]. Formula of the Law of Nature (FLN): “(A)ct as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature” [GMS, 4: 421 (73); italics in the original]. Formula of Humanity (FH): “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” [GMS, 4: 429 (80); italics in the original]. Formula of Autonomy (FA): “(T)he third practical principle of the will” is “the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law [GMS, 4: 431 (81); italics in the original].Formula of the Realm of Ends (FRE): “(A)ct in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible realm of ends” [GMS, 4: 439 (88)]. Note that Mary Gregor’s translation uses the term “kingdom of ends”. Since “realm of ends” seems more apt as a translation of “Reich der Zwecke”, I use it in this chapter generally instead of “kingdom of ends”. 7 Guyer (2005) emphasizes the central role of the Formula of Humanity. In another work, Guyer mentions that the Formula of the Realm of Ends covers the central features of morality and moral deliberation (Guyer 2007: 99–103). Wood (1999) rejects the identification of the moral law with FUL; he argues “that it is FA rather than FUL which should be considered the ‘universal formula’ ” and that FA is superior to FH, which again is superior to FUL (Wood 1999: 182–183). 8 The suggested argument is similar to Kant’s argument in On the Common Saying: That may be correct in Theory, but is of no Use in Practice as to why we should consent to the principles of a rightful condition, i.e., the public laws of a civil state. [TP 8: 290–298 (290–297)]. A full exploration of the parallels, but also differences between the two arguments (one with respect to ethics; the other with respect to political philosophy) is beyond the scope of this chapter. 9 On the relation between constructivism and contractualism, see Bagnoli 2011. 10 For such a form of (Kantian) constructivism, see Korsgaard 2008b, Korsgaard 2008c, Korsgaard 2009.

90  Herlinde Pauer-Studer 11 A prominent advocate of such a reason-centred approach is Joseph Raz. Reasons constitute for Raz the “normative aspects of the world” (Raz 1999: 75). Rules are, for Raz, merely “reasons of a special kind” (Raz 1999: 67). 12 Certain facts (states of affairs) do have normative valence, and we need standards that help us to recognize such morally relevant states of affairs. For a discussion of such standards, i.e., rules of moral salience, within a strictly Kantian framework, see Herman 1993. 13 Guyer distinguishes between ontological and semantic realism. Ontological realism assumes that moral principles would be based on some sort of fact that is independent of human thoughts or attitudes. The semantic version of realism merely states that moral judgments have a determinate truth-value – a position Kant shares, according to Guyer. “(F)rom a semantic point of view”, Guyer concludes, “Kant’s moral philosophy is committed to realism, not antirealism” (Guyer 2019: 62–63). For Guyer, however, Kant’s ethical philosophy as a whole is connected with realism. 14 Note that a fact-based reading of reasons still allows that reasons amount to propositions about facts. Assessing the validity of such propositions depends on principles that define the practical standpoint.

Bibliography Bagnoli, C. (2011): Constructivism in Metaethics. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/constructivism-meta ethics/ (last accessed on: May 19, 2023). Guyer, P. (1998): The Value of Reason and the Value of Freedom, «Ethics» 109, pp. 22–35.    . (2005): The Form and Matter of the Categorical Imperative. In Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom.  Selected Essays  (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 146–168.    . (2007): Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Reader’s Guide (London: Continuum).    . (2019): Kant on the Rationality of Morality (Cambridge: CUP). Herman, B. (1993): The Practice of Moral Judgment. In The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 73–93. Korsgaard, C. M. (2008a): The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: OUP).    . (2008b): Acting for a Reason. In The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: OUP), pp. 207–229.    . (2008c): Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral Philosophy. In The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: OUP), pp. 302–326.    . (2009): The Activity of Reason, «Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association» 83/2, pp. 23–43. Pauer-Studer, H. (2016): “A Community of Rational Beings”: Kant’s Realm of Ends and the Distinction between Internal and External Freedom, «Kant-­ Studien» 107/1, pp. 125–159.    . (2018): Korsgaard’s Constitutivism and the Possibility of Bad Action, «Ethical Theory and Moral Practice» 21/1, pp. 37–56.

Putting Freedom First 91 Peter, F. (2019): Normative Facts and Reasons, «Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society» 119/1, pp. 53–75. Raz, J. (1999): Explaining Normativity: On Rationality and the Justification of Reason. In Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action (Oxford: OUP), pp. 67–89. Schönecker, D. (2006): How Is a Categorical Imperative Possible? In Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. by C. Horn, D. Schönecker (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 301–324. Schmucker, J. (1961): Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants (Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain). Wood, A. W. (1999): Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: CUP).

Part II

The Legislation of the Realm of Nature

6

Kant on the Exhibition (Darstellung) of Infinite Magnitudes1 Rolf-Peter Horstmann

Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), the last of the three Critiques, is meant to complete his critical endeavor by presenting an a priori principle that is governing the activities of the third of the three higher faculties of cognition, i.e., the power of judgment in its reflective use. This principle is the transcendental principle of purposiveness, whose discovery Kant wants us to appreciate as the endpoint/apex/keystone of his critical investigations (at least according to his own later interpretations of what critical philosophy is all about) (cf. KU, Introduction 1; 5: 170). This is so because, with its discovery, Kant can provide each of the higher faculties of cognition with a priori principles and thus fill out the domain of what can be known about the procedures of these faculties when they are exercised independently of experience. These principles are distinguished by what they achieve: Whereas (1) the a priori principles of understanding, the first of the higher faculties, make theoretical cognition of empirical and mathematical objects possible and (2) the a priori principles that determine the use of reason, the second of these faculties, lead to transcendental ideas that play a constitutive role both in theoretical as well as in practical contexts, (3) the a priori and transcendental principle of purposiveness, i.e. the guiding principle of the third cognitive faculty, the (reflective) power of judgment, is fundamental for the possibility of aesthetic appreciation and for conceiving (parts of) nature in terms of teleological conceptions. According to Kant, it is along these lines that a worldview can be achieved that integrates theoretical/cognitive, practical/ ethical, and aesthetic as well as end-related/teleological attitudes into a unitary system of homogenous principles. And it is only along these lines that this task can be accomplished. As is well-known, for Kant to arrive at the desired completion of his critical inquiries was not an easy journey. On the contrary, the very conception of the task of a critical philosophy and the way to realize it underwent a number of changes/modifications within the roughly ten years it took Kant to finalize his three Critiques. These alterations were not restricted DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-9

96  Rolf-Peter Horstmann to the first Critique (the Critique of Pure Reason) alone, though they were most obvious in this case. After all, two versions of the first Critique documented in two editions, as well as a third account of the same material published under a different title (Prolegomena), before the second Critique was even printed, bear overwhelming witness to the fact that Kant thought adjustments and amendments of his original ideas to be necessary while still engaged in the process of carrying out the critical project. However, it is not just internal confusions and inconsistencies within the first Critique that affected the completion of the critical doctrine as a whole. When it comes to an assessment of the revisions of the entire critical undertaking, one has to emphasize something else that turned out to be much more important: The rather late discovery of an a priori principle of the power of judgment, a discovery that gave rise to the third Critique.2 This discovery is of chief importance because through it, Kant became confronted with the challenging task of integrating a hitherto absent principle as a major element into the ground-plan (Grundriss) of his systematic architecture. Thus, in conceiving of how to present the third Critique, Kant had to face a two-sided problem. On the one hand, he had to make room for and do justice to the specific contributions that were to be attributed to the activities of that faculty, whose a priori principle of operation was newly found. On the other hand, he had to outline and elaborate his theory of what is involved in these activities and how to deal with their products in such a way that his claims could be thought to be compatible with what he had attributed to the other cognitive faculties, whose contributions to both knowing and acting he had investigated under the perspective of their a priori principles in the other two Critiques. That Kant was well aware of this double-sided task is easy to prove. Already, the introduction to the third Critique can be read as the (rather lengthy) attempt to give an account of how to integrate the faculty of the power of judgment into the fabric of activities that constitute our theoretical, practical, and aesthetic access to the world. And many passages both within the aesthetic and the teleological part of this work refer explicitly to claims that are elaborated in the other two Critiques. Hence, the third Critique is not just an interesting document of Kant’s views concerning the ways processes of aesthetic appraisal and teleological explanation are meant to take place, the third Critique also allows glimpses into Kant’s thoughts about the necessity of re-evaluating and adjusting elements of his other two Critiques in the light of what he believes to be the right conception of what the power of judgment achieves. Adjustments and revisions did concern almost every conception that played a role in the earlier Critiques, starting with the way the distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy is drawn (KU, Introduction 2–5; 5:176–181), via the manner in which aspects of his theory of sensibility are addressed,

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  97 including changes in terminology and vocabulary. One only has to think of differences in the use of terms like “transcendental” in the three Critiques. Yet these alterations are most significant and startling when it comes to what could be called his “cognitive psychology”, i.e., his theory as to which faculty in which order and in which relation to other faculties is involved in our epistemic dealings with the world. With regard to his faculty-related considerations, the third Critique can be regarded as a document not just of making adjustments in order to avoid inconsistencies, but of re-conceiving the organization and the operations of the cognitive activities of the mind in such a way that their interplay enables and gives rise to experiences that transcend the conditions of what has a claim to objectivity in a robust epistemological sense (at least according to the standards determined by the first Critique). Thus, what the third Critique has to say about sensibility, the understanding, reason, the power of judgment, and especially the power of imagination deserves special attention, because it points to clarifications and in their consequence to severe revisions of the very foundation of his faculty-based doctrines in the process of completing a critical system. However, though Kant himself seems to have been quite happy with the final result of his revisions as documented in the third Critique, and presumably thought of them as improvements of the general shape of his critical philosophy, it is by no means obvious that such an assessment is warranted. Doubts might be raised, first of all, because it still is an open (and to my knowledge not often discussed) question as to whether these revisions can be reconciled with central conceptions of the other two Critiques. In what follows, I will pursue this question in the form of a case study by focusing on a topic that plays an extensive role both in the first and the third Critique, namely, the topic of infinity. More precisely, how do we deal with infinity in a way that does justice both to the demands of Kant’s views as to the operations of sensibility as elaborated in the first Critique, and to the demands connected with his teachings as to the workings of power of imagination in the third Critique? In a sense, this topic lies at the intersection of epistemology, aesthetics, and metaphysics, which must be seen against the background of the much broader question as to whether, how, and to what extent within the framework of Kant’s critical theory metaphysical claims can find an aesthetic solution that deviate from epistemological claims without becoming completely independent of them. Because his metaphysical views as discussed in his theoretical philosophy are based on his assessments of the achievements of the faculties involved in cognitive and aesthetic judgments, I start (Section 6.1) with a schematic sketch both of the differences and the continuities between Kant’s conception of the operations of and the interplay between the higher faculties of cognition and their complicated relations to the

98  Rolf-Peter Horstmann material that is provided by the lower faculties, i.e., sense and power of imagination (which together form his faculty of sensibility). This outline considers primarily his remarks from the first and the third Critique. I will proceed (Sections 6.2–6.4) by discussing the different ways in which Kant addresses infinity as something the power of imagination has to deal with in the cognitive as well as in the aesthetic context in order to find out whether he relies on a homogenous conception of infinity in both the cognitive and the aesthetic context, or whether these conceptions turn out to be incompatible. By its very nature, this discussion will have to focus first on the transcendental aesthetics in the first Critique (Section 6.2), then on his reflections as to the characteristics of the sublime (Section 6.3), and finally on his remarks concerning indemonstrable concepts within his theory of aesthetic ideas in the third Critique (Section 6.4). I will conclude (Section 6.5) with a short remark on the question of whether the suspicion regarding the inconsistency of Kant’s views concerning phenomena that involve infinity should be maintained, and an equally short remark on the question of what one can learn about the project of establishing systematic unity from Kant’s different approaches toward infinity in epistemological, aesthetic, and metaphysical contexts. 6.1 The list of faculties involved in dealing with different aspects of the humanly accessible world stays relatively stable throughout the three Critiques, though there is room for interpretation as to their specific tasks.3 Following roughly the taxonomy of 18th century empirical psychology in the Wolff-Baumgarten tradition, Kant differentiates within the higher faculties of cognition between understanding, the power of judgment, and reason and distinguishes them from the lower faculties he takes to be sense and the power of imagination.4 The performances of the higher faculties are responsible for the conceptual side of cognition, both pure and empirical, in that their joint employment gives rise to concepts, judgments, and inferences. The lower faculties oversee what is given through the senses in a non-conceptual way. Their operations result in sensations/impressions, perceptions, and intuitions, i.e., they make available the material the operations of the higher faculties are grounded in. Whereas Kant’s remarks as to the workings of understanding and of reason on the side of the higher faculties and of the senses as the main element of sensibility on the side of the lower ones stay somewhat similar in all three Critiques, things are different when it comes to the power of judgment and the power of imagination. Here, some major modifications take place. The most severe, due to its systematic consequences, is the introduction of a new function of the power of judgment. While even as late as in the second edition of the

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  99 first Critique (1787), the operations of this faculty are described as being restricted to what Kant calls its determining use, he somewhat surprisingly introduces (as is documented for the first time in the third Critique) a so-called reflective activity of this faculty. The former, i.e., the determining use consists in subsuming the particular (a special case) under a given universal (a rule, a law), the latter is meant to find the universal to a given particular.5 As to adjustments regarding the power of imagination in the course of the development of the critical project, it could be described less as a process of modification and more as an attempt to remove confusions and ambiguities that burdened the first Critique in both versions with respect to how to think of the operations of this faculty.6 In the first Critique, it remained somewhat obscure how to distinguish the products of the power of imagination, i.e., intuitions, from those of the understanding, i.e., concepts (of objects). Consequently, it remained unclear whether to think of intuitions as containing conceptual elements or as non-conceptual items. Thus, in the first Critique, the distinction between the understanding and the power of imagination remained a bit blurry. The third Critique clarifies unambiguously that the power of imagination is a faculty whose products are non-conceptual intuitions that might turn out to be such that their conceptualization (through the activities of the understanding) could be possible. Within the boundaries of this conception of the faculties involved in all human activities, Kant’s overall view as to how these faculties interact and what they contribute to our cognitive and aesthetic attitudes7 toward reality can be summarized in the following way. A cognitive process starts with the delivery of the faculty of sensibility that makes available via the receptivity of the (five) senses the material on which every cognition is based. This material consists of sensations and impressions that are necessary to produce perceptions and give rise to intuitions.8 Perceptions resp. intuitions are meant to be products of the synthetic activity of the power of imagination, a faculty that is responsible for bringing together a sensible manifold into the unity of an intuition. Next, the faculty of understanding comes into play. Understanding is supposed to operate spontaneously according to certain categorical rules and deliver concepts under which an intuition can be subsumed. The act of subsumption is executed by the power of judgment in its determining use. If this act leads to a positive result, i.e., if the concept provided by the understanding determines what an intuition is about, then a cognition is established. If, however, there is just an intuition, for which no concept is yet available, and the power of judgment starts to search for a concept that the understanding might provide for this intuition, then it is carrying out its reflective function, i.e., it tries to find a concept for a conceptually undetermined intuition. In this case, the reflective procedure of the power of judgment does not result in

100  Rolf-Peter Horstmann a cognition. This procedure is actually not even meant to arrive at a cognition. This is because the power of judgment in its reflective use has no concept available to it (and without a concept, there can be no cognition). The best that, according to Kant, can happen in such a situation is that a feeling arises that indicates to the (reflective) power of judgment that the intuition present in the act of reflecting (which is the product of the power of imagination) could, in principle, be such that the understanding might be in the position to offer a concept that fits the intuition. If this feeling comes up, then the intuition (presumably of an object) is judged aesthetically as beautiful. This very abridged and schematic picture of how the human faculties of cognition manage to establish cognitive and aesthetic judgments points to at least two peculiarities of Kant’s general view as to cognition and aesthetics. The first is that for him, aesthetic judgments are not generically (der Art nach) distinguished from cognitive judgments. They both have to be framed as arising out of a process in which the power of judgment brings together different products, i.e., intuitions and concepts, of different faculties, i.e., the power of imagination and understanding. However, these products are brought together in different ways. In the case of a cognitive judgment, the power of judgment acts in a determining manner based on what is already present to it, i.e., an intuition and a concept, and establishes by subsumption a cognition. In the case of an aesthetic (and also a teleological) judgment, the very same faculty, i.e., the power of judgment deals differently with the very same products, i.e., intuitions and concepts in that it is reflecting on a given intuition to find a fitting concept. In a certain sense, an aesthetic judgment could be called an incomplete cognitive judgment. In the cognitive case, a judgment is based on and expresses an actual relation between what the power of imagination and understanding provide. The aesthetic judgment by contrast is based on a so-to-say virtual relationship between the outcomes of these faculties. Because in both cases the relation is established by the power of judgment, these types of judgment can be considered to be, from a Kantian point of view, generically the same. The second peculiarity is that Kant in his final version of his critical system obviously wants us to draw a strict distinction between intuitions and concepts in terms of their characteristics. Whereas in both versions of the first Critique there is a lot of leeway as to how to interpret the exact nature of their difference,9 he now, i.e., after presenting the third Critique as the capstone of his critical inquiry, settles this question unambiguously. He leaves no doubt that, for him, intuitions are single representations that are products exclusively of the power of imagination and decidedly nonconceptual, whereas concepts are general representations, products of understanding and not intuitive. It is easy to see that he needs this sharp

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  101 separation in order to maintain his claim that next to the determining use, there is a reflective use of the power of judgment that leads to an aesthetic experience. This does not mean that some intuitions, after being “processed” by understanding in order to become intuitions of objects, will come to contain conceptual elements as well. After all, the two versions of the first Critique declare intuitions of objects to be conscious perceptions that have an objective reference or refer to conceptually determined objects, a fact that, according to Kant, makes intuitions of objects a species of cognition (KrV, B 376 f.). But when looking at an intuition solely as a product of the power of imagination without any reference to an object, as something purely present, they have to be non-conceptual. Against the background outlined so far, it is to be expected that all the faculties mentioned as well as the distinction between intuitions and concepts will play a constitutive role in both Kant’s conception of cognition and his aesthetic theory. This means that Kant has to find specific ways to employ these foundational elements of his conceptual and functional framework in each of these parts of his systematic analyses such that they satisfy at least two demands. First, they must turn out to be undeniably essential to an exploration of cognition and of aesthetic phenomena, i.e., they must turn out to be means without which neither cognition nor aesthetic phenomena (and, of course, moral attitudes as well) could be adequately addressed. Secondly, their meaning and function have to stay relatively stable in these different areas of investigation, i.e., Kant has to hold on to their characteristic features if he wants to avoid the charge of inconsistency. It is quite obvious that all three Critiques comply with the first demand; they all analyze their respective objects by means of the same conceptual and functional framework. As to the second demand, however, things are not as obvious. This is so because both with respect to the faculties involved and with respect to the conceptual homogeneity, there are not merely minor modifications and adjustments to be observed. As to the faculties, the most remarkable revision concerns the power of judgment. From a faculty that has a purely subsuming, and thus determining, function in the first Critique, it changes into a faculty that has a double function, for it has, in addition to its determining, a reflective use. This modification goes hand in hand with a reassessment of the achievements and the modus operandi of the power of imagination, a revaluation evident in differences between the first and the third Critique as to the way specific features of the sole product of this faculty, i.e., intuitions have to be conceived. A rather significant difference in this respect has to do with the manner in which infinity is treated in connection with the intuitive presence of an object. Whereas in the first Critique infinity does not exclude intuitive presence (Gegebenheit), it seems that within the framework of the third Critique the opposite is the case, namely, that representations

102  Rolf-Peter Horstmann that involve infinity go beyond what the power of imagination can produce, which makes it impossible to attribute this characteristic to intuitions. To find out whether such an impression is justified, one has to look at the respective passages in both the first and the third Critique. 6.2 In the first Critique Kant starts his examination of the conditions of knowledge by pointing out that knowledge claims or cognitions have to be conceived of as the product of the joint activities of the faculties of sensibility and understanding. While sensibility through the operations of the power of imagination gives rise to intuitions, understanding provides concepts under which intuitions can be subsumed through the actions of the power of judgment. An intuition is distinguished from a concept in that the former is a representation that is “given through a single object” and “rest[s] on affection” (KrV, A 32 B 47 and A 69 B 93), whereas a concept is a representation that “is common to several objects, i.e. a representation insofar it can be contained in different [objects]” (Log, § 1) and rests on a “function”, i.e. an unifying act (cf. KrV, A 68 B 93). For reasons that relate to the question about the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, Kant insists that both intuitions and concepts have to have an a priori, i.e., non-empirical basis in the mind; otherwise, not just mathematical, but first and foremost empirical cognition, i.e., experience, would be unattainable. He famously claims to be able to prove that these a priori elements in the case of intuitions are space and time, the so-called “forms of intuition”, and in the case of concepts, the “pure concepts of the understanding”, i.e. the categories. He presents these proofs in the form of expositions (of space and time as forms of intuition) and deductions (of the categories). When it comes to infinity, only the former are of interest here. To successfully prove that space and time are a priori forms of intuition, Kant has to show (1) that space and time are a priori representations and (2) that they are intuitions, i.e., representations, of singularities, i.e., of single items. This task is accomplished in what he calls the “Metaphysical Exposition” of space and time. Because space and time are considered to be “infinite given magnitude[s]” (KrV, B 39, cf. A 25), a main problem he faces consists in providing an argument that shows that the infinity of space and time is no obstacle to thinking of them as single (and not as general) representations, i.e., as intuitions and not as concepts.10 He tackles this problem with regard to space (in the fifth space-argument of the A and the fourth of the B edition) by drawing attention to the fact that, whereas a concept is a representation that contains an infinite set of different possible representations under it (cf. KrV, B 40), space is a representation that contains such a set within itself, hence, it cannot be a concept but has to

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  103 be an intuition. In an analogous fashion, he argues with respect to time. There have been many discussions as to the cogency of these arguments, and not only recently.11 However, what is important for the purpose at hand is not so much their plausibility, but the premise underlying them, namely, that there indeed exist representations of given infinite items, i.e., the formal intuitions (in the sense of KrV, B 161 fn.) of space and time. For this premise to be valid in the Kantian framework requires that the power of imagination whose synthesizing activity is claimed to produce intuitions can synthetically bring about representations of single/individual items that are given through the senses and are such that they contain infinite parts. In principle, there seems to be no problem with the thought of a (finite) extended object having infinitely many parts (cf. KrV, A 523 f. B 551 f.). There is no problem even in thinking of a finite extended object as being the product of a synthetic composition out of infinite parts. But a problem arises when it comes to the idea of an infinitely extended item like space (as a formal intuition) that is meant to be given through the senses as a single representation. This is so because it seems as if infinite extension excludes the presence of boundaries and without boundaries the very idea of a singularity becomes questionable. Kant within his explicit discussion of space and time in the Transcendental Aesthetic of the first Critique does not directly address this problem. Yet what he says points in the direction of a constructive solution, according to which what is given as an infinitely extended item – as is space in its Euclidean interpretation (which was the only one available to Kant) and time understood as a linear continuum – can only be intuited if the power of imagination treats whatever is present to it in a way that prevents actual boundaries, i.e., deals with whatever is represented as infinitely extended as an homogeneous intuitive unity that is composed of parts that are produced through limitations (Einschränkungen) of a prior unity. Thus, the power of imagination, if it is to allow for intuitions of infinite items, seems to rely on a special mode of operation in its synthesizing activity when the infinity of its products is involved. In the case of producing intuitive representations of finite objects, it proceeds by putting together or synthesizing what is given to it as manifold elements into a representational unity, i.e., an intuition of an object. In the case of the production of an intuitive representation of an infinite item, it constructs from a sample set of finite elements (e.g., finite spaces, finite points of a line), whose boundaries both in extension and in number are undetermined, an intuitive unity that has no actual limits and which comes about through acts of combining, i.e., of synthesizing what is given as a part in the mode of limitation. If this synthesizing process can go on forever, then what is present to the power of imagination remains a given manifold whose intuitive unity is established by asymptotical convergence. Whether such a line

104  Rolf-Peter Horstmann of reasoning makes sense or whether it can indeed be attributed to Kant is not a question to be pursued here. The point to be emphasized right now is that Kant seems to suggest in both editions of the first Critique that the power of imagination, the sole originator of intuitions, has the ability to produce intuitive representations of infinite items (Kantian “totalities”; c.f. KrV, A 428 B 456, fn. 2), albeit only in a never-ending process of asymptotic approximation.12 6.3 Kant seems to have given up this view in the aesthetic part of the third Critique, where he quite explicitly denies that the intuitive representation of a given infinite item is possible. Here, the topic of an intuition of an infinite object comes up in connection with Kant’s considerations as to the conditions, the peculiarities, and the origin of the feeling of the sublime (das Erhabene) and with his distinction between the mathematical and the dynamical sublime. That infinity and its mode of intuitive presence has to be reconsidered follows directly from his very definition of the sublime, according to which “we call sublime that which is absolutely great” or “which is great beyond all comparison” (KU, § 25; 5: 248). These characterizations use the terms “absolute greatness” and “greatness beyond all comparison” in a way that can be related immediately to the idea of infinity. Within the domain of the sublime, greatness plays a role in a mathematical fashion if what is at stake is the determination of the spatio-temporal extension of an object. This means that mathematical sublimity is experienced in cases where it turns out that the object present is extended to such a degree that no conceivable measure can determine its magnitude (Größe). Greatness in a dynamical fashion assumes a role in contexts where forces (Kräfte), powers (Mächte), or other dynamical factors are at work. Correspondingly, dynamical sublimity is connected with the experience of overpowering physical forces (cf. KU, § 28 f.; 5: 260). Kant arrives at his assessment of why a mathematically infinite object, i.e., an object of infinite size (extension) cannot be intuitively represented by pointing out that in order to take up intuitively (anschaulich aufnehmen) the quantum (Größe) of an item, two acts of the power of imagination are required, namely, aesthetic apprehension and aesthetic comprehension (KU, § 26; 5: 251). The act of apprehension consists of the power of imagination’s consecutively grasping the manifold elements out of which the object is constituted. Comprehension takes place when the power of imagination brings together the “partial representations of an intuition of the senses” (ibid., 252) and unifies them into the representation of a single object. According to Kant, it is because of the unavoidability of these two acts of the power of imagination for establishing an intuitive

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  105 grasp of the magnitude of an item that the notion of an intuition of an infinite object is bound to come to nothing. This failure has nothing to do with the act of apprehension. On the contrary, apprehension poses no problem in connection with the task of intuitively realizing infinity. This is so because apprehension is an act of a successive synthesis, a bringing a number of elements together consecutively with the aim of coming to an intuitive whole (anschauliches Ganzes). This bringing together can go on forever and thus can give rise to an infinite chain. Hence, in its apprehending capacity, “the power of imagination, by itself, without anything hindering it, advances to infinity in the composition that is requisite for the representation of magnitude” (KU, § 26; 5: 253). However, when it comes to comprehension, the power of imagination is at a loss with ­respect to infinite magnitudes. Its unifying power is restricted to what is in some way or other present to the senses (sinnlich gegeben), which means that it is in need of a specific start and end point in order to successfully perform the business of establishing intuitive unities, i.e., it needs boundaries that determine the scope within which intuitive unities can occur. As long as the power of imagination is subject to such a restriction, and as long as it operates under the conditions of sensibility, the intuition of an infinite item is beyond reach. Under these conditions, the concept “infinite given magnitude” remains not just an empty, but also a contradictory, concept. To think of it as a non-contradictory concept one, has to stipulate that if an intuition of it is to be achievable, it has to be conceived of as a “super-sensible intuition” (übersinnliche Anschauung) that is not available to creatures like us who intuit via performing the acts of aesthetic apprehension and comprehension. Instead, such a super-sensible intuition must be attributed to an “intelligible substratum” as its subject (cf. KU, § 26; 5: 255).13 However, the (human) capacity of conceiving of the concept of an intelligible substratum that intuits a given infinite whole “indicates a faculty of the mind which surpasses every standard of sense” (KU, § 26; 5: 254). Kant elaborates: […] to be able to think the given infinite without contradiction requires a faculty in the human mind that is itself supersensible. For it is only by means of this and its idea of a noumenon, which itself admits of no intuition though it is presupposed as the substratum of the intuition of the world as mere appearance, that the infinite of the sensible world is completely comprehended in the pure intellectual estimation of magnitude under a concept. (ibid., 254 f.) All this amounts to a view, according to which for creatures that are stuck within the limits of sensibility, i.e., for human beings, (1) space and time

106  Rolf-Peter Horstmann cannot be intuitively present (gegeben) as sensible objects of infinite magnitude and (2) the intuitive presence (Gegebenheit) of items of infinite ­magnitude can only be attributed to a non-sensible subject, i.e., an intelligible substratum. To perform this attribution and to come up with the idea of a super-sensible substratum, the faculty of reason is required, the faculty that surpasses all limitations of sensibility and gives us access to the very concept of infinity as a non-sensible idea.14 At first sight, this assessment seems to be the exact opposite of what Kant took for granted in the first Critique. Whereas, at least in the Transcendental Aesthetic of the KrV, the concept of an intuitive representation of an infinite magnitude that is given under conditions of sensibility seems to have been accepted as possible, the third Critique denies explicitly the possibility of such a conception and argues instead in favor of the necessity of thinking of intuitive representations of infinite given magnitudes as super-sensible intuitions of an intelligible substratum that is not subject to the conditions of sensibility. Hence, it is hard to avoid the impression that there might be serious obstacles to maintaining Kant’s official position that the three Critiques are representing a single coherent system (and not just an aggregate of detached and independent doctrines). After all, the question of how to deal with infinite magnitudes is a major topic in Kant’s critical system. It is of central importance not just for his views concerning epistemology and aesthetics, but also for his criticism of traditional (“dogmatic”) metaphysics, as is evident in discussions of the (mathematical) antinomies (cf. KrV, A 418 B 446 f.). Thus, inconsistencies and internal conflicts as to the treatment of infinite magnitudes can be seen as detrimental to the claim about the systematic unity of the three Critiques. 6.4 Worries about the unity of the system, however, might lessen in importance in case it turns out that the conception of an infinite given magnitude as a super-sensible intuition presented in the third Critique leads nowhere. This would be the case if the very concept of an infinite given magnitude proves to be a meaningless concept, i.e., a concept that lacks “ ­ objective reality” (KrV, A 155 B 194, A 220 B 267; cf. ÜE, 8: 188 f.). Worries along these latter lines have their basis in Kant’s almost Empiricist insistence that, in order for a concept to refer to something whose experience is in principle possible, i.e. to have objective significance, it must be possible to provide this concept with what he calls an “exhibition” (Darstellung) under conditions of sensibility.15 If it were not possible to furnish a concept with an objective item, i.e., an item that satisfies space-time conditions to which it is meant to answer, then the concept is empty because it lacks “objective reality” and has the status of a chimera/phantom of the mind

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  107 (Hirngespinst) or, even worse, is a contradictory concept. In the case at hand, this means that if the concept of an infinite given magnitude designates an intuitive item that is accessible only to a super-sensible intuition, i.e., an intuition that is not subject to the conditions of sensibility, the question then becomes: What could count as an objective exhibition, i.e. an exhibition that must take place under the conditions of sensibility of this concept? The exhibition requirement seems to confront Kant with a vicious trilemma: (1) By definition, the concept of an infinite given magnitude cannot be exhibited in a spatio-temporal item because if it were, it could be an object of a sensible intuition as well; (2) it must be somehow related to spatio-temporal items because, if not, there would be no exhibition of the concept available and the concept “infinite given magnitude” would have to be treated as a chimera/phantom of the mind or a contradictory concept; (3) however, this concept cannot be treated as a chimera/ phantom of the mind or as contradictory because it is a demand of reason to insist on a super-sensible representation of an infinite given magnitude that is an intuition albeit not for a human being (that is subject to the conditions of sensibility) but for an intelligible substratum.16 If neither of these three options is available for already conceptual reasons, then it would seem that the project of finding an exhibition for the concept “infinite given magnitude” is a failure that might even provoke distrust in Kant’s very concept of reason. This leads to Kant’s conception of aesthetic ideas as “inexponible” representations and of ideas of reason or (what amounts to the same) intellectual ideas as indemonstrable concepts as outlined in the third Critique (KU, § 57 Remark I, 5: 342 ff.). These conceptions can be read, so I suggest, as containing potentially feasible means to solve the problem of the exhibition of non-sensible items in a sense that still remains within the limits of Kant’s conceptual framework. According to Kant, aesthetic ideas and ideas of reason are representations that share the fate of lacking a relation to an object of cognition, albeit for different reasons. Since an aesthetic idea is an intuition, it has this bad luck because there is no definite concept to which it fits. Since an idea of reason is a concept, it has this misfortune because there is no intuition that can count as its fitting exhibition (Darstellung) under space-time conditions. It is this shared fate that makes each the “counterpart” (Gegenstück/Pendant) (KU, § 49; 5: 314) of the other. An aesthetic idea is characterized as “that representation of the power of imagination that occasions much thinking though without it being possible for any determinate thought, i.e. concept, to be adequate to it” (ibid.). According to this description, an aesthetic idea is, first of all, an intuition that is undetermined because it lacks conceptual determination, i.e., it cannot be seen as the exhibition of a determinate concept. However, not every conceptually undetermined intuition is an aesthetic idea. Some undetermined

108  Rolf-Peter Horstmann intuitions are just blind, i.e., without any conceptual connection whatsoever. To become an aesthetic idea, an intuition has to be somehow related to conceptual activities. Because an aesthetic idea, just like every other intuition, must be seen as a product of the power of imagination, this means that there has to be some concept-oriented activity that guides this faculty in the establishment of an aesthetic idea. Kant knows two sources of conceptual activities, i.e., understanding and reason. Thus, at least one of them has to be relevant to this process. According to Kant, it is reason that plays a constitutive role in establishing aesthetic ideas whereas understanding is involved in the production of intuitions of empirical (and mathematical) objects. In producing aesthetic ideas, the power of imagination uses material that can be found in what is empirically given in nature and transforms this material “in accordance with principles that lie higher in reason” into an intuition of something that lies beyond the limits of experience and, consequently, is such that “no concept can be fully adequate” (ibid.) to it. Hence the resulting intuitions are aesthetic ideas in case they can be seen as aspiring to the exhibition of concepts of reason or intellectual ideas. This objective is realized if the intuitions in question are providing what Kant calls “aesthetic attributes” that can be attached to an object “whose concept, as an idea of reason, cannot be adequately exhibited” (ibid.; 5: 315). Because an aesthetic idea, being an intuition that provides an aesthetic attribute for a concept of reason, cannot be taken to exhibit a definite concept that is always a product of the understanding, it is in Kant’s terms an “inexponible representation” (inexponible Vorstellung) of the power of imagination (KU, § 57 Remark I, 5: 345). The counterpart to an aesthetic idea, i.e., an idea (concept) of reason, or to an intellectual idea is a concept whose objective reality cannot be proven because there is no conceivable way to exhibit it within the spacetime framework our sensibility is subject to. Kant is somewhat vague as to how these ideas come about. The examples and the comments he provides point in the direction of thinking of them as resulting from what he often attributes to the activity of reason, namely, from reason’s demand for some sort of maximum (das Größte) (KU, § 49, 5: 314; cf. KrV, A 327 B 384). This demand, however, leads to concepts that can never be exhibited under conditions of sensibility because of the impossibility of finding a matching intuition for them (cf. KU, § 57, Remark II; 5: 345). This implies that concepts of reason or intellectual ideas are representations that are indemonstrable because, according to Kant, “to demonstrate (ostendere, exhibere) means the same as (be it in proofs or even simply in the definition) to exhibit its concept at the same time in intuition” (KU, § 57, Remark I; 5: 343). Among these indemonstrable concepts, some are transcendental ideas, i.e., concepts of objects whose exhibition in experience is impossible because they demand maximal completeness of quantitative

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  109 (mathematical), qualitative (dynamical), and relational (causal) series that can be extended backward and forward indefinitely into infinity; others are (non-contradictory) concepts that either have no relation to experience at all, or that refer to objects whose complete empirical realization in an intuition would go beyond anything of which there is an example in nature. As examples of the former concepts, he mentions invisible beings, eternity, and creation, i.e., concepts that though not contradictory, refer to super-sensible objects outside any possible experience. Examples of the latter are meant to be inter alia envy and love, i.e., concepts whose maximum (absolute love, total envy) cannot be exhibited in experience (cf. KU, § 49; 5: 314) because they are somewhat vague as to what exactly can count as a fitting empirical example of them. All of them, whether transcendental ideas or non-contradictory non-empirical concepts, are a priori concepts either because they just reflect operations of reason that are independent of experience (as is the case with transcendental ideas), or because the candidates for exhibition do not fit the conditions of experience in an epistemologically robust sense, i.e., a sense that leads to a clear-cut empirical exhibition by some activity of the power of imagination. Kant advances this conception of an intellectual idea, or a concept of reason as an indemonstrable concept that can find its exhibition in an aesthetic idea, neither to enrich his aesthetic theory with a further tool to analyze aesthetic phenomena or matters of taste, nor to tackle explicitly the question that is of interest here, i.e., the question as to how to deal intuitively with the concept of an infinite given magnitude. Instead, he uses this conception to establish a relation between aesthetic beauty and morality (cf. KU, § 59; 5: 351 ff.). This connection is set up by introducing and distinguishing the two ways of giving a sensible exhibition (a “hypotyposis”/Versinnlichung) to a concept. The first he calls the schematic kind of representation (Vorstellungsart) that leads to what he calls schematic representations or schemata, “where to a concept grasped by the understanding the corresponding intuition is given a priori”. The second he names the symbolic kind of representation that give rise to symbolic representations or symbols, “where to a concept which only reason can think, and to which no sensible intuition can be adequate, an intuition is attributed” in a way that is “merely analogous” to the schematic procedure (ibid.). Though both these kinds of representations are intuitions, they represent their corresponding concepts differently. Schemata are intuitions that represent “directly”, i.e., where the concepts represented are related immediately to spatio-temporal items given in experience. Symbols represent “indirectly” in that they are intuitions that exhibit their corresponding concepts in an analogical fashion, i.e., as if a spatio-temporal item were around that could function as a place holder for what has no empirical basis at all (cf. ibid., 5: 352).

110  Rolf-Peter Horstmann Yet, irrespective of the direct purpose Kant is pursuing in reflecting on different means for exhibiting a concept, his distinction between schematic and symbolic kinds of representation and the corresponding one between direct and indirect exhibitions of a concept permits him to widen the spectrum of what can be exhibited beyond the sphere of what can be found in experience. Above all, these means point to a way in which the question as to the exhibition of an infinite given magnitude can be answered that diminishes the tension between, on the face of it, contradictory claims (1) that an intuition of space as an infinite given magnitude and thus an exhibition of the concept “infinite given magnitude” is possible (arguably suggested in the first Critique) and (2) that an exhibition of the concept “infinite given magnitude” and thus an intuition of space as an infinite given magnitude is not possible (demonstrably put forward in the third Critique). Though Kant does not address this question directly in the third Critique nor, I believe, elsewhere, his remarks about aesthetic hypotyposis together with his comments on how to judge aesthetically sublime phenomena (cf. KU, 5: 270) hint at the details of how to answer the exhibition question and thereby to overcome the suspected tension between (1) and (2). The basic idea Kant can employ in this context turns on thinking of the concept of an infinite given magnitude as an indemonstrable concept that can only be given a symbolic exhibition. The introduction of the concept of an indemonstrable concept helps to make room for a different approach toward the exhibition of concepts that under the “normal” conditions of sensibility have to be treated as empty, if not even contradictory concepts. This is so because the move toward indemonstrable concepts allows Kant to reconcile what he deems to be demands of reason with what could be called the demands of sensibility when it comes to exhibition. Thus, concepts whose origin can be traced back to reason17 can give rise to intuitions that exhibit them indirectly or symbolically. Though this transition to a symbolical exhibition does not give a concept of reason or an intellectual idea objective reality in an epistemologically robust sense, i.e., does not denote an object of possible experience, it allows the respective concept to have a problematic status, i.e., the status of a concept that though it can never be exhibited in experience (hence for epistemological purposes is empty) is at least not contradictory. As was shown above, Kant has elaborated in § 26 of the KU that the ­concept of an infinite given magnitude (1) is demanded by reason in its quest for the unconditioned and the absolute. It was also shown (2) that it lacks exhibition under conditions of sensibility because the power of imagination is unable to comprehend infinities into given totalities. Thus, the concept of an infinite given magnitude qualifies for the status of an indemonstrable concept of which no schematic, only a symbolic, exhibition is possible. This means that the power of imagination in searching for an exhibition of it is

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  111 entitled to look out for ersatz representations in the guise of symbols. If one is to apply this line of reasoning to the representation of space as an infinite given magnitude, the result is the following: If there is no way to find a direct (schematic) exhibition of this representation in a given intuition, an indirect exhibition in symbolic form18 might do the job as well. 6.5 From what was outlined so far, two things can be learned if one is inclined to follow the line of reasoning pursued here. First of all, the suspicion that there is an inconsistency in Kant’s critical system in the form of the three Critiques as to his views concerning infinite given magnitudes might not be that well-founded. His first Critique claims that space as well as time are represented intuitively as infinite given magnitudes seem to be open to a reading, according to which he is not committed to positively affirming the possibility of such an intuition under space-time conditions, but can stay neutral with respect to this question.19 Hence, already for this reason, his position outlined there would be compatible with the claim of the third Critique, according to which such an intuition is not possible for subjects that are subject to the (human) conditions of sensibility. However, his remarks as to the symbolic exhibition of indemonstrable concepts in aesthetic ideas or, more precisely, as to how aesthetic ideas can function as inexponible intuitions of indemonstrable concepts point to a more ambitious aim than just that of avoiding an inconsistency. These remarks have to be seen as an attempt to indicate a way in which both claims concerning  the conceivability of an infinite given magnitude can be upheld by drawing attention to the legitimacy and the limits of a special kind of representing (Vorstellungsart) that consists in representing an indemonstrable concept indirectly through its symbolic exhibition. The second lesson to be learned has to do with systematic unity. Recall that the entire question as to the inconsistency of Kant’s views concerning infinite given magnitudes came up because of worries about the internal coherence of his critical project. These worries were grounded in the idea that the three Critiques have to be looked at synchronically as forming a system where each of its individual parts and, within these parts, each of its affirmed propositions stand in a supporting relation to every other. However, the appearance of inconsistency and, thus, of a lack of coherence vanishes as soon as one starts thinking of the three Critiques as forming a system that is developing diachronically over time, like an organism. From this point of view, a system and its unity should not be regarded as a static and unchanging item that somehow forms a complete and inflexible unity; instead, it has be seen as evolving in time out of internal differentiations that on the face of it seem to stand irreconcilably in opposition to each other,

112  Rolf-Peter Horstmann but somehow in a self-adjusting process of modification become integrated into “a unity of a manifold of cognitions under an idea” (KrV, A 832 B 860), i.e., a system.20 Applied to the case at hand, this suggests that Kant’s engagement with the concept of an infinite given magnitude had to pass through different stages before he reached a treatment that satisfied all the seemingly aporetic demands connected with this concept in such a way that this concept could find a legitimate place in the self-organization of reason. This brings me back to Paul Guyer’s fight against the myth that Kant in the first Critique conceives of space (and time) as an “infinite given magnitude” mentioned in footnote 1. I agree with him that, albeit Kant uses this turn of phrase explicitly, this formulation must be deemed a myth looked at solely within the limits of the framework provided by the first Critique, because there is no way to establish an argument that supports such a claim. This is so, as Guyer convincingly shows, because the first Critique lacks the conceptual resources necessary to maintain that whatever it is could be both infinite and given at once. However, in a wider context that includes the refined and broader spectrum of conceptual means and systematic tasks provided by the third Critique, the notion of an infinite given magnitude might cease to be an untenable myth. It stands to reason that in Kant’s eyes, this myth might be a viable and attractive option for capturing an aspect of reality that lies beyond the limits of knowledge and is attainable only by symbolic means. This does not mean that we are after all entitled to think of the intuition of space as an infinite given magnitude. This remains a flawed proposition and hence a myth to be given up. Yet, Kant’s line of reasoning in the third Critique might suggest that from another point of view, the myth could or even should be retained. Instead of misleadingly thinking of space as an infinite given magnitude, thereby falling prey to a myth better given up, we might think of an infinite given magnitude as something for which space is a symbol, thereby recreating a myth, but this time a myth of reason that can only be conceived of by reason’s idea of a super-sensible intuition.21 Notes 1 The following essay is dedicated to Paul Guyer. It alludes to a topic he dealt with in his The Infinite Given Magnitude and Other Myths about Space and Time (Guyer 2018: 181–204). Paul, in his article, is primarily concerned with Kant’s doctrine of space and time as outlined in the first Critique. I am more interested in Kant’s views as to the exhibition of infinite given magnitudes in both the first and the third Critique. Whereas Paul wants to abolish a myth, I am inclined to retain it, albeit within a different narrative. 2 Cf. Zammito 1992. 3 This at least is true of the time after the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. In the first edition, we find a rather different listing according to which the basic faculties of cognition consist of sense, power of

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  113 imagination, and apperception (KrV, A 94 f.). How this somewhat-obscure listing relates to talk about higher and lower faculties of cognition is a question that will not be discussed here. 4 Kant nowhere in the three Critiques distinguishes explicitly between the higher and lower faculties of cognition. However, in the introduction to the third Critique, he mentions the “higher faculties of cognition” (KU, 5: 177) in a way that picks up the distinctions made in empirical psychology. 5 Cf. KU, 20: 205–216; 5: 179 f. 6 Cf. Horstmann 2018. 7 I refrain from addressing Kant’s stance toward the moral attitude in the context of this chapter because in his practical philosophy there is (as far as I can see) no real place for addressing the power of imagination and its link to infinity. 8 The relation between perceptions and intuitions is somewhat unclear and a matter of longstanding controversy because of terminological idiosyncrasies and obscurities on Kant’s part. We can see this in the differences of the use of these terms in the two editions of the first and the third Critique (cf. Matherne 2017: § 2; Horstmann 2018: 27 ff.). 9 E.g., are there singular concepts? Is an intuition the product exclusively of the power of imagination? 10 A serious challenge to framing the problem this way can be seen in the fact that it disregards Kant’s distinction between space as a form of intuition and space as a formal intuition (cf. KrV, B 160 fn.). This distinction poses problems of its own, which Paul Guyer points out succinctly in his The Infinite Given Magnitude and Other Myths about Space and Time. According to Guyer, these problems lead to misleading views as to the representational character of space and time. However, they are of no immediate relevance for determining the intuitive status of the representation of space in either of its two legitimate interpretations as form or as (formal) object (cf. KrV, B 136 fn.). One way to reconcile a possible tension between the distinction might be to think of a form of intuition as a formal intuition, i.e., as an object. Kant can be read as pointing in this direction in his inaugural dissertation from 1770 (cf. Corrolarium to Sectio III. De principiis formae mundi sensibilis. 2: 405 f.). 11 For a very helpful overview of the contemporary contributions to these debates concerning the infinity of space (and time), together with a highly original suggestion as to how to make sense of the idea of a representation of space as an infinite object, see Rosefeldt 2022: 1–23. 12 This, at least, one has to assume if one takes the first sentence of the 5th (A) resp. 4th (B) space argument according to which “space is represented as an infinite given magnitude” (KrV, A 25 B 39) at face value, i.e., if one is prepared to admit that to represent space this way is a viable option (and does not involve a contradiction in terms). However, even under this proviso it is not obvious that (1) the first sentence is meant to state a fact about the representation of space and that (2) the subsequent argument is intended to settle the epistemic status of this fact (i.e., to determine whether the representation of space is an intuition or a concept). One could as well think of the argument as pointing out that even if one were to deem the representation of space the representation of an infinite given magnitude, regardless of whether this assumption makes sense or not, it would be an intuition (and not a concept). A reading of the 5th/4th space argument along these lines is outlined in Horstmann 1974: 16–30. Depending on which reading of the first sentence one prefers, Kant either affirms without reservations the possibility of intuitive

114  Rolf-Peter Horstmann representations of infinite items (reading one) or he at least does not reject this possibility (reading two). It should be noted that the respective time argument (B 48 A 31 f.) suggests a slight preference on Kant’s part for the first reading. An interesting question in its own right, not pursued here, would be how this view as to the representational nature of space (and time) relate to his claim, outlined in the Antinomies, that space (and time) are “not a real object that can be externally intuited” (B 459 A 431) but from a representational point of view “non-­entities” (cf. KrV, B 461 A 433). 13 Against the background of this line of reasoning, Kant presents his highly original and innovative analysis of the phenomenon of the sublime. According to him, the feeling of the sublime has its roots in the incapacity of the power of imagination to successfully complete the act of aesthetic comprehension when it comes to the intuitive exhibition (Darstellung) of infinite magnitudes. Hence, a subject who tries to establish an intuition of an infinite magnitude experiences a kind of frustration, a feeling of displeasure in the presence of objects and events that give rise to these attempts. Though originally a negative feeling, this feeling of displeasure becomes a positive feeling, a feeling of pleasure, because it causes the subject to appreciate that at least it has the capacity to form an idea yet not an intuition of an infinite magnitude. The very capacity to entertain the thought of such an idea provides pleasure to the subject because it confirms its ability to rise, at least in thought, above the limitations that are inherent in the ways in which its faculty of sensibility operates, and to prove to itself that the idea of a supersensible being, i.e., an intelligible substratum, is not beyond its reach, though this idea can only be realized in thought, not as an intuition. 14 Kant describes this operation of reason as follows: “But now the mind hears in itself the voice of reason, which requires totality to all given magnitudes, even for those that can never be entirely apprehended although they are (in the sensible representation) judged as entirely given, hence comprehension in one intuition, and it demands an exhibition for all members of a progressively increasing numerical series, and does not exempt from this requirement even the infinite (space and past time), but rather makes it unavoidable for us to think of it (in the judgment of common reason) as given entirely (in its totality)” (KU, § 26, 5: 254). It is along this line of thought that Kant arrives at the following characterization of the sublime in nature: “Nature is thus sublime in those of its appearances the intuition of which brings with it them the idea of its infinity” (KU, § 26; 5: 255). It is also tempting to read into this remark a hidden positive allusion to Newton’s famous idea to think of space as the sensorium dei. 15 The term “exhibition”, as a technical term that designates a necessary operation in the process of establishing the objective significance of a concept, makes a major appearance primarily in the third Critique and the Anthropology. In both writings this operation is attributed to the power of imagination that is characterized several times as “the faculty of exhibition” (cf. KU, Introduction VIII, 5: 192; KU, § 17, 5: 232; KU, § 23, 5: 244; KU, § 35, 5: 287; Anth, § 28, 7: 167). Concerning Kant’s conception of objective reality and the demands connected with its possibility, as well as the discussions surrounding this topic, cf. Emundts (forthcoming). 16 The suppressed presupposition here is, of course, that what reason demands cannot turn out to be just an empty concept or a figment of the mind or even contradictory, but has to find an exhibition in some way or another.

Kant on the Exhibition (  Darstellung ) of Infinite Magnitudes  115 17 In Kant’s words, concepts that are “generated in accordance with certain principles of the cognitive faculties to which they belong” (KU, § 57, Remark I; 5: 342). 18 Kant’s candidates for symbols that could count as indirect expositions in the case of the indemonstrable concept “infinite given magnitude” might have been intuitions like that of the heaven and the ocean in their function as objects of sublime aesthetic experiences (cf. KU, § 29, General Remark; 5: 270). However, this is just a conjecture. Kant in this passage does not establish this connection explicitly. 19 This reading is closely related to what was called in Fn. 12 reading two. 20 The basic ideas of Kant‘s conception of systems as organisms as well as his views regarding systematicity are lucidly discussed in a recent book by Lea Ypi (Ypi 2021: especially Chapters 3 and 5). Her examination of the tensions between Kant’s conceptions of “purposiveness as design” and “purposiveness as normativity” could be seen as another example of a reading of all three Critiques that is responsive to the idea of a diachronic organic development of Kant’s critical project. 21 Thanks to (most of) the participants of a workshop organized by Dina Emundts and Tobias Rosefeldt for helpful comments and to Andreja Novakovic for stylistic improvements. Special thanks to Sally Sedgwick for her stimulating and challenging (written) remarks.

Bibliography Emundts, D. (forthcoming): Methodology: Kant’s Thesis About the Proof of the Possibility of What We Claim. Guyer, P. (2018): The Infinite Given Magnitude and Other Myths About Space and Time. In Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by O. Nachtomy, R. Winegar (Dordrecht: Springer), pp. 181–204. Horstmann, R.-P. (2018): Kant’s Power of Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).    . (1974): Space as Intuition and Geometry, «Ratio» 18, pp. 16–30. Matherne, S. (2017): Kant’s Theory of Imagination. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Imagination, ed. by A. Kind (London: Routledge), pp. 55–68. Rosefeldt, T. (2022): Kant on Decomposing Synthesis and the Intuition of Infinite Space, «Philosophers’ Imprint» 22/1, pp. 1–23. Ypi, L. (2021): The Architectonic of Reason. Purposiveness and Systematic Unity in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Zammito, J. H. (1992): The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

7

The Problem of Intersubjectivity in Kant’s Critical Philosophy Konstantin Pollok

It is a subjectively-necessary touchstone of the correctness of our judgments generally, and consequently also of the soundness of our understanding, that we also restrain our understanding by the ­understanding of others, instead of isolating ourselves with our own understanding. (Anth, 7: 219) The motto of this chapter has two objectives, first, to honor Paul Guyer who for the past 50 years put his philosophical judgments to the test by “the understanding of others”, and second, to indicate the topic of intersubjectivity in Kant’s philosophy. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Adam Smith observed that the capability for sympathy (or more precisely empathy) enables a person “to view himself in the light in which he is conscious that others will view him”, which is what Smith called the standpoint of an “impartial spectator”.1 Kant adopts and amplifies this view. However, it is Johann Gottlieb Fichte who deserves credit for the initial account of the second person as a condition of the possibility of the first person. He argues that individuals have self-consciousness only in virtue of their mutual recognition as free subjects. In § 3 of his Grundlage des Naturrechts, Fichte (1796) maintains that the concept of self-consciousness has meaning only within an intersubjective relation: “The finite rational being cannot ascribe to itself a free efficacy in the sensible world without also ascribing such efficacy to others, and thus without also presupposing the existence of other finite rational beings outside of itself”.2 As far as I know, there is no passage in Kant where he claims that intersubjectivity provides the necessary context of subjectivity, that the I must be called or summoned (aufgefordert werden) by another I in order to become a self-conscious I, or that the unlimited freedom of the I must be mutually limited by another freedom in order to become a real, and not merely ideal, freedom. There is less Spinoza in Kant than in Fichte where DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-10

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  117 finite reality is carved out of an ideal infinity, omnis determinatio est negatio. So, unlike Fichte, Kant does not develop a theory of intersubjectivity. Yet, there are key elements of such a theory in Kant, as I will argue in this chapter. Whether or not these elements provided an essential background for Fichte’s account is beyond my present concern. In what follows, I will focus on three contexts in Kant’s critical philosophy where he invokes a second person, or somewhat weaker, other persons whose existence, even if only ideally, is necessary for the possibility of certain types of judgments. I will leave aside contexts in which Kant either: Firstly, simply observes – “empirically and psychologically” – a “natural tendency of human beings to sociability” (5: 218); or, secondly, argues for the necessary mutual recognition in order to form a political body; or thirdly, argues for publicity as a principle of public right.3 The clue to my focus on judgment comes from the anthropological didactic where Kant reflects “[o]n the art of cognizing the interior as well as the exterior of the human being” (7: 125). Under the title “On egoism”, Kant offers some pragmatic advice for bracketing one’s “beloved self” and for considering an intersubjective perspective. Egoism can contain three kinds of presumption: the presumption of understanding, of taste, and of practical interest […]. The logical egoist considers it unnecessary also to test his judgment by the understanding of others; as if he had no need at all for this touchstone (criterium veritatis externum). […] The aesthetic egoist is satisfied with his own taste […]. He deprives himself of progress toward that which is better when he isolates himself with his own judgment. […] Finally, the moral egoist limits all ends to himself […]. [I]t is precisely egoism which drives him to have no touchstone at all of the genuine concept of duty […]. – That is why all eudaemonists are practical egoists. (7: 128–130) Not very surprisingly, Kant recommends opening up one’s horizon and practicing “pluralism, that is, the way of thinking in which one is not concerned with oneself as the whole world, but rather regards and conducts oneself as a mere citizen of the world (Weltbürger)” (7: 130). However, he closes with a rather cryptic remark that may or may not indicate that he had at least tentative thoughts about a more robust theory of intersubjectivity: This much belongs to anthropology. As for what concerns this distinction [egoism/pluralism] according to metaphysical concepts, it lies entirely beyond the field of the science treated here. That is to say, if the question were merely whether I as a thinking being have reason to assume, in addition to my own existence, the existence of a whole

118  Konstantin Pollok of other beings existing in community with me (called the world), then the question is not anthropological but merely metaphysical. (ibid.) Here, I will not speculate if this is a reference to Kant’s Refutation of Idealism, but rather leave this question to experts like Paul Guyer who have a track record of principled views on this.4 I would merely note that there is no hint at the inner/outer sense distinction here, and that the immediate context is on Kant’s enlightenment idea of thinking for oneself without being “concerned with oneself as the whole world”, as well as his criticism of a “feudal system, which took care that the degree of respect due to the nobility was not missing” (7: 131). So, without entering the “merely metaphysical” question about “the existence of a whole of other beings existing in community with me”, I will try to demonstrate that Kant’s pragmatic endorsement of logical, aesthetic, and moral pluralism relates to the structure of three types of judgment: Judgments of experience, aesthetic judgments of taste, and objectively valid maxims of action. I will deal with judgments of experience in Sections 7.1 and 7.2, while judgments of taste will be treated in Section 7.3, and moral maxims in Section 7.4. 7.1  Transcendental Logic In the Prolegomena, Kant argues for the objective validity of judgments of experience in terms of necessary intersubjective validity by contrasting them with judgments of perception. Kant describes this intersubjectivity as the ideal of possible agreement about a given judgment; he speaks of a “consciousness in general” (4: 300, 304, 312; Bewußtsein überhaupt). The argument goes roughly as follows: He distinguishes between judgments of experience, i.e., empirical judgments that are objectively valid, and judgments of perception, i.e., empirical judgments that are merely subjectively valid. Subjective validity can be claimed for any logical connection between representations, including perceptions. By contrast, logical connections between representations (including perceptions) relate to mind-independent objects and, thus, have objective validity only if the representations are a priori classified, or, as Kant has it, only if they can be subsumed under pure concepts of understanding. The crucial point here is that the objectively valid determination of my representations is equivalent to an ideal agreement among all subjects who claim to refer to the same object of experience, rather than their subjective states. In other words, objective validity of a judgment implies its universal validity. Kant writes, Objective validity and necessary universal validity (for everyone) are therefore interchangeable concepts […]. [J]udgments of experience

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  119 will not derive their objective validity from the immediate cognition of the object (for this is impossible), but merely from the condition for the universal validity of empirical judgments, which […] rests […] on a pure concept of the understanding. […] Therefore I express all such judgments as objectively valid; as, e.g., if I say: the air is elastic, then this judgment is to begin with only a judgment of perception; I relate two sensations in my senses only to one another. If I want it to be called a judgment of experience, I then require that this connection be subject to a condition that makes it universally valid. I want therefore that I, at every time, and also everyone else, would necessarily have to connect the same perceptions under the same circumstances. (4: 298–299; emphasis added) If the judging individual intends to make a claim about an object (rather than about her private state of sense impressions), she must invoke pure concepts that objectively determine her representations. Through these pure concepts, the representations become intersubjectively accessible, as it were. Unlike the subjective association between representations, their connection can then be judged by “everyone else” to be true or false. Thus, premised on the application of the categories as a necessary condition of the possibility of experience there is a close connection between a judgment’s reference to an object and its publicity (“form of universal lawfulness”, 8: 386), or its possible “validity (for everyone)”.5 Importantly, in this transcendental context, the intersubjective dimension of our judgments does not refer to the empirical totality of all people. It does not even refer to a real second person (contrasting with the first person). It is rather the idea of a non-idiosyncratic, or impersonal, perspective that must be invoked by anyone who relates to that judgment. Kant calls this perspective “consciousness in general” (4: 300), which is irreducibly multi-perspectival and separates judgments of experience from what Kant calls judgments of perception: “when I merely compare the perceptions and connect them in a consciousness of my state”.6 The import of this idea of a democratized understanding to the speculative context is a characteristic mark of Kant’s critical philosophy. In a note from the 1770s, Kant writes, the “understanding is in itself already communal [gemeinschaftlich] (judgment: universally valid, sense has private validity)”.7 So, strictly speaking, this non-idiosyncratic perspective of a “consciousness in general” is a condition of the possibility of intersubjectivity, rather than the second-personal standpoint of intersubjectivity itself. Moreover, this perspective on the intersubjective dimension of cognitive judgments may provide a clue to Kant’s view that apperception involves judgment, a view that Guyer has subjected to critical scrutiny. Guyer

120  Konstantin Pollok argues that with the conclusion of the B deduction, Kant “has established a connection between apperception and judgment, and thereby between apperception and the categories, only by restricting the domain of apperception and undermining his initial claim that I must be able to attach the I think – and thereby the categories – to all of my representations”.8 I agree with Guyer’s interpretation up to the point where the B deduction is said to undermine Kant’s own claim. I would argue that what is excluded from the domain of representations that are necessarily linked to apperception (and hence, strictly speaking, are “my representations”) are “dreams and illusions”,9 at least in their mode of actuality. Our dreams and illusions (e.g., hallucinations) fall out of our objective, i.e., rulegoverned, experience. There, the order of time may be reversed, constraints premised on the speed of light may be removed, and so on. Nonetheless, this result seems compatible with the deduction’s goal. Apart from these non-apperceptive representations that we can only after the fact ascribe to ourselves, Kant does not seem to have excluded “many self-ascriptions of experience from the unity of apperception”,10 since what Kant calls judgments of perception in the Prolegomena or “the relation of […] representations in which there would be only subjective validity, e.g., in accordance with laws of association” (B 142) deals with “objects of intuition” (B 110; contrasting with the “existence of these objects”), and hence invokes at least the mathematical categories of quantity and quality. I still think that judgments of perception in the sense of pre-categorial connections between representations are incomprehensible from Kant’s own point of view, but that this does not thwart the deduction which accounts for “dynamical” and “mathematical” (B 110, A 160 B 199) categories. Anything above the threshold of dreams and illusions can be selfascribed and is thus accompanied by apperception and structured by at least some categories. Now, one might argue that judgments of perception must invoke the Critique’s transcendental apperception “which in all consciousness is one and the same” (B 132), but not the Prolegomena’s “consciousness in general” (4: 300; Bewußtsein überhaupt), hence there could be a progression from judgments of perception (validity for me; first person) to judgments of experience (validity for everyone; intersubjectivity). However, in opposition to the proclaimed view of the Prolegomena, even judgments of perception invoke more than “a consciousness of my state”.11 Kant’s characterization of understanding as the “faculty of concepts”12 makes a precategorial judgment difficult to square with the Critique’s main tenet that suggests rather that what Kant calls judgments of perception, i.e., utterances about the subjective association of mental states, treat the latter as if they were objectively valid: By communicating these subjective states (e.g., the connection between heat and light) one assumes that others in

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  121 the same perceptual state (e.g., touching a stone in the sun) would have the same sense impressions.13 So, historically, the judgment of perception/ experience distinction may be seen to echo either: Georg Friedrich Meier’s distinction between “anschauende Urtheile (iudicium intuitivum)” and “Nachurtheile (iudicium discursivum)”14; or, Kant’s own pre-critical, Platonic distinction between “representations of things as they appear” and “representations of things as they are”.15 But neither translates into a coherent critical account of pre-categorial judgments of perception. 7.2 Epistemology In the first Critique’s Doctrine of Method, Kant calls the “transcendental analytic […] the canon of the pure understanding; for it alone is capable of true synthetic a priori cognitions” (A 796 B 824). Kant complains that there is no canon of pure reason in its speculative use since it is “through and through dialectical” (ibid.). Interestingly, however, preparing for the canon of pure reason in its practical use, Kant gives an analysis of some concepts specifying the conditions of “having an opinion, knowing, and believing” (A 820 B 848; Meinen, Wissen und Glauben). This analysis is meant to clarify our epistemic access to “the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God” (A 798 B 826). It is in this epistemological context that the intersubjective dimension of our cognition becomes even more tangible than in the transcendental context. In recent Kant scholarship, this third section of the Canon has received detailed attention.16 Here, I focus on the intersubjectivity inscribed to some kinds of taking to be true (Fürwahrhalten). Distinguishing conviction from persuasion, by referencing the judgment’s relation to an object in the first case and the lack thereof in the second, Kant maintains that communicability is the touchstone of the truth-aptness of a judgment, which was not an issue in the transcendental context. Persuasion is a mere semblance, since the ground of the judgment, which lies solely in the subject, is held to be objective. Hence such a judgment also has only private validity, and this taking something to be true cannot be communicated. Truth, however, rests upon agreement with the object, with regard to which, consequently, the judgments of every understanding must agree (consentientia uni tertio, consentiunt inter se). The touchstone of whether taking something to be true is conviction or mere persuasion is therefore, externally, the possibility of communicating it and finding it to be valid for the reason of every human being to take it to be true; for in that case there is at least a presumption that the ground of the agreement of all judgments, regardless of the difference among the subjects, rests on

122  Konstantin Pollok the common ground, namely the object with which they therefore all agree and through which the truth of the judgment is proved. (A 820 B 848; A 821 B 849; emphasis added) Despite the intersubjective context being key for truth-finding, Kant does not propose a consensus theory of truth. Rather, truth rests on the agreement between the judgment’s content and the state of affairs in the world of appearance that warrants the justification for conviction, i.e., for taking something to be true on objective grounds. So, Kant reflects here on the epistemic status of full-fledged, truth-apt judgments of experience, e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow, or other objectively valid judgments (e.g., mathematical), in contrast to utterances of persuasion (I suggest that an illuminating application of this contrast is Kant’s view on how to deal with hypochondria).17 The intersubjectivity of objectively valid (even though not necessarily true) judgments marks the difference between an expression of persuasion and a communication of conviction.18 To demonstrate the method by which the community of judging subjects may help uncover some prejudice on the subject’s side responsible for the persuasion, Kant suggests a public “experiment” that allows us to separate mere persuasion from conviction: Persuasion cannot be distinguished from conviction subjectively, when the subject has taken something to be true merely as an appearance of his own mind; but the experiment that one makes on the understanding of others, to see if the grounds that are valid for us have the same effect on the reason of others, is a means, though only a subjective one, not for producing conviction, to be sure, but yet for revealing the merely private validity of the judgment, i.e., something in it that is mere persuasion. (A 821 B 849) Kant calls this experiment a “subjective” means to the validation of what somebody takes to be true, presumably because it provides a viable detour to a direct reference to the object (“consentientia uni tertio, consentiunt inter se”),19 which ultimately is the only legitimate means to produce conviction. At the same time, this inclusion of other minds in the process of finding the truth works as a powerful tool for unmasking the persuasion. Recalling the transcendental context of intersubjectivity, there appears to be a division of labor between this and the epistemological arguments for the intersubjectivity of cognitive (in contrast to practical or aesthetic) judgments. In the first case it is the subsumption of perceptions under general representations, or more precisely, under pure concepts of understanding, that warrants their objectivity.20 In the Prolegomena, Kant spells

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  123 this out in terms of intersubjectivity (“validity for everyone”). In the epistemological context, it is the submission of a judgment to public scrutiny that determines whether the reasons for taking it to be true are objectively valid, or merely taken to be objectively valid. While the Transcendental Logic clarifies that the content of our representations must be open access to count as judgment, the Doctrine of Method suggests an intersubjective test as the touchstone of a judgment’s truth-aptness. This epistemological context of intersubjectivity contrasts with the aesthetic context in which a judgment’s communicability is also a means to determine its validity,21 but this validity is at best subjectively universal, as Kant calls it, and can never attain objective universality. 7.3  Aesthetics and the Reflective Power of Judgment Compared to Kant’s theoretical philosophy, the problem of a judgment’s intersubjectivity is even more complex in the aesthetic context. Kant’s discovery of the reflective power of judgment supplementing his accounts of the determining power of judgment on one hand and of the productive imagination on the other can only be fully appreciated through a close analysis of the trajectory from Kant’s first to the third Critique. For my present purpose of tracing the intersubjective component in the different kinds of judgments, however, I will start right at the center of Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgments of taste. Unlike theoretical and practical judgments claiming objective validity, the aesthetic relation among given representations cannot be thought of as objectively valid. Strictly speaking, aesthetic judgments of taste are not so much about the beautiful object itself, but rather about the effect this object has on our mind. Yet, if this aesthetic relation is meant to have more than merely private validity solely based on the idiosyncrasies of our sense impressions, there must be some a priori basis that allows, at least, for its aspiration to universal agreement. Kant calls this necessary intersubjective aspect of judgments of taste their “communicability” (5: 217). Arguing for the special status of this type of non-objective and yet non-idiosyncratic judgments is the task of the Analytic of the Beautiful, where Kant defines, “that is beautiful which pleases in the mere judging (neither in sensation nor through a concept)” (5: 306; cf. 5: 267). Kant’s thought behind this definition is that the beauty we ascribe to an object can neither be based on a pleasant sensation nor on the cognition of objective (physical or moral) properties. Rather, when we judge an object to be beautiful we claim that its representation gives rise to a pleasurable reflection. Answering the question of “what is required for calling an object beautiful”, he gives an ”analysis of judgments of taste”, that is meant to reveal “the moments to which this power of judgment attends in its

124  Konstantin Pollok reflection” (5: 203). Instead of rehearsing all four categorial moments, here I may confine myself to the fourth moment, which concerns “the modality of the satisfaction (Wohlgefallen) in the object” (5: 236). But note that the second moment of aesthetic quantity is not about the (spatio-)temporal extension of objects (as it is the case with schematized categories in the cognitive context). Since, again, an aesthetic judgment is about the effect an object has on our mind (rather than the object itself), aesthetic quantity refers to our satisfaction in the object. Also, since the quality (first moment) of an aesthetic judgment of taste is marked by the disinterestedness of the Wohlgefallen, its quantity is marked by the suspension of its idiosyncratic conditions, or more positively, by the “imputability of delight […to] all subjects”,22 as Guyer calls it, and hence by the “universal satisfaction” (5: 211) in the object, because it “lays claim to the consent of everyone”.23 Unsurprisingly then, the fourth moment, i.e., the modality of these judgments aspiring to universal satisfaction must be necessity, according to Kant. However, in contrast to an “unconditioned necessity” (5: 238) that would be built on “a determinate objective principle” (5: 237; emphasis added), this necessity must be qualified as “conditioned” (5: 237). Whereas the necessity of cognitive and practical judgments refers to concepts and rules that allow for a demonstration of the judgment’s objective validity, the necessity of aesthetic judgments relates the subjective feeling of pleasure for which they “demand such assent universally” (5: 214) to a “ground for it [sc. assent] that is common to all” (5: 237), which Kant ultimately calls “common sense (by which, however, we do not mean any external sense but rather the effect of the free play of our cognitive powers” (5: 238). This common sense is introduced as follows. Since the aesthetic feeling of pleasure is essentially subjective, i.e., indemonstrable through concepts and rules, our “claim to the consent of everyone” (5: 216) would be fundamentally incomprehensible if we were not entitled to assume a “universal capacity for the communication (allgemeine Mittheilungsfähigkeit) of the state of mind (Gemüthszustandes) in the given representation” (5: 217). So, the necessity of aesthetic judgments is premised on the “universal communicability of a feeling” (5: 239).24 Kant’s argument for this universal communicability has two steps. First, any cognition must be universally communicable. Otherwise, it could not employ general representations, i.e., concepts, and hence could not have the form of a judgment. This dovetails with the argument in the Prolegomena discussed previously, where the application of pure concepts ensures a judgment’s “necessary universal validity (for everyone)”.25 Second, and probably more controversially, if cognition is communicable then the “mental state (Gemüthszustand), i.e., the disposition of the cognitive powers for a cognition in general” (5:238) is communicable as well. Even though I cannot go into the numerous exegetical and philosophical problems related

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  125 to Kant’s notion of common sense in conjunction with the deduction of judgments of taste and the antinomy of taste, I will try to make explicit the specific kind of intersubjectivity implied by aesthetic judgments of taste.26 According to Kant, we are not only able to communicate the content of the cognition but also its mode, i.e., the “mental state (Gemüthszustand)” (5: 238) that is necessary for its production. More precisely, we are able to communicate the feeling of satisfaction with the proportion of the cognitive powers engaged in a certain kind of cognition. This feeling of satisfaction – when the proportion of the cognitive powers in action is “optimal [zuträglichste]” (5: 238) – is non-conceptual because it merely accompanies the cognitive powers in their operations, and is non-private (“not as a private feeling, but as a common one”) because it accompanies any kind of cognition regardless of who it has. Hence, Kant calls it common sense (Gemeinsinn). It is an “ideal norm” (5: 239) produced by the most conducive (zuträglichste) relation between sensation, imagination, and logical acts of understanding. Yet, this conduciveness may vary depending on the object. The satisfaction in the most conducive proportion between imagination (including “intuition”; 5: 287) and understanding in, say, the solution of a parabolic equation differs from the satisfaction in the most conducive proportion between imagination (including intuition) and understanding when we lose ourselves, as it were, in the contemplation of a rose. Contra the former, what we communicate in the latter case is the satisfaction in our engagement in seeking conceptual unity to a given sensible manifold as well as seeking imaginative plurality for a given concept, or as Kant puts it, the satisfaction in “the reciprocally animating imagination in its freedom and the understanding with its lawfulness” (5: 287). We call an object, e.g., a rose, beautiful because we expect everyone who perceives it also to feel the pleasure caused by “the subjective purposiveness of nature for the power of judgment” (5: 340). In this case, the rose’s ability to stimulate this quest for imaginative freedom and conceptual closure. Thus, Kant writes: “The necessity of the universal assent that is thought in a judgment of taste is a subjective necessity, which is represented as objective under the presupposition of a common sense”, and he hastens to add that “this common sense […] does not say that everyone will concur with our judgment but that everyone should agree with it” (5: 239). So, the idea of a common sense is to make comprehensible the fact that the aesthetic “claim [Anspruch] to the consent of everyone” (5: 216) is justified without appealing to a universal set of aesthetic rules. Thus, the peculiar necessity of our judgments of taste is: Firstly, weaker than the objective necessity attached to judgments of experience, e.g., that water boils at 100°C at sea level, and; secondly, weaker than the objective necessity (necessitation) attached to moral judgments, e.g., that one ought to “act in

126  Konstantin Pollok accordance with a maxim that can at the same time make itself a universal law” (4: 436). The necessity of judgments of taste is rooted in our common sense of beauty, i.e., our capacity to enjoy the reflective equilibrium, or free play between our imagination and understanding. However, the subjectivity of our aesthetic experience is not simply suspended, or sublated, or replaced by its intersubjectivity. Following Kant’s construction there is rather an antinomy between these two properties. The resolution of this aesthetic antinomy between the impossibility and the necessity of the disputability of judgments of taste, that is, the common ground of the irreducible subjectivity of an aesthetic experience (qua feeling) and its irreducible publicity (qua judgment) is itself marked by the intersubjectivity that Kant calls the “supersensible substratum of humanity” (5: 340).27 In order to unravel this particularly cryptic claim, recall that Kant mentions two supersensible substrata that I take to mark two different aspects of an identical concept (cf. “this very concept”, eben denselben, 5: 340). On the one hand, he speaks of the idea of the supersensible in general as “the substratum of nature”, and, more specifically, as “the principle of the subjective purposiveness of nature for our faculty of cognition” (5: 346). On the other hand, he introduces the “supersensible substratum of humanity” (5: 340). Both concepts describe the “pure rational concept of the supersensible, which grounds the object (and also the judging subject) as an object of sense, consequently as an appearance”.28 The first aspect of the idea of the supersensible marks the purposiveness of an object with respect to our cognitive faculties. The second aspect relates the supersensible to the idea of the subject in community with other subjects, such that the possibility of the communication of cognitions and feelings can be understood. Both determinations of the supersensible – as substratum of nature (causa finalis) and as substratum of humanity (actio mutua, or commercium), to make explicit Kant’s three categories of relation operative in this condensed argument – are supersensible because they cannot be scientifically demonstrated. This is obviously true of the supersensible “substratum of nature” since the latter’s purposiveness is a regulative idea. But it is also true of the “supersensible substratum of humanity”, which marks the unifying idea of humanity which is not given (gegeben), but rather given as a problem (aufgegeben) and, more often than not, in conflict with reality. Our aesthetic experience’s intersubjectivity is grounded in the “supersensible substratum of humanity”, since Kant defines humanity (Humanität; Menschlichkeit) as: On the one hand the universal feeling of participation (Teilnehmungsgefühl) and on the other hand the capacity for being able to communicate one’s inmost self universally, which properties taken

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  127 together constitute the sociability that is appropriate to humankind (Menschheit), by means of which it distinguishes itself from the limitation of animals. (5:355)29 With this resolution of the antinomy – the universal validity of a judgment by the merely reflecting power of aesthetic judgment is not based on determinate concepts but on the indeterminate concept of the supersensible substratum of appearances – the specifically aesthetic notion of intersubjectivity becomes at least clearer. The communicability of aesthetic feelings does not yield a touchstone for the truth of judgments of taste. Rather, their “logical peculiarity” (5: 281), as Kant calls it, consists in the fact that the approval can only be angesonnen (5: 281, 290 [required seems too strong]), i.e., ascribed to somebody with the “Zumutung [hope (too weak), expectation (too strong)] of a universal assent” (5: 240), but with no means of (logical or moral) blame in the case of dissent. Finally, Kant’s approach to the aesthetic notion of intersubjectivity should be understood in the context of his opposition to an empiricist account epitomized in Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.30 Kant’s rebuttal has, no doubt, a moralizing undertone as he charges his opponent with a lack of principles and proposes a stark contrast between a “merely empirical exposition of the sublime and the beautiful” and his own “transcendental exposition of aesthetic judgments” (5: 277). Only the latter allows for an aesthetic discourse where critics, connoisseurs, and amateurs hold each other accountable for their judgment of taste: If […] one locates the satisfaction in the object entirely in the fact that it gratifies by means of charm and emotion, then one must not expect of others that they will assent to the aesthetic judgments that we make […]. In that case, however, all criticism of taste also ceases entirely […]. If, therefore, the judgment of taste must not be counted as egoistic, but necessarily […] as pluralistic, if one evaluates it as one that may at the same time demand that everyone should consent to it, then it must be grounded in some sort of a priori principle (whether objective or subjective), which one can never arrive at by scouting about among empirical laws of the alterations of the mind: for these allow us to cognize only how things are judged, but never to prescribe how they ought to be judged. (5: 278; cf. 20: 238) It is this last point – the necessity of a law for transcending the egoism of merely private validity – that naturally leads us from the aesthetic to the

128  Konstantin Pollok moral context of intersubjectivity or pluralism where the grounding “a priori principle (whether objective or subjective)” does not guide the reflecting power of judgment but the self-determination of practical reason. 7.4  Maxims of Action and Universal Legislation Kant’s moral philosophy is probably the most obvious and best researched context of intersubjectivity. Two of the many versions of the categorical imperative immediately come to mind here: the Formula of Humanity, “[s] o act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (4: 429); and the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends, “act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends”.31 However, this first impression is slightly misleading. Things are a little more complicated, since for Kant it is not true that morality derives its validity from human sociability, or intersubjectivity. Morality is not restricted to society (Gesellschaft) or even community (Gemeinschaft), i.e., natural, or pre-civil relations such as family or household. The categorical imperative would also be binding on a Robinson Crusoe (Kant read Joachim Heinrich Campe’s adaptation, Robinson der Jüngere, 1779/1780), i.e., a single isolated person. In the Groundwork, Kant argues for perfect and imperfect duties to oneself, i.e., first, not to act on self-defeating maxims regarding oneself, and second, to further the life and reason of one’s own (4:421–23). Hence, for Kant, intersubjectivity as the relation between existing individuals is not the basis of moral requirements. Rather, the notion that is constitutive of both subjective and intersubjective moral relations is law, or lawfulness. It is from the standpoint of universal legislation that both duties to oneself and duties to others must be derived. Under the moral law, any subject – myself and other selves – are equal. Nevertheless, we can find a specifically Kantian idea of intersubjectivity in his moral philosophy. When I ask myself about the objective validity of my subjective principle of action, or maxim, I put myself in the standpoint of a universal lawgiver. From this standpoint I can judge the maxim to be or not be compatible with a universal legislation. But this, Kant argues, is impossible as long as I see myself merely as the empirical self that stands under the law. Rather, as a noumenal self I legislate for myself as a phenomenal self. It is this reciprocal relationship between Thou shalt and I will in one and the same person that characterizes Kant’s specifically intersubjective notion of autonomy, or self-legislation. In any moral assessment of a given maxim I am supposed to play the roles of two different personae: Firstly, qua moral authority I am the “[o] ne who commands (imperans) through a law”; in this role of “the lawgiver

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  129 (legislator)” I am “the author (autor) of the binding force of the law” (6: 227). But secondly, qua the empirical self who articulates and follows subjective principles of action, I stand under this law, which has an unconditionally binding force on me only because I am numerically identical with the legislator. Following the political paradigm of a republican form of government, we are citizens of the realm of ends in virtue of our capacity to judge our maxims from the standpoint of universal legislation. Even if I see myself as numerically identical, I can still distinguish between my role as legislator and my role as a subject of the moral law. As a rational will, I am first and a priori co-legislating and second a posteriori acknowledging – though not necessarily complying with – the law. This, I take it, is intended by Kant’s claim that “it is pure reason in me (homo noumenon), […] which subjects me” (6: 335) to the moral law. Revealing the complex structure of the idea of autonomy, the core of Kant’s moral philosophy is marked by a relationship between the idea of a “universal practical reason, [i.e.] the idea of the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law” (4: 431) and an individual’s practical reason. If we add to a “will affected by sensible desires […] the idea of […] a will pure and practical of itself” (4: 454), finite practical reasoners can be seen to enact and acknowledge the moral law. The moral law derives its imperatival form, i.e., its binding force for finite, rational, end-setting beings, from their own capacity to transcend the subjectivity of the homo phenomenon and to put themselves in the standpoint of “Humanitas substantialis Menschheit” (23: 398), or universal legislation. Otherwise, the bindingness of the moral law would be contingent on circumstances, and thus, the law could never be universally valid. In a “Vorarbeit to the Preface and Introduction of the Doctrine of Virtue”, Kant put this idea of self-legislation most succinctly as follows: “Morally practical reason in us is humanity ([Menschheit] homo noumenon) that gives laws to us” (23: 398; my translation). 7.5 Conclusion There is no express analysis of the concept of intersubjectivity in Kant’s critical philosophy if one expects the I-Thou relationship to be a condition of the possibility of self-consciousness. Nonetheless, the second person perspective as a demand to transcend the idiosyncrasies of one’s “beloved self” (7: 128) is at the heart of Kant’s philosophy. More specifically, intersubjectivity is built into the possibility of three major types of judgment, judgments of experience, aesthetic judgments of taste, and objectively valid maxims of action. In the aesthetic context of common sense, discussed in Section 7.3, Kant proposes three “maxims of the common human understanding”, where

130  Konstantin Pollok the second requires us “to think in the position of everyone else” (5: 294). This means that the individual “sets himself apart from the subjective private conditions of the judgment […], and reflects on his own judgment from a universal standpoint (which he can only determine by putting himself into the standpoint of others)” (5: 295). So, similar to Adam Smith’s view of the connection between our capability for sympathy and the standpoint of an “impartial spectator”, which I mentioned at the outset, Kant identifies the universal standpoint with our capability of putting ourselves into the standpoint of others. Unlike Smith, however, when Kant requires the “common human understanding […] to think in the position of everyone else” (5: 294), he refers to the standpoint of pure reason that we all share as rational beings. Hence, one could even see the intersubjectivity of human beings as the schematized intersubjectivity of pure reason, i.e., the spatio-temporal manifestation of rational laws. From this perspective, Kant’s notion of intersubjectivity may, after all, be seen as a precursor to Fichte’s claim that subjectivity and intersubjectivity are logically connected and, hence, that the “finite rational being cannot ascribe to itself a free efficacy in the sensible world […] without also presupposing the existence of other finite rational beings outside of itself”.32 Notes 1 Smith 1976: 83. 2 Fichte 1966: 30 (2000: 29). 3 In a note from the 1770’s Kant calls the obligation to leave the state of nature (exeundum e statu naturali) and enter the “civil condition (status civilis)” (6: 306) the “only affirmative external natural duty” (Refl. 7075; 19:243). For the principle of publicity in the political context, see Perpetual Peace (“publicity, that is, […] the removal of all distrust toward the maxims of politics”, 8: 386), and as a necessary means to the “Enlightenment of the people (Volksaufklärung)”, see The Conflict of the Faculties (7: 89). 4 See Guyer 1983, and Guyer 1987: 279–329. 5 4: 298; in Perpetual Peace Kant states that the possibility of “publicity […] is involved in every legal claim” (8: 381). The analogy between the transcendental and the legal context is sustained by the fact that, in both cases, the publicity of judgments is based on laws. On the legal context of the deduction of the categories see Møller 2020: esp. 74–80, and Hyder 2022: 513–517. 6 Ibid. I will briefly return to the notion of a “consciousness in general” below. 7 Refl. 1871, 1776–1778, 16: 144. 8 Guyer 2010: 141–142. 9 Guyer 2010: 122. 10 Guyer 2010: 141. 11 4: 300. This is in addition to my argument for the claim that Kant’s notion of pre-categorial judgments of perception is inconsistent and that Kant drops it after the Prolegomena, see Pollok 2012: 103–125. 12 A 160 B 199; see also A 126: “We have above explained the understanding in various ways – through a spontaneity of cognition (in contrast to the receptivity

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  131 of the sensibility), through a faculty for thinking, or a faculty of concepts, or also of judgments – which explanations, if one looks at them properly, come down to the same thing. Now we can characterize it as the faculty of rules”. 13 This is also true of Kant’s other examples of judgments of perception that invoke Lockean secondary qualities like sweetness. See also footnote 20. 14 Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre (Halle: J. J. Gebauer, 1752; reprinted in Kant, 16: 674–679); Meier subsumes both under the heading “Erfahrungsurtheile”, and describes a procedure of how to get from the first to the second, of course, without noting Kant’s distinctive point, namely the application of the categories. Since Meier’s iudicium intuitivum invokes “predicates” of “contingent properties, alterations, relations, effects, causes, actions and passions” (16: 676), this kind of judgment is incompatible with Kant’s transitory notion of pre-categorial judgments of perception. 15 This distinction between “phenomenon and […] noumenon”, of course, left other and more prominent marks in the Critique, but it should be noted that the wording about phenomena in the Dissertation is strikingly subjective, so much so that one may also think of what Kant in the Prolegomena calls judgments of perception. The full passage reads, “Cognition, in so far as it is subject to the laws of sensibility, is sensitive, and, in so far as it is subject to the laws of intelligence, it is intellectual or rational. [§ 4] In this way, whatever in cognition is sensitive is dependent upon the special character of the subject in so far as the subject is capable of this or that modification by the presence of objects: these modifications may differ in different cases, according to the variations in the subjects. But whatever cognition is exempt from such subjective conditions relates only to the object” (2: 392). 16 See, e.g., Chignell 2007, Pasternack 2014, Fonnesu 2019, and Gava 2019. 17 The passages in Conflict of the Faculties (7: 103–104) and Anthropology (7: 212) read like comments on his theory of persuasion. 18 This terminological stipulation is adopted from Onora O’Neill (1989: 30–32), and more recently, Fonnesu (2019), who discusses its epistemological presuppositions. See also Watkins and Willaschek 2020: 3203–3204. 19 Because of agreement with a third thing, they agree among themselves. 20 Or at least quasi-objectivity when, as mentioned at the end of the previous section, utterances about the subjective association of mental states are meant to be comprehensible by others because they are at least conceived and referred to as extensive (quantity) and intensive (quality) magnitudes. This is true of Kant’s examples of the room’s temperature, the sugar’s sweetness, and the wormwood’s repugnance, and by extension, of Wittgenstein’s example of the beetle in the box (Philosophical Investigations, § 293) that stands for the necessary intersubjective dimension of our sensations. Accordingly, Kant’s argument for the “necessary universal validity (for everyone)” (4: 298) foreshadows Wittgenstein’s private language argument. 21 Keeping in mind that in the aesthetic context the “tertio” (A 820 B 848) is the subjective feeling of pleasure that results from the free play of our cognitive powers, it should come as no surprise that the notion of truth is absent from Kant’s aesthetics. 22 Guyer 1979: 150. 23 5: 216; Longuenesse (2006: 206) goes even further by locating aesthetic intersubjectivity right at the center of Kant’s theory of judgments of taste: “This universal communicability itself or, if you like, this feeling of communion with ‘the universal sphere of those who judge’ that transcends all determinable

132  Konstantin Pollok concepts, is the source of the peculiar kind of pleasure that leads us to describe the object as beautiful”. 24 Edlin (2010) offers an instructive analogy between Kant’s aesthetic judgments of taste and the common law tradition of legal judgment that is meant to shed new light on the latter but is also illuminating with respect to the former. 25 4:298; note that validity is not identical with truth in this context. See footnotes 5 and 20 together with the paragraphs to which they are appended. See also Ginsborg’s account of two senses of universality summarized in her claim that “it is only because we can think of our responses to objects as universal in the sense of being intersubjectively valid that we are capable of thinking ­particular objects under universals in the sense of subsuming them under concepts that capture what they have in common with other objects” (Ginsborg 2015: 149). Chapter 7 of her book gives a detailed argument for this claim. 26 Perhaps more than anyone else has Guyer done to critically disentangle these problems; for Kant’s views on the intersubjective validity of judgments of taste prior to the third Critique, see Guyer 1979: 12–28. For Kant’s views on the universality and necessity of judgments of taste see ibid., 133–166, and for Guyer’s “metacognitive” interpretation of the free play of our cognitive powers see Guyer (2005b: 98–105). See also Zinkin’s (2006: 157) original interpretation of the sensus communis as an a priori “intensive form of sense” (contrasting with the extensive forms of sense, introduced in the Transcendental Aesthetic of the first Critique), sensing “the pleasure taken in the particular ­relationship of the imagination and the understanding that occurs in a judgment of taste”. This leads Zinkin to the claim that “Judgments of cognition do not require the sensus communis in order to be universally communicable” (158–159; emphasis original). I agree with this claim, but I doubt that her definition of the common sense as a condition of the possibility of intuiting the intensive magnitudes constructed by our imagination can account for the satisfaction in a cognition, in contrast to the satisfaction in the reflective judging of beautiful objects (cf. ibid. 155–156). I will briefly return to this later in the chapter. 27 Longuenesse (2006: 219) admits that supposing “a consciousness of the supersensible ground common to the object and to ourselves, as the ground of the subjective universality and necessity of the aesthetic judgment” might be “more than most of us can swallow”. However, her interpretation is not just true to the text but also philosophically illuminating. Drawing on Kant’s distinction between the empirical and the intellectual interest in the beautiful (KU, §§ 41–42), she emphasizes the enlightenment aspect of Kant’s aesthetics: “the mere possibility of universal communicability of a feeling becomes the normative necessity of a duty to create the conditions of such universal communicability. And this applies to our experience of beauty in art just as much as in nature” (2006: 218). In what follows, I will point to the nature/humanity dichotomy as another double perspective relevant in this context. 28 5: 340; see also Refl. 992 (1785–1789), 15:436: “If a judgment is so constituted that it asserts itself to be valid for everyone yet excludes all empirical as well as every other a priori proof […] for that necessary consensus, then it relates its […] representation […] to a […] principle of the […] supersensible determination of our cognitive faculties. For since the judgment is to be universally valid, it must have a principle; but since it is not capable of any ground of proof nor any rule of the use of the understanding or reason in regard to the objects of the senses, […] it must have a principle of the […] use of the cognitive faculties […] which is grounded on or related to some supersensible

The Problem of Intersubjectivity  133 determination of them; now whether this […] determination is merely assumed or well grounded, in either case such a judgment can only be made with respect to it”. It seems that the third Critique’s solution to the antinomy of taste asserts what Kant in this Vorarbeit preliminarily considers. 29 For the English translation, “humanity” it is important to note Kant’s definitions, “Humanitas substantialis Menschheit; accidentalis Menschlichkeit”(23: 398); there is not only a difference between humanity and humankind, but between certain notions of humanity. See also KU, 5: 297, and MSTL, 6:456, where Kant distinguishes between “humanitas aesthetica” and “humanitas practica”, as well as Refl. 992 (1785–1789), where he gives the following sketch: “On the interest in taste – in the common sense – communicability of sensations. ­Humanitas” (15: 437). One might extrapolate from this that humanity ­(“Humanitas […] accidentalis Menschlichkeit”) sums up the conditions of the aesthetic deduction and expresses a moral connotation of judgments of taste by relating humanity to an interest, presumably an interest in “a certain ennoblement and elevation above the mere receptivity for a pleasure from sensible impressions” (5: 353). 30 Kant refers to the anonymous German translation, Philosophische Untersuchungen über den Ursprung unserer Begriffe vom Schönen und Erhabenen (Riga: Hartknoch, 1773, edited by Christian Garve). See also the chapter on Burke in Guyer 2014: 147–157. 31 4:439; on the different formulae see Guyer 2005a: 146–168. 32 Fichte 1966: 30 [2000: 29]. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the Central APA (Chicago, 2020), in Ferrara (Humboldt-Kolleg, 2022), and Heidelberg (Philosophy Dept. Colloquia Series, 2022). I am grateful to the organizers and participants for helpful comments and discussions.

Bibliography Chignell, A. (2007): Belief in Kant, «Philosophical Review» 116/3, pp. 323–360. Edlin, D. (2010): Kant and the Common Law: Intersubjectivity in Aesthetic and Legal Judgment, «Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence» 232/2, pp. 429–460. Fichte, J. G. (1796): Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre. In J.G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 3: Werke 1794–1796, hrsg. R. Lauth, H. Jacob (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1966) Translation: Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, J.G. Fichte, Foundations of Natural Right, ed. by Frederick Neuhouser, transl. by Michael Baur (Cambridge: CUP, 2000). Fonnesu, L. (2019): Kant on Communication, «Studi Kantiani» 32, pp. 11–24. Gava, G. (2019): Kant and Crusius on Belief and Practical Justification, «Kantian Review» 24/1, pp. 53–75. Ginsborg, H. (2015): The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgement (Oxford: OUP). Guyer, P. (1979): Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).    . (1983): Kant’s Intentions in the Refutation of Idealism, «The Philosophical Review» 92/3, pp. 329–383.    . (1987): Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: CUP).

134  Konstantin Pollok    . (2005a): The Form and Matter of the Categorical Imperative. In P. Guyer, Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom: Selected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 146–168.    . (2005b): Values of Beauty: Historical Essays in Aesthetics (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2010): The Deduction of the Categories: The Metaphysical and Transcendental Deductions. In Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, ed. by P. Guyer (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 118–150.    . (2014): A History of Modern Aesthetics, Volume 1: The Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: CUP). Hyder, D. (2022): Kant on Time II: The Law of Evidence of the Critique of Pure Reason, «Kant-Studien» 113/3, pp. 513–534. Longuenesse, B. (2006): Kant’s Leading Thread in the Analytic of the Beautiful. In Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant’s Critical Philosophy, ed. by R. Kukla (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 194–219. Møller, S. (2020): Kant’s Tribunal of Reason: Legal Metaphor and Normativity in the Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge: CUP). O’Neill, O. (1989): The Public Use of Reason. In Constructions of Reason. Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 28–50. Pasternack, L. (2014): Kant on Opinion: Assent, Hypothesis, and the Norms of a General Applied Logic, «Kant-Studien» 105, pp. 41–82. Pollok, K. (2012): Wie sind Erfahrungsurteile möglich? Kants Prolegomena: Ein kooperativer Kommentar, ed. by H. Lyre, O. Schliemann (Frankfurt a. M: Klostermann), pp. 103–125. Smith, A. (1976): The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, Vol. 1: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. by D. D. Raphael, A. L. Macfie (Oxford: OUP). Watkins, E., Willaschek, M. (2020): Kant on Cognition and Knowledge, «Synthese» 197, pp. 3195–3213. Zinkin, M. (2006): Intensive Magnitudes and the Normativity of Taste. In Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant’s Critical Philosophy, ed. by R. Kukla (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 138–161.

8

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion Gabriele Gava

8.1 Introduction In the last 20 years, the literature on Kant’s account and classification of the forms of “taking-to-be-true” (Fürwahrhalten) has grown exponentially. In particular, the main focus of the discussion has been three such forms: Opinion (Meinung), belief (Glaube), and knowledge (Wissen). One of the chief challenges when discussing these forms is determining how we can discriminate between them. Moreover, since the “tool” that Kant uses to obtain the relevant discriminations is the distinction between the “objective” and the “subjective” sufficiency of a taking-to-be-true, one key issue is deciding what “objective sufficiency” and “subjective sufficiency” are. Famously, Kant submits that opinion is both objectively and subjectively insufficient, belief is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient, and knowledge is both objectively and subjectively sufficient (A 822 B 850). That Kant scholars have mainly directed their attention to this first classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true is because distinguishing between two forms within it, namely belief and knowledge, is key to understanding Kant’s moral arguments for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. As Paul Guyer pointedly remarks, when considering these arguments, we are immediately led to ask “how is it even possible for us to believe something ‘from a practical point of view’ that we know to be theoretically indemonstrable?” (Guyer 2000: 335). Yet, opinion, belief, and knowledge are not the only forms of takingto-be-true that Kant discusses. He also speaks of persuasion (Überredung) and conviction (Überzeugung), and subjective and objective sufficiency seem to play a role in distinguishing between these as well.1 He writes that  the ground of conviction is “objectively sufficient” (A 820 B 848) and that, in the case of persuasion, the ground of the judgment “lies solely in the subject” (A 820 B 848). But this makes conviction and persuasion ­difficult to distinguish from knowledge and belief, respectively. Both knowledge and conviction appear to be objectively and subjectively DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-11

136  Gabriele Gava sufficient. Both belief and persuasion appear to be objectively insufficient and subjectively sufficient. Of course, there are strategies for differentiating between knowledge and conviction on the one hand and belief and persuasion on the other. While in believing we are conscious that our taking-to-be-true is objectively insufficient, this is not so when we are “persuaded”. Rather, with persuasion, we take our taking-to-be-true to be objectively sufficient (A 820 B 848). As far as conviction and knowledge are concerned, while knowledge entails truth, one might suggest that conviction does not (accordingly, Chignell 2007a: 333, 358 speaks of “mere” conviction). These strategies notwithstanding, attempts to provide a comprehensive classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true discussed by Kant have generally focused on providing a satisfactory characterization of objective and subjective sufficiency such that we can make sense of the differences between opinion, belief, and knowledge. One gets the impression that conviction and persuasion are then slotted into the classification after this operation has been completed. As a consequence, their position in the general scheme often appears arbitrary, which is confirmed by the fact that there is no agreement regarding where they should be placed (cf. the schemes in Stevenson 2003; Chignell 2007a and 2007b; and Pasternack 2014).2 In this chapter, I will not try to provide a new general classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true by focusing on the distinction between conviction and persuasion. Rather, I will try to figure out what this distinction is intended to capture. I will focus on persuasion in particular, arguing that persuasion does not describe a single form of taking-to-be-true with distinctive characteristics. Persuasion is commonly described as a takingto-be-true in which we are convinced of the truth of a certain proposition and certain of having objective grounds for it but where in fact we do not have such grounds. While I think that this describes a relevant case of persuasion, it is not the only one. In contrast to the common description of persuasion, I claim that persuasion functions as an “operator” that determines whether our taking-to-be-true is “inapt” in the sense that it is not based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. Conviction also functions as a similar operator, but only for “subjectively sufficient” takings-to-be-true. It determines whether “subjectively sufficient” takingsto-be-true, namely those in which we are fully convinced of the truth of what we take to be true, are based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have.3 While this approach to conviction and persuasion illuminates what they are, it also has positive consequences for how we should approach Kant’s general classification of taking-to-be-true. First of all, it shows that a comprehensive classification that includes persuasion and conviction is less desirable than it first seems. Since the distinction between persuasion and

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 137 conviction works at a different level than the distinction between opinion, belief, and knowledge, placing them within a single general classification is more misleading than helpful. Moreover, if we do not have to place persuasion within the same classification in which we place belief, we do not need to find seemingly arbitrary ways to distinguish between them. For example, one such way is to distinguish between two kinds of “subjective sufficiency”, one that applies to belief and one that applies to persuasion. But once persuasion and belief no longer belong to the same classification, we do not need to use this tool to distinguish between them, or so I will argue. I will start in Section 8.2 by evaluating attempts to position persuasion and conviction within a general classification of taking-to-be-true and by identifying the problems associated with this approach. In Section 8.3, I argue that persuasion takes more than one form according to Kant. In particular, we can also be “persuaded” that we have what Kant calls opinion. But this means that persuasion is not a single form of taking-to-be-true. In Section 8.4, I argue that Kant’s use of conviction in reference to both logical and moral conviction should be read in a similar way. Conviction and persuasion signal whether our taking-to-be true is either apt or inapt, depending on whether it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. Section 8.5 considers why Kant does not discuss cases in which we are “persuaded” that we have a belief. I argue that Kant does not discuss such cases because even when we are wrong in thinking that our taking-tobe-true is justified on practical grounds, we still hold our taking-to-be-true to only have “private” validity. Accordingly, we do not require the agreement of others, and our error remains a private matter. Finally, in Section 8.6, I consider whether my account of persuasion and conviction commits Kant to an infallibilist account of knowledge. 8.2  Classifying Persuasion and Conviction That classifying persuasion and conviction is not an easy task can be seen by comparing two influential attempts to sort out Kant’s forms of takingto-be-true: One by Leslie Stevenson, the other by Andrew Chignell. While according to Stevenson, persuasion belongs to the same subclass of takingto-be-true as opinion (2003: 82), Chignell lists persuasion as an independent form of taking-to-be-true (2007a: 333, 358; 2007b: 49, 57). As far as conviction is concerned, while this concept does not play a relevant role in Stevenson’s classification (2003: 82), for Chignell, it constitutes a class with two members: Knowledge and “mere conviction” – a form of takingto-be-true where the subject has objective grounds but is not in a position to cite them (2007a: 333, 358; 2007b: 38, 49, 57). In this section, I will consider these two attempts, highlighting certain problems. I will then move to briefly discussing Lawrence Pasternack’s account of persuasion

138  Gabriele Gava and conviction. Although his approach makes some progress in this regard, it too is ultimately unsuccessful. Let us begin with persuasion. Why does Stevenson believe that persuasion has something in common with opinion? We know that Kant submits that opinion is both objectively and subjectively insufficient (A 822 B 850). We also saw that persuasion likewise appears to be objectively insufficient (A 820 B 848). Stevenson assumes that persuasion is subjectively insufficient. What characterizes persuasion with respect to opinion is that we hold our taking-to-be-true to be objectively sufficient, even though it is not. Therefore, according to Stevenson, persuasion is a taking-to-be-true that, like opinion, is both subjectively and objectively insufficient but, unlike opinion, is erroneously taken to be objectively sufficient (Stevenson 2003: 80).4 It is unclear why, for Stevenson, persuasion is subjectively insufficient. One way to spell out subjective sufficiency is to say that a subjectively sufficient taking-to-be-true is one in which we have a high degree of confidence in the truth of a proposition. Since, according to Stevenson, in the case of persuasion we hold our taking-to-be-true to be objectively sufficient, why shouldn’t we have a high degree of confidence that what we take to be true is actually true? Alternatively, subjective sufficiency might be regarded as having to do with what we think concerning the grounds we have. A subjectively sufficient taking-to-be-true would be one in which we think we have objective grounds in support of it. This can be construed as the thought that our taking-to-be-true is objectively sufficient. But since, for Stevenson, persuasion is a taking-to-be-true which is erroneously taken to be objectively sufficient, when we adopt this understanding of subjective sufficiency it is difficult to make out the sense in which persuasion is subjectively insufficient. In fact, Stevenson himself seems to indirectly recognize this problem; while he identifies one sense of subjective sufficiency as “thinking one has objective sufficiency” (2003: 82), he stresses that adopting this sense of subjective sufficiency would make persuasion indistinguishable from belief. They would both be objectively insufficient and subjectively sufficient (2003: 83). As a result of these problems, Stevenson’s attempt to position persuasion within the classification of forms of taking-to-be-true appears to be unsuccessful. Unlike Stevenson, Chignell regards persuasion as an independent form of taking-to-be-true that does not fall under any subclass (2007a: 333, 358; 2007b: 49, 57). He describes it as a taking-to-be-true that, like belief, is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient. Persuasion can be distinguished from belief because the meaning of “subjective sufficiency” is different in the two cases. Persuasion is subjectively sufficient in a first sense, according to which the subject is in a position to cite what she takes to be sufficient objective grounds for her taking-to-be-true (Chignell 2007a: 329, 340). Belief, by contrast, is subjectively sufficient in a second

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 139 sense, according to which the taking-to-be-true has sufficient non-epistemic merit for a subject (Chignell 2007a: 336; see also Chignell 2007b: 56). This way of distinguishing between persuasion and belief is plausible. However, Kant does not explicitly differentiate between these two senses of subjective sufficiency. Therefore, this approach may end up forcing a distinction on Kant that is not his own (helpful attempts to provide a unitary account of subjective sufficiency are provided by Pasternack 2014 and Höwing 2016). Focusing on Chignell’s account helps us to appreciate the difficulty of classifying conviction as well. According to Chignell, what characterizes conviction is objective sufficiency. There are two cases of conviction: Either our taking-to-be-true is both objectively and subjectively sufficient (and, additionally, the proposition we take to be true is true) or it is objectively sufficient and subjectively insufficient (Chignell 2007a: 333, 358). In the first case, our conviction is knowledge (Chignell 2007a: 330); in the second case, it is “mere” conviction (Chignell 2007a: 331–332). The latter is subjectively insufficient in the sense that the subject of the taking-to-be-true is unable to cite the grounds that support it. One problem with mere conviction is that Kant does not explicitly identify a taking-to-be-true that is objectively sufficient but subjectively insufficient. Of course, this does not mean that we should not consider this case; it is at least logically possible given Kant’s distinctions. The main problem with Chignell’s account of conviction lies elsewhere. Kant sometimes speaks of moral beliefs as cases of “moral” or “practical” conviction (A 829 B 857; see also 9: 72), but these are cases in which our taking-to-be-true is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient. Therefore, objective sufficiency cannot be the defining feature of conviction in this case. Does this mean that we should distinguish between two types of conviction, where only one is characterized by objective sufficiency? No matter how we answer this question, what is clear is that deciding where to locate conviction (or kinds of conviction) within the classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true is not straightforward. More recently, a different approach to persuasion and conviction has been proposed by Pasternack. What is promising about his classification is that the aim of the distinction between persuasion and conviction is to disentangle justified and unjustified takings-to-be-true. Pasternack first distinguishes between takings-to-be-true that have “mere private validity”, which is the defining feature of persuasion, and takings-to-be-true that have “intersubjective validity”, which are cases in which our taking-tobe-true is justified and can be cases of either opinion, belief, or knowledge (Pasternack 2014: 48–49). Among intersubjectively valid takings-to-betrue, cases of conviction are those in which the taking-to-be-true is subjectively sufficient, that is, either belief or knowledge (Pasternack 2014: 48–49). While I think Pasternack is right to say that the conviction/

140  Gabriele Gava persuasion distinction should track whether our taking-to-be-true is justified, his account still faces problems. In particular, in his account belief is an intersubjectively valid taking-to-be-true. Pasternack argues that this description is adequate because (moral) beliefs are based on a principle of reason with universal validity. However, Kant stresses at various points that beliefs (including moral beliefs) have only private validity (A 828–829 B 856–857; 9: 70; 24: 732; on the private nature of belief, see Fonnesu 2015). Unless we can find a way to make these passages cohere with the claim that belief is an intersubjectively valid taking-to-be-true, it appears that intersubjective validity cannot always be used to track when a takingto-be-true is justified. 8.3  Persuasion and Opinion I want to challenge the idea that the only case of persuasion is the one in which we form a firm taking-to-be-true because we falsely think we have sufficient objective grounds for it, or, put differently, because we hold our taking-to-be-true to be objectively sufficient. I will suggest that persuasion can also occur in cases of “presumed” opinion, that is, in cases where we think we have adequate objective grounds for a provisional or partial taking-to-be-true, as in opinion, but where our evaluation of our grounds is in fact inaccurate. This causes problems for attempts to include persuasion in a general classification of forms of taking-to-be-true. Clearly, persuasion cannot be a single such form of taking-to-be-true. It might form a “class” within this classification, namely, the class of takings-to-be-true that are based on an incorrect evaluation of one’s grounds. However, I will argue that it makes little sense to classify the “forms of persuasion”. Let us see why persuasion can occur for presumed opinion as well. This can be appreciated if we consider Kant’s characterization of verisimilitude (Scheinbarkeit) as a possible basis of a taking-to-be-true. We know that opinion is both objectively and subjectively insufficient. This does not mean, however, that our taking-to-be-true is without grounds. Rather, in opinion we have objective grounds that give a proposition a certain probability. We correctly evaluate these grounds and form a taking-to-be-true that is “partial” insofar as it conforms to the probability of the proposition’s being true given those grounds. By contrast, when our taking-to-betrue is based on verisimilitude, we are able to identify grounds that speak in favor of the truth of a proposition, but we cannot provide an objective assessment of the probability of that proposition’s being true. With probability there must always exist a standard in accordance with which I can estimate it. This standard is certainty. For since I am supposed to compare the insufficient grounds with the sufficient

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 141 ones, I must know how much pertains to certainty. Such a standard is lacking, however, with mere verisimilitude, since here I do not compare the insufficient grounds with the sufficient ones, but only with the grounds of the opposite. (9: 82 translation altered; see also Refl 2602, 16: 436; Refl 2603, 16: 436–437) Kant suggests that in the case of probability, we are able to objectively determine a “degree” because we can determine a “value” for the probability of a proposition by comparing the objective grounds we have with the grounds that would be sufficient for certainty. These are equated with the grounds that could support an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true. By contrast, in the case of verisimilitude we are able to identify grounds pro and con. We also have more grounds in favor of the truth of a proposition than in favor of its opposite. However, we cannot determine that the grounds in favor of a proposition are “more” than those that can possibly be found in favor of its opposite (see 9: 81–82), which means that we cannot determine how they relate to certainty or objective sufficiency.5 Kant does not think that it is always wrong to form a taking-to-be-true on the basis of verisimilitude, especially when we are aware that it can be misleading. Accordingly, verisimilitude can be the basis of a “provisional judgment” (vorläufiges Urtheil) (Refl 2595, 16: 434), which plays a positive role in inquiries directed at truth (see La Rocca 2003). However, since verisimilitude does not provide an objective criterion for assessing the “weight” of our grounds, following it can be a source of error. We can form a taking-to-be-true without actually having adequate grounds to support it. This can happen with partial taking-to-be-true, like opinion, such that we believe that our grounds of verisimilitude are enough to support an opinion when in fact they are not. Accordingly, Kant submits that “[v] erisimilitude is merely quantity of persuasion” (9: 82, translation altered; see also 24: 143–144). Given our analysis of verisimilitude, it appears that there are at least two cases of persuasion. We can be “persuaded” in the case of presumed knowledge, when we believe we have adequate objective grounds for an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true but we in fact do not. We can also be “persuaded” in the case of presumed opinion, when we believe we have adequate objective grounds for a partial taking-to-be-true but in fact we do not. Clearly, this shows that persuasion cannot occupy a single spot in a general classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true. It may constitute a “class” within such a classification, namely the class of taking-to-betrue based on an incorrect evaluation of the grounds we have. This is the approach suggested by Pasternack. As we saw, in his view the class of persuasion covers takings-to-be-true that are unjustified because they

142  Gabriele Gava are not intersubjectively valid (Pasternack 2014: 48–49). I have already raised doubts regarding the use of “private validity” as a defining feature of persuasion, but I also think that it makes little sense to understand persuasion as the class of takings-to-be-true that are unjustified because they are based on an incorrect evaluation of the grounds we have. For what would we place in this class? We would find “presumed knowledge”, “presumed opinion”, and possibly other forms of “presumed” takingto-be-true in which our evaluation of our grounds is wrong. That is, we would find the same forms of taking-to-be-true that constitute the class of justified taking-to-be-true, but with an additional “tool” to mark that we are wrong to view our taking-to-be-true as an opinion, knowledge, and so on.6 Accordingly, it is more sensible to simply provide a classification of the forms of taking-to-be-true that are based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. In this picture, persuasion can be understood as an “operator” that determines whether we are right to think that our takingto-be-true figures among those in that classification. In other words, persuasion determines whether our taking-to-be-true is only presumed knowledge, opinion, etc. 8.4  Logical and Practical Conviction If persuasion is an operator that determines whether our taking-to-be-true is “inapt” (i.e., based on an incorrect evaluation of the grounds we have), how should we read conviction? I submit that conviction has a similar function and marks whether our taking-to-be-true is “apt” (i.e., based on a correct evaluation). However, the conviction “operator” is only used to mark the “aptness” of a subset of takings-to-be-true, namely those that are subjectively sufficient.7 Therefore, a conviction is a taking-to-be-true that: (a) Is subjectively sufficient and (b) is apt because it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have.8 That means that an opinion cannot be a case of conviction, even if it is apt. Let us see whether this approach to conviction makes progress in comparison with existing accounts. Recall that Kant uses the term conviction to designate two forms of taking-to-be-true that seem to have little to do with each other. Logical conviction is an objectively sufficient taking-tobe-true (which, following Chignell’s account of “mere conviction,” could potentially be subjectively insufficient). Practical conviction is an objectively insufficient and subjectively sufficient taking-to-be-true. If, to determine what conviction is, we merely use the concepts of objective and subjective sufficiency, we are forced to distinguish between two concepts of conviction that are in sharp opposition to one another. One concept indicates whether a taking-to-be-true is objectively sufficient, the other whether it is subjectively sufficient.

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 143 But we do not have this problem if we use the characterization of conviction sketched above. Both in the case of logical conviction and in the case of practical conviction, I can use the conviction operator because my taking-to-be-true (a) is subjectively sufficient and (b) is apt because it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds I have. In the case of logical conviction, the grounds that are correctly evaluated are objective and are the basis of the objective sufficiency of our taking-to-be-true.9 In the case of practical conviction, the grounds that are correctly evaluated are practical. How should we understand subjective sufficiency in this picture? Both Chignell and Stevenson maintain that subjective sufficiency refers to different things in the case of knowledge and in the case of belief (Chignell 2007a: 340; Stevenson 2003: 84). They would probably say something similar regarding logical and practical conviction.10 Differentiating between two kinds of subjective sufficiency serves the purpose of distinguishing between belief and persuasion since these are both commonly characterized as takings-to-be-true that are objectively insufficient and subjectively sufficient. According to Chignell and Stevenson, one can nonetheless differentiate between persuasion and belief because in the former case subjective sufficiency indicates that we consider our taking-to-be-true to be objectively sufficient, whereas in the case of belief subjective sufficiency indicates the non-epistemic merits of the taking-to-be-true. In my account, we do not need to distinguish between two kinds of subjective sufficiency to distinguish between belief and persuasion, or more precisely, between belief and the case of persuasion we have called “presumed knowledge”. Presumed knowledge and belief are not distinguished because they are subjectively sufficient in different senses. Following Pasternack, we can say that they are subjectively sufficient because of the firmness of our taking-to-be-true (Pasternack 2014: 43–44). In other words, in both cases we are strongly convinced that the proposition we take to be true is true. What distinguishes belief from presumed knowledge is that only in the first case is our taking-to-be-true apt, since it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. We recognize that the grounds of our taking-to-be-true are practical and not objective.11 At this point one might ask: What are the grounds that are correctly evaluated in the cases of logical and practical conviction? I have called the grounds of logical conviction “objective” and the grounds of practical conviction “practical”. The former can be taken to be grounds that are “truth-conducive”, namely grounds that indicate that the proposition we take to be true is true, or, alternatively, grounds that increase the probability of the proposition’s being true. The latter are grounds that show the practical merits of our taking-to-be-true. But this way of characterizing the grounds of logical and practical conviction has no bearing on how we should understand the subjective sufficiency of our taking-to-be-true in

144  Gabriele Gava the two cases. Simply, for both logical and practical conviction, subjective sufficiency means that we are strongly convinced that the proposition we take to be true is true. What renders both logical and practical conviction cases of conviction is that our subjectively sufficient assent is apt because it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. 8.5  Belief and Persuasion The characterization of conviction sketched above is plausible and allows us to see why both logical and practical conviction are cases of conviction. However, one might raise two objections to my approach. First, if it is true that conviction and persuasion are operators that mark whether our taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, why doesn’t Kant discuss cases of “presumed belief”? These would be cases in which we are persuaded that we have a belief because we think we are in possession of practical grounds that would support such a taking-to-be-true but in fact we are not. Second, in the passages in which Kant distinguishes between conviction and persuasion, he does not describe conviction by writing that our evaluation of the grounds we have is correct. Rather, he insists on the communicability of the grounds of conviction, which, at least on a traditional reading,12 is a sign that these grounds are objective (see A 820–821 B 848–849). Therefore, in his general characterization of conviction, Kant insists that the grounds of conviction are objective, which brings us back to the problem of understanding how conviction, so understood, could have anything in common with practical conviction. I believe that these two objections have a common answer. One first way to provide such an answer is the following: Kant assumes that we are not subject to error in the case of belief. That is to say, there is no risk of our being wrong when evaluating the practical grounds of belief. But this explains, first, why Kant does not discuss instances of presumed belief and, second, why, in differentiating between conviction and persuasion, he insists on communicability as a sign that our grounds are objective. He does not discuss instances of presumed belief simply because he thinks that we cannot fall victim to persuasion in this case. He insists on communicability as a sign that our grounds are objective because it is only in evaluating these grounds that we can be mistaken and so are at risk of being “persuaded”. In other words, communicability is a tool for determining whether we are right to regard the grounds we have as objective, because it is only in evaluating potential objective grounds that we can be mistaken. We do not need a similar tool for belief (or practical conviction) because there is no risk of our being wrong when evaluating our practical grounds. The question now is why Kant thinks that we cannot be a victim of persuasion in the case of belief. Kant identifies certain conditions of belief

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 145 such that: (a) The givenness of an object or state of affairs is a condition for attaining an end we pursue, and (b) we cannot either exclude or confirm that this object or state of affairs is given on the basis of objective grounds. Given (a) and (b), to rationally pursue our end we must (c) assume that the condition identified in (a) obtains (see A 823–824 B 851–852). Perhaps Kant thinks that we cannot be wrong regarding practical grounds because these rest on ends we pursue, and, arguably, these are transparent to us. However, a clear grasp of what our ends are is insufficient to deliver the justification required for belief. To attain the latter, we not only need to be conscious of the ends we pursue but must also identify an object or state of affairs the givenness of which is a condition for attaining those ends. In fact, it seems that we might go massively wrong in evaluating whether an object or state of affairs is indeed a condition for attaining an end we have. Take Kant’s argument for the belief in God and immortality. One criticism that might be raised against it is that it is not straightforward that the existence of God and immortality are conditions for realizing the highest good. Of course, Kant might have the tools to defend himself from this line of critique. However, the fact that this criticism sounds prima facie plausible shows that it cannot simply be assumed that we have a clear and immediate grasp of the conditions for attaining the ends we pursue. This seems to imply that we can go wrong when evaluating whether we have practical grounds for a belief.13 The first solution to the two problems identified above does not work. Let us consider a second possibility. We have already seen that Kant characterizes belief as a taking-to-be-true that, while justified, has only “private” validity. It is not straightforward why Kant describes the validity of belief in this way, especially in the case of moral beliefs, given that they are based on moral obligation, which clearly has universal validity. I take it that belief has “private” validity because it rests on an end that we pursue in our practice, where the kind of access we have to our own ends is radically different from the access we might have to the ends pursued by others. I see myself as rationally required to hold a certain belief because otherwise the pursuit of an end that I have would be irrational. I might have grounds to say that another person should pursue a certain end, such as being virtuous. I might also have grounds to say that if a person pursues a certain end – say, being virtuous – she should have certain beliefs – say, in God and immortality – on pain of being irrational. However, the fact that the access I have to others’ ends will never be the same as the access I have to my own ends means that the rational requirements that my ends set on my beliefs cannot transmit to the beliefs of others. This account of the private validity of belief needs specification. What is important for my purposes is this: The fact that Kant describes belief as having only private validity provides us with a tool for solving the problems

146  Gabriele Gava identified above. Let me recall them: First, we must explain why Kant does not discuss instances of presumed belief; second, we must explain why, in differentiating between conviction and persuasion, he insists on communicability, which is a feature that only singles out objective grounds. I think the answer to these problems is the following. When we take ourselves to have a belief, we regard our grounds as merely private. Accordingly, we do not treat them as the basis of a requirement we set on the beliefs of others. This means that even if we are wrong in thinking that our state can be characterized as a belief – because, for instance, our evaluation of the conditions for attaining our end is wrong – we do not take the grounds we falsely think we have to have normative force for the beliefs of others. Accordingly, in differentiating between conviction and persuasion, Kant only focuses on communicability as a mark of conviction because it is only when we falsely think we have objective grounds that we take those grounds to have normative force for the takings-to-be-true of others. In this way, we risk imposing our error on them. By contrast, in the case of an incorrect evaluation of grounds we view as practical, our error remains a private matter. This explains why a discussion of presumed belief is unnecessary. 8.6  Conviction and Knowledge In his reading of the forms of taking-to-be-true, Andrew Chignell argues that knowledge is fallible for Kant. This means that we can have all the grounds required for knowledge but still fail to know because the proposition we take to be true turns out to be false. In this way, the grounds that would provide knowledge if that proposition were true do not guarantee its truth (see Chignell 2007a, 2007b and more recently, Chignell 2021; I defend a fallibilist reading of logical conviction in Gava 2016). Characterizing conviction as an operator that tells us whether our evaluation of the grounds we have is apt might be taken as speaking in favor of an infallibilist account of knowledge. In this section, I would like to show that my reading of conviction is also compatible with a fallibilist view of knowledge. In other words, my reading does not commit me to either of these options. Let us begin by seeing why my account of conviction pairs well with an infallibilist account of knowledge (for an infallibilist reading, see Willaschek and Watkins 2020).14 I have argued that a subjectively sufficient taking-to-be-true can be considered a conviction when what we think about our grounds correctly captures the grounds we in fact have. When it comes to a taking-to-be-true that is a candidate for knowledge, this means that we correctly take ourselves to have objective grounds that bestow objective sufficiency on our taking-to-be-true. It seems natural to describe the taking-to-be-true in question as one in which we not only think we have knowledge but actually have it. Namely, we are “convinced” and

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 147 not “persuaded” that we have knowledge because we are right in thinking that we know, and we are right in thinking that we know because we are right in thinking that we have the appropriate grounds. This picture of conviction is infallibilist because, according to it, our conviction that we have knowledge is apt only if we actually have knowledge: First, being justified in thinking we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true is equivalent to being justified in thinking we have knowledge, and second, being justified in thinking we have knowledge is equivalent to actually having knowledge. To make my account of conviction compatible with a fallibilist view, we need to break the immediate link between being justified in thinking we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true and actually having knowledge. I see two possible ways to achieve this. We can deny either that being justified in thinking we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true entails being justified in thinking we have knowledge or that being justified in thinking we have knowledge entails actually having knowledge. Let us consider the first option. As we saw, fallibilists hold that having the grounds that would provide us knowledge if the proposition we take to be true were true does not guarantee that the proposition in question is in fact true (and thus that we have knowledge). But then, one might argue, when we are justified in thinking that we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true (and so in thinking that we have the grounds that would provide knowledge in the proper cases), we are not therefore justified in thinking that we have knowledge. Rather, precisely because we know that having these grounds does not guarantee that we in fact know, we should not think that we know (I provide a fallibilist reading of Kant along these lines in Gava 2016). In this picture, the function of the conviction operator would be that of determining whether we are right in thinking we have the objective grounds that would make our taking-to-be-true objectively sufficient. However, having a logical conviction in this sense does not entail being justified in thinking we know. With that said, the fallibilist may not want to renounce the idea that we can be justified in thinking we know even if we do not have a guarantee that we know. After all, when we are justified in thinking we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true, we do have the grounds that would provide knowledge in the proper cases. Accordingly, the fallibilist could maintain that being justified in thinking that we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true entails being justified in thinking that we know, but that being justified in thinking that we know does not entail that we know. In this picture, the conviction operator would determine both that we are right in thinking we have an objectively sufficient taking-to-be-true and that we are right in thinking that we know. But being “right” in thinking that we know does not mean that we in fact know. It only means that

148  Gabriele Gava we are justified in thinking that we know, where this justification does not rule out our ultimately being mistaken. 8.7 Conclusion In this chapter, I have provided a new account of conviction (Überzeugung) and persuasion (Überredung) in Kant. I have argued that conviction and persuasion should be understood as operators that determine whether our taking-to-be-true is apt or inapt, depending on whether it is based on a correct evaluation of the grounds we have. The evidence in favor of this approach includes the fact that Kant does not identify one single form of persuasion or one single form of conviction. We can be persuaded in the case of presumed opinion. Moreover, there is both logical and moral conviction. What different cases of conviction have in common is that our evaluation of the grounds we have is apt. What different cases of persuasion have in common is that our evaluation of the grounds we have is inapt. I have provided an answer to a possible objection to my approach. Since Kant does not discuss cases of presumed belief, it does not seem that persuasion works as an operator that determines whether the taking-tobe-true is apt in this case. I have suggested that Kant does not discuss such cases because when we falsely take ourselves to have a belief, we still view the grounds that support our taking-to-be-true as private. In this way, we do not risk imposing our error on others. Finally, I have shown that even though my account of conviction pairs well with an infallibilist approach to Kant’s account of knowledge, it is also compatible with fallibilist readings.15 Notes 1 I say “seem” because this can be challenged. For example, in the passage where Kant appears to attribute objective sufficiency to conviction, he uses the term “hinreichend”, whereas when he introduces the objective sufficiency/ insufficiency of a taking-to-be-true in connection with opinion, belief, and knowledge, he uses “zureichend/unzureichend”. On this point, see Techert (unpublished). 2 That providing an adequate account of “conviction” in Kant is important becomes evident if we consider Paul Guyer’s recent reconstruction of arguments for the existence of God in Kant and Mendelssohn. According to Guyer, in Morning Hours, Mendelssohn provides an argument for the existence of God according to which we can be convinced that God exists on theoretical grounds even though this conviction does not amount to knowledge (Guyer 2020: 139–141). Therefore, it is crucial to understand what distinguishes Kant’s account of moral belief, as a kind of conviction based on practical grounds, from Mendelssohn’s theoretical conviction, which is not knowledge. 3 Hebbeler (2021) distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate subjective sufficiency. In my view, a conviction is correctly described as having legitimate

Kant on Conviction and Persuasion 149 subjective sufficiency. However, Hebbeler’s distinction does not capture subjectively insufficient takings-to-be-true that are legitimate. As will become clear, there are cases of taking-to-be-true that can be described as legitimate ­(because they are not cases of persuasion), even though they are not subjectively sufficient. 4 Stevenson also describes a secondary form of persuasion in which the subject does not ask herself whether the grounds of her taking-to-be-true are objective or subjective (2003: 81). 5 Interestingly, Kant argues that while probability is appropriate in mathematics, in philosophy there is only space for verisimilitude (24: 883–884). This provides a different perspective on Kant’s distinction between these disciplines. 6 Therefore, persuasion and conviction apply first of all to forms of taking-to-betrue and only secondarily to the propositions that are taken to be true in them. I can be convinced or persuaded that I have an opinion, knowledge, etc. It is only indirectly that I am convinced or persuaded that p. 7 In this spirit, Kant writes that “[s]ubjective sufficiency is called conviction” (A 822 B 850). 8 As I suggested previously, my characterization of conviction captures what Hebbeler (2021) calls legitimate subjective sufficiency. 9 Since all cases of conviction, including logical conviction, are subjectively sufficient, there is no space for what Chignell calls mere conviction in my account. 10 A specification is required here. Since for Chignell, conviction is not necessarily subjectively sufficient, he would claim that in cases of logical conviction that are subjectively sufficient, subjective sufficiency means something different than it does in cases of practical conviction. 11 While I agree with Pasternack that subjective sufficiency can be defined in terms of firmness, I do not think that intersubjective validity can be used to discriminate among subjectively sufficient takings-to-be-true that are apt and those that are not. 12 Against the traditional reading, both Pasternack (2014) and Techert (unpublished) argue that communicability is not used to distinguish objectively sufficient takings-to-be-true. 13 One might try to solve this problem by arguing that we need not be right in thinking that an object or state of affairs is a condition for attaining an end we wish to pursue. Perhaps it is sufficient that we are somehow justified in thinking that an object or state of affairs is such a condition, even though it may turn out that it is not. Take Kant’s example of the doctor in the Canon. Kant argues that the doctor is justified in believing that his patient has consumption, even if his diagnosis is only tentative and, more importantly, another doctor might come up with a better one (see A 824 B 852). We can read the example as establishing that the doctor is justified in believing that the patient has consumption because he is justified in thinking that a certain state of affairs, namely the patient’s actually having consumption, is a condition for attaining his end, which is curing the patient. But it might turn out that the patient is suffering not from consumption but from another disease (with which the doctor is unfamiliar) that can be cured by the same procedure. If this were the case, the doctor would be wrong in thinking that the patient’s actually having consumption is a condition for attaining his end. However, this line of reasoning does not work for moral beliefs. In this case, there is no leeway in considering whether an object or state of affairs is a condition for attaining our ends. For example, Kant would not allow that we can justifiably think that the existence of a teleologically ordered nature is a condition for attaining the highest good.

150  Gabriele Gava 14 In his Prize Essay of 1764 (2: 273–301), Kant argues that metaphysics can attain certainty, even though the latter cannot be reached by imitating the method of mathematics. Kant’s argument can be read as evidence for an infallibilist account of metaphysical knowledge, such that metaphysics requires ­certainty to be considered a science. This appears to imply that legitimate claims to metaphysical knowledge must entail actual knowledge. Of course, this does not rule out Kant’s being a fallibilist with regard to other kinds of knowledge or the possibility that he changed his mind in later works. For a reconstruction of Kant’s argument in the Prize Essay in comparison with Mendelssohn’s winning essay, see Guyer (2020: Ch. 1). 15 I would like to thank Luigi Filieri and Marcus Willaschek for their useful comments on a previous draft of this chapter.

Bibliography Chignell, A. (2007a): Belief in Kant, «Philosophical Review» 116/3, pp. 323–360.    . (2007b): Kant’s Concepts of Justification, «Nous» 41/1, pp. 33–63.    . (2021): Kantian Fallibilism: Knowledge, Certainty, Doubt, «Midwest Studies in Philosophy» 45, pp. 99–128. Fonnesu, L. (2015): Kant on Private Faith and Public Knowledge, «Rivista Di Filosofia» 106, pp. 361–390. Gava, G. (2016): The Fallibilism of Kant’s Architectonic. In Pragmatism, Kant and Transcendental Philosophy, ed. by G. Gava, R. Stern (London & New York, NY: Routledge), pp. 46–66. Guyer, P. (2000): Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2020): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP). Hebbeler, J. (2021): Reason, Reflection, and Reliabilism: Kant and the Grounds of Rational and Empirical Knowledge. In The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, ed. by B. Himmelmann, C. Serck-Hanssen (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 735–742. Höwing, T. (2016): Kant on Opinion, Belief, and Knowledge. In The Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. by T. Höwing (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 201–222. La Rocca, C. (2003): Giudizi provvisori. Sulla logica euristica del processo conoscitivo. In Soggetto e Mondo. Studi su Kant (Venezia: Marsilio), pp. 79–119. Pasternack, L. (2014): Kant on Opinion: Assent, Hypothesis, and the Norms of General Applied Logic, «Kant-Studien» 105/1, pp. 41–82. Stevenson, L. (2003): Opinion, Belief or Faith, and Knowledge, «Kantian Review» 7, pp. 72–101. Techert, J. (unpublished): The Division of Assent. A Novel Systematic Approach. Willaschek, M., Watkins, E. (2020): Kant on Cognition and Knowledge, «Synthese» 197/8, pp. 3195–3213.

Part III

Bridging the Gulf between the Realms of Nature and Freedom

9

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing? Kant on the Final End of Creation1 Reed Winegar

From time to time, Pangloss would say to Candide: “There is a chain of events in this best of all possible worlds; for if you had not been turned out of a beautiful mansion at the point of a jackboot for the love of Lady Cunégonde, and if you had not been involved in the Inquisition, and had not wandered over America on foot, and had not struck the Baron with your sword and lost those sheep you brought from Eldorado, you would not be here eating candied fruit and pistachio nuts”. “That’s true enough’, said Candide; ‘but we must go and work in the garden”. (Voltaire 1947: 144)2 9.1 Introduction At some point in our lives, we have all asked ourselves that paradigmatically philosophical question: Why does the world exist? Or, put otherwise, why is there something, rather than nothing?3 During Kant’s lifetime, the Leibnizian tradition defended a straightforward answer to this question: The world exists because God created it, as the best of all possible worlds, to mirror his own perfection. Initially, one might suspect that Kant, who criticizes Leibnizian metaphysics as an exemplar of uncritical dogmatism, would not spend much energy trying to answer the grand metaphysical question of why the world exists. Yet, in his third and final Critique, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant argues at length for the perspective that God has created the world for the sake of human beings under moral laws, such that human beings are the “final end of creation […]” [KU, 5: 436n (303n)].4 Kant’s candidate for the final end of creation – namely, the human being under moral laws – differs from that provided by the Leibnizian tradition. However, the third Critique does not clearly explain Kant’s reasons for DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-13

154  Reed Winegar rejecting the Leibnizian tradition’s alternative view. In this chapter, I will aim to illustrate the reasons underlying Kant’s rejection of the Leibnizian tradition’s view regarding the final end of creation. In doing so, I will highlight two key issues underlying Kant’s disagreement with the Leibnizians – namely, (1) the possibility and (2) the value of creaturely knowledge of God’s existence and perfection.5 For Leibniz and his followers, creaturely knowledge of God’s existence and perfection plays a central role in the world’s mirroring of God’s own perfection. Consequently, it plays a central role in the Leibnizian tradition’s account of the reasons for the world’s creation. In contrast to the Leibnizians, Kant famously maintains that such knowledge is impossible for us. However, Kant also goes further, arguing that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would be bad for us, as it would undermine our ability to act morally. These underlying differences help to explain why Kant replaces the Leibnizian tradition’s account of the final end of creation with his own. However, as I will also argue below, Kant’s arguments do not demonstratively preclude the Leibnizian tradition’s position. Instead, they leave significant room for the Leibnizians to maneuver. Nevertheless, I believe that appreciating these points of disagreement between Kant and the Leibnizian tradition illuminates two important aspects of Kant’s overall Critical thought. First, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously claims to “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith” [B XXX (117)]. There is a tendency to regard Kant’s endorsement of faith or belief (Glaube) in God as a sort of fallback position – that is, as a second best for which we have to settle given that we cannot have knowledge of God. However, Kant’s endorsement of moral faith actually reflects his misgivings regarding not merely the possibility but also the value of knowledge of God. For Kant, knowledge of God’s existence would undermine free moral action. Given the supreme goodness of free moral action, Kant maintains that faith or belief in God is superior to knowledge of God’s existence and perfections.6 Consequently, Kant’s denial of knowledge in favor of moral faith constitutes a major challenge not only to the Leibnizians’ theoretical philosophy but also to their moral vision of the reasons for the world’s existence and the ultimate aims of human life. Second, both the Critique of Pure Reason and third Critique present criticisms of the physico-theological tradition.7 The physico-theological tradition is typically associated with the argument from design, where one argues from specific features of the world (e.g., the organic structure of plants and animals) to the existence of God. However, in the Leibnizian tradition, physico-theology often played a further role beyond that of proving God’s existence and perfection. In particular, Leibniz and his followers took the study of nature’s harmony and teleological order to provide a special kind of acquaintance with and enjoyment of God’s perfections.8

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  155 Given his own views regarding knowledge of God, Kant rejects this use of physico-theology. However, Kant does not dismiss physico-theology entirely. Instead, in the third Critique, Kant reinterprets and endorses physico-­theology in terms of reflecting judgment, rather than knowledge. Kant values this reformed physico-theology to the extent that it provides us with a perspective of the natural world as a realm in which we can realize our moral ends through the proper use of our freedom. In this way, Kant locates the value of physico-theology in its significance for moral action, rather than as a means for acquainting oneself with and enjoying God’s perfections. By Kant’s lights, the Leibnizian use of physico-theology does not amount merely to an unjustified case of metaphysical dogmatism; it is also based on a mistaken ethical perspective. For Kant, we should regard free, moral action, rather than knowledge of God’s perfections, as both the reason for the world’s existence and the ultimate calling of human life. In this way, the third Critique furthers Kant’s aim of replacing the Leibnizian theory of life’s meaning with one focused specifically on the significance of free, moral action.9 9.2  The Leibnizian Tradition on the Final End of Creation Allow me to begin by explaining in more detail the Leibnizian tradition’s view of the reasons for the world’s existence and its associated view ­regarding the ultimate aims of human life. Kant’s own understanding of the Leibnizian tradition is heavily influenced by Alexander Baumgarten, whose Metaphysics Kant employed as a textbook for many of his own lectures. In the Metaphysics, Baumgarten provides a compact treatment of the standard Leibnizian position regarding the “final end of creation” (Baumgarten 2013: 314/§949). Baumgarten, who claims to know that God exists, takes the final end of creation to be that end for the sake of which God has created all things. Baumgarten identifies this final end with religion: “Religion is the final end of creation […]” (Baumgarten 2013: 314/§949). However, it is important to emphasize that Baumgarten operates here with a specific conception of religion. According to Baumgarten, religion consists in God’s glory and its celebration, both of which Baumgarten analyzes in terms of knowledge. For Baumgarten, God’s glory consists of knowledge of God’s perfections: “Hence the supreme glory of God is the clearest, truest, most certain, and most zealous knowledge of the most and greatest of his perfections in the most [creatures]” (Baumgarten 2013: 313/§942). And the celebration of God’s glory consists in actions determined by such knowledge: “A good determination of a spirit based on the motives of divine glory is the CELEBRATION OF DIVINE GLORY (the worship of God)” (Baumgarten 2013: 314/§947). Therefore, Baumgarten’s interpretation of religion in terms of God’s glory and its celebration amounts to an understanding of

156  Reed Winegar religion in terms of knowledge – namely, in terms of knowledge of God’s perfections and in terms of actions determined by such knowledge. As noted above, Baumgarten takes religion, in this sense, to be the final end of God’s creation. According to Baumgarten, God’s glory and its celebration are both good and, in virtue of their goodness, can serve as the ultimate reasons for which God created the world. For instance, Baumgarten writes, “the creator of this universe uses it for bringing about his own glory, which he most distinctly knows as good […]” (Baumgarten 2013: 313/§943). This view is a version of Leibniz’s theory, according to which God creates the world to mirror his own perfection, as creaturely knowledge of God’s perfections and creaturely actions determined by such knowledge both mirror God’s own perfection. Thus, taken together, creaturely knowledge of God’s perfections and actions determined by such knowledge constitute the final end for which God created the world, and the pursuit of God’s glory and its celebration together constitute the ultimate aim of human life. But how, we might ask, do created beings acquire this knowledge of God’s perfection? Baumgarten obviously takes metaphysics to provide some intellectual knowledge of God’s existence and perfections. However, while Baumgarten himself does not stress the point, the Leibnizian tradition often emphasized the importance of the empirical study of nature for our knowledge of God’s perfection. For example, in the short essay “Felicity,” Leibniz himself writes: But one cannot love God without knowing his perfections, or his beauty. And since we can know him only in his emanations, these are two means of seeing his beauty, namely in the knowledge of eternal truths (which explain [their own] reasons in themselves), and in the knowledge of the Harmony of the Universe (in applying reason to facts). That is to say, one must know the marvels of reason and the marvels of nature. (Leibniz 1972: 84) To properly understand Leibniz’s position here, we need to note an important distinction. Leibniz maintains that we know a priori that God exists and what God’s perfections are. For example, we know a priori that God, as the most perfect being, possesses perfections like omnipotence and omniscience. Leibniz’s claim in the quoted passage is that the empirical study of nature’s marvels provides us with a further sensible acquaintance with those perfections. For example, we might know a priori that God is wise, but marveling at the wisdom evident in nature’s harmonious order provides us with a further sensible acquaintance with God’s wisdom. In this case, appreciating nature’s marvels serves less to demonstrate that God is

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  157 wise than to provide us with an occasion for further acquainting ourselves with and, importantly, enjoying the perfection of God’s wisdom. Such enjoyment of God’s perfection belongs to the highest felicity. We find this same position in many other 18th-century German physicotheologians. For example, in his German Teleology, Leibniz’s influential disciple, Christian Wolff, claims that the empirical study of nature’s teleological arrangements allows us to “taste” God, which provides a further acquaintance with God’s perfections (Wolff 1741: 4/§5). Similarly, J.  G. Sulzer’s Dialogues on the Beauty of Nature, written in a more popular style than Wolff’s treatise, also present natural beauty as an occasion for further acquainting oneself with God’s perfection: In accord with the new ideas I have of nature, I considered my situation in a general prospect over the whole of creation. A reverential awe that penetrated the centre of my soul seized me now. I fancied that I had entered a majestic temple inside of which every creature prayed intensely to its great creator. Just as, on a solemn day of celebration, the spirit of a virtuous person shudders with holy dread and believes that it feels the nearness of God, so I felt then […] (Sulzer 2005: 37) This view of physico-theology as a means for tasting and enjoying God’s perfections is also a key impetus behind the 18th-century German tradition of physico-theological poetry, exemplified by works like Bartold Heinrich Brockes’s Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott. As the title of Brockes’s collection emphasizes, the physico-theological poets focused on nature as a means for acquainting oneself with and enjoying God’s perfections. In sum, philosophers and poets operating under the long shadow of Leibniz did not value physico-theology merely for its attempts to demonstrate God’s existence and perfections (although they did sometimes employ it for that purpose as well). Instead, they also valued physico-theology as a means for providing a further acquaintance with and enjoyment of God’s perfections. This enjoyment was regarded as belonging to our highest felicity. In this way, physico-theological knowledge came to be seen as making a significant contribution to the ultimate aims of human life. Indeed, such knowledge belonged to that mirroring of God’s perfections that served as God’s very reason for creating the world. 9.3  Kant on the Final End of Creation As noted in the introduction, Kant rejects the Leibnizian tradition’s position regarding the final end of creation. In contrast to the Leibnizian tradition, Kant claims that the human being, as a free being under moral laws,

158  Reed Winegar is the final end of creation: “This final end can be nothing other than the human being under moral laws” [KU, 5: 445 (311)]. Kant’s position raises two immediate questions. First, why does Kant even discuss the topic of a final end of creation, given his own reservations about traditional metaphysics? Second, why does Kant identify the final end of creation specifically with the human being under moral laws? To answer the first question, we need to remember that Kant’s own discussion of the final end of creation takes place in a different register from that of the Leibnizian tradition. The Leibnizian tradition claims to know that God exists, whereas Kant claims that we cannot know whether God exists. However, despite this denial of knowledge, Kant also argues that morality provides us with rational grounds for faith or belief in God’s existence. Given Kant’s endorsement of moral faith in God’s existence, we should not be especially surprised to find Kant contemplating the final end for which God acts.10 Moreover, in the third Critique itself, Kant provides a kind of physico-theological argument (in terms of reflecting judgment) from the existence of plants and animals to the need for a final end of creation and, ultimately, to moral belief in God’s existence. More specifically, Kant claims that we have no proper insight into the origins of plants and animals. Therefore, we cannot know whether the existence of plants and animals depends on a mind that has organized nature for the sake of ends. However, despite this lack of knowledge, Kant argues that we should, nevertheless, reflectively judge plants and animals as products of such a mind. This, in turn, leads Kant to claim that we should reflectively judge all of nature in terms of a system of means and ends. Kant claims that we have to reflectively judge this system of means and ends as existing for the sake of some end that “needs no other as a condition of its possibility” and can, therefore, stand as the final end of creation [KU, 5: 434 (301)]. Based on moral considerations, Kant then identifies the creator whom we represent as acting for the sake of this final end with God. Kant’s view, then, is that we cannot know that there is a final end of creation, but both moral faith in God’s existence and the needs of reflecting judgment make it appropriate for us to regard nature as existing for the sake of some final end of creation.11 What, then, should we regard as the final end of creation? Kant himself maintains that we cannot justifiably regard any merely natural thing as the final end of creation: “But if we go through the whole of nature, we do not find in it, as nature, any being that can claim the privilege of being the final end of creation […]” [KU, 5: 426 (294)]. Kant presents both empirical and a priori reasons to support this claim. Let us start with Kant’s empirical reasons. According to Kant, experience does not provide us with sufficient evidence for regarding any merely natural item as a final end, rather than merely a means to some other end. Consider, for instance, foliage, herbivores, carnivores, and human beings (considered merely as natural beings).

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  159 On the one hand, somebody could claim that foliage exists for the sake of feeding herbivores, which exist for the sake of feeding carnivores, which exist for the sake of feeding humans. On the other hand, somebody else could just as well claim that human beings exist for the sake of regulating the number of carnivores, which exist for the sake of regulating the number of herbivores, which exist for the sake of regulating “the excessive growth of the plant kingdom” [KU, 5:427 (295)]. In his lectures, Kant employs an image from Alexander Pope to illustrate the same idea that human beings, considered simply as natural beings, might be seen merely as means for other natural beings: “Pope in his Essay on Man had the goose say, ‘A human being also serves me for he gives me my food’ ” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1319 (81)]. In short, there does not seem to be anything about foliage, herbivores, carnivores, and human beings (considered merely as natural beings) that would tell us which, if any of these things, should be regarded as a final end for the sake of which the others exist. Therefore, we have no justification for viewing any merely natural item as the final end of creation. In addition to this empirical argument, Kant also suggests an a priori one: “One can even prove a priori that whatever could be an ultimate end for nature could never, no matter with what conceivable determinations and properties it might be equipped, be, as a natural thing, a final end” [KU, 5: 426 (294)]. Unfortunately, Kant’s argument here is not as clear as we might like. His suggestion seems to be that we know a priori that every merely natural thing is causally determined and, consequently, ­cannot be a final end, but it is not immediately obvious why the fact that an item is causally determined would entail that it cannot be a final end. In the lectures, however, Kant provides a further hint at the argument he has in mind: “If he is not free then he is in the hand of another, thus always for the end of another, thus mere means” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322 (85)]. Here, Kant suggests that only a free being qualifies as an end in itself. Therefore, only a free being can count as a final end that does not exist for the sake of some further end. Given that everything in nature is causally determined, no merely natural item is free; consequently, no merely natural item could be the final end of creation.12 It is important to emphasize Kant’s point here that only a free being can be an end in itself. There is a tendency amongst some commentators to maintain that Kant takes human beings to be ends in themselves specifically because human beings are rational. But Kant clearly rejects this view in the lectures, where he explains that human beings are ends in themselves because they are free, rather than because they are rational: “If rational beings alone are capable of being ends in themselves it cannot be because they have reason but because they have freedom. Reason is merely a means … But freedom and freedom alone makes us an end in itself” [V-NR/Feyerabend, 27:1321–1322 (84–85)].13

160  Reed Winegar Kant maintains that there is one being in nature that is not merely a natural being but also free – namely, the human being, as a free being under moral laws. From a moral perspective, the human being is not a mere means for some further end. Instead, as a free being, the human being is, morally speaking, an end in itself. Consequently, the human being can stand as the final end of creation: Now if things in the world as dependent beings as far as their existence is concerned, need a supreme cause acting in accordance with ends, then the human being is the final end of creation; for without him the chain of ends subordinated to one another would not be completely grounded; and only in the human being, although in him only as a subject of morality is unconditional legislation with regard to ends to be found, which therefore makes him alone capable of being a final end, to which the whole of nature is teleologically subordinated. [KU, 5: 435–346 (302–303)]14 Although Kant’s language here is somewhat convoluted, his point is that the human being is, morally speaking, an end in itself and, therefore, can serve as the final end of creation. Given that the human being is an end in itself, Kant says that it makes no sense to ask why (i.e., for the sake of what) the human being exists. Instead, the human being as an end in itself is the final end of creation for whose sake nature exists: “Now of the ­human being (and thus of every rational being in the world), as a moral ­being, it cannot be further asked why (quem in finem) it exists. His existence contains the highest end itself […]” [KU, 5: 435 (302)]. Before proceeding further, we need to clarify four points about Kant’s position. First, as indicated by a previously quoted passage, Kant distinguishes between two notions of a “final” end: (1) The final end of creation and (2) the ultimate end of nature. Kant takes the final end of creation to be the final end of God’s act of creation, while the ultimate end of nature is the ultimate end that nature (as directed by God) can directly promote. For Kant, the human being under moral laws should be regarded as the final end of God’s act of creation and as the reason for which God has created all things. However, the ultimate end of nature should be regarded as ­human culture, which Kant identifies with the development of skill and discipline [KU, 5: 431–434 (298–301)]. My focus here is on the final end of creation, not on Kant’s further notion of the ultimate end of nature. Second, when Kant identifies the human being under moral laws as the final end of creation, he does not seem to have in mind specifically members of the biological species homo sapien. Instead, Kant’s position is that all free beings under moral laws should be regarded as the final end of creation. The third Critique clearly notes that “every rational being in

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  161 the world” is an end in itself (although, once again, such beings are ends in themselves because they are, in virtue of their practical reason, free beings) [KU, 5: 435 (302), emphasis added].15 As an empirical matter, Kant thinks that biological human beings are the only free beings on the planet Earth. But Kant also firmly believes that aliens live on other planets, and some of these aliens might also possess freedom [A 825 B 853 (687)]. For Kant, any such free beings would also belong to the final end of creation. For these reasons, Otfried Höffe seems correct to suggest that the relevant notion of “human being” here is the Aristotelian notion of a rational animal, which would include free, rational beings on other planets.16 Third, there is some dispute over how to understand the notion of free, rational beings at play in Kant’s talk of the human being under moral laws. While some commentators think that Kant has in mind actually existing free beings, others claim that Kant has in mind the mere idea of free beings who have achieved moral perfection. For example, Richard Dean claims that the final end of creation is “the idea of perfected humanity”, rather than actual human beings (Dean 2014: 228). We should, however, reject Dean’s interpretation. Kant limits the final end of creation to that which God can fully create. The Critical Kant maintains that God can (so far as we can know) create free beings [KpV, 5: 100–102 (220–222)].17 But Kant does not want to commit himself to the claim that God can create morally perfect beings, given that the human being’s moral perfection requires the human being’s own proper use of its free will: I deliberately say “under moral laws.” The final end of creation is not the human being in accordance with moral laws, i.e., one who behaves in accordance with them. For with the latter expression we would say more than we know, namely, that it is in the power of an author of the world to make it the case that the human being always behaves in accordance with moral laws, which would presuppose a concept of freedom and of nature (for the latter of which alone one can conceive an external author) that would have to contain an insight far exceeding the insight of our reason into the supersensible substratum of nature and its identity with that which makes causality through freedom possible in the world. Only of the human being under moral laws can we say, without overstepping the limits of our insight, that his existence constitutes the final end of the world. [KU, 5: 448n–449n. (314)] Of course, Kant maintains that human beings have a moral calling to pursue their own moral perfection. But this requires the human being’s proper use of freedom. Therefore, Kant does not identify the final end of God’s act of creation with the idea of perfected humanity.

162  Reed Winegar Third, there is a further ambiguity in Kant’s notion of the human being under moral laws. On the one hand, the phrase “the human being under moral laws” could be taken to refer to human beings who stand under the moral law simply in the sense that they are subject to the moral law’s command. That is, it could simply refer to human beings as creatures who ought to obey the moral law. On the other hand, it could be taken in a stronger sense. Throughout his Critical writings, Kant claims that morality requires the highest good, which is obtained when people receive happiness in proportion to their virtue. Morality’s demand for the highest good leads Kant to argue that we should believe in the existence of God, who acts in conformity with the moral law and, consequently, allots happiness to people in proportion to their virtue. One could, therefore, take the phrase “the human being under moral laws” to refer not merely to human beings as subject to the moral law’s command but also to human beings as creatures who, in conformity with the moral law, will receive happiness in proportion to their virtue. Although the third Critique is not as clear on this point as we might like, other texts confirm that Kant has the stronger interpretation in mind. For example, in the lectures, we read: The system of all ends in accordance with the nature of things is attained along with the rational creature’s worthiness to be happy, and it is the physical perfection of the world […] The objective end of God in creation was the perfection of the world and not merely the happiness of creatures; for this constitutes only the [world’s] physical perfection. [V-Th-Pölitz, 28: 1100 (429)] Here, Kant indicates the final end of God’s creation is not human beings merely as beings subject to the moral law’s command but also as beings who, in conformity with the moral law, will receive the happiness of which they are worthy in proportion to their virtue. 9.4  Kant’s Rejection of the Leibnizian Tradition As we have seen, Kant disagrees with the Leibnizian tradition over the final end of creation. The Leibnizian tradition claims that God has created the world for the sake of mirroring his own perfection (or, in Baumgarten’s terms, for the sake of “religion”). In contrast, Kant endorses a p ­ erspective, according to which God has created the world for the sake of human ­beings under moral laws. Yet, in reading the third Critique, one might be puzzled by the fact that Kant also, at one point, seems to endorse a position similar to that of Baumgarten: “Honoring God […] is thus not inaptly named the final end of creation by theologians” [KU, 5: 449n (314n)]. This remark is clearly reminiscent of Baumgarten’s own claim that God’s

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  163 glory and its celebration are together the final end of creation. Does this mean that I have overstated the difference between Kant and Baumgarten? No, although Kant uses some of the same language as Baumgarten, his position differs from that of Baumgarten in substance. To see this, remember that Baumgarten claims that creatures glorify God by knowing God’s perfections and that they celebrate God’s glory when their actions are determined by such knowledge. In contrast to Baumgarten, Kant claims that the proper way to honor God is not by knowing his perfections but, instead, by serving him: “What does it mean to honor God? What if not to serve him?” [V-Th-Pölitz, 28: 1102 (430)]. Moreover, Kant endorses a specific conception of serving God, according to which proper service to God consists simply of obeying the moral law for its own sake. Kant details this position most extensively in Part 3 of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. There Kant advocates a perspective according to which God’s own will is for human beings to obey the moral law for its own sake. Consequently, we can regard obeying the moral law for its own sake as, in effect, acting in conformity with God’s will. In this way, we can regard obeying the moral law for its own sake as also, in effect, performing proper service to God: Those, therefore, who seek to become well-pleasing to him [i.e., God] […] through a good life conduct, regarding which everyone knows his will – these will be the ones who offer him the true veneration that he desires. [RGV, 6: 104–105 (138)] Kant’s view, then, is that God has created human beings under moral laws who, through the use of their own free will, can obey the moral law for its own sake and, in doing so, properly serve God. Thus, Kant’s claim that God’s honor might be aptly called the final end of creation simply rephrases Kant’s view of human beings under moral laws as the final end of creation. As such, Kant’s position remains significantly distinct in substance from that of thinkers like Baumgarten. But why, we might now ask, does Kant think that we should prefer his own conception of the final end of creation to that presented by Baumgarten? Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, the third Critique does not directly address this question. However, as I will now argue, we can understand Kant’s underlying rationale by examining his disagreements with Baumgarten’s views regarding both the possibility and value of knowledge of God’s perfections. To begin, Kant and Baumgarten have different views regarding the possibility of knowing God and his perfections. In the first Critique, Kant famously argues that metaphysics cannot provide us with knowledge of God’s existence. Moreover, Kant also maintains that we

164  Reed Winegar cannot obtain knowledge of God empirically.18 This denial of knowledge of God’s existence obviously requires Kant to reject Baumgarten’s view that God has created the world so that we can mirror him by knowing his perfections and having our actions determined by such knowledge. Moreover, it requires Kant to reject Baumgarten’s view that our own greatest good is to know God and his perfections and to have our actions determined by that knowledge (unless Kant were to implausibly claim that our own greatest good is impossible for us). Acknowledging the central importance of knowledge of God and his perfections to Baumgarten’s views regarding the reasons for the world’s existence and the ultimate aims of human life allows us to properly appreciate what Kant’s Leibnizian contemporaries took to be at stake in Kant’s prohibitions on such knowledge. Namely, Kant’s prohibitions on knowledge of God threatened the Leibnizian tradition’s c­ onception of the ethical reasons for the world’s existence and the ultimate aims of human life. Kant’s prohibitions constitute a challenge to the Leibnizians’ ethical outlook, not merely to the Leibnizians’ metaphysical pretensions. However, here we need to be careful; regardless of Kant’s intentions, his prohibitions regarding knowledge of God do not decisively refute Baumgarten’s position regarding the final end of creation. Kant’s prohibitions concern metaphysical arguments and empirical evidence. Given our own reliance on arguments and empirical evidence, Kant maintains that we lack knowledge of God’s existence and perfections. But Kant does not seem to definitively rule out the ability for God to create finite beings who know God in other ways, such as via a kind of mystical communion.19 For example, in the lectures, we read: If we were to flatter ourselves that we cognize the mundum noumenon, then we would have to be in community with God so as to participate immediately in the divine ideas which are the authors of all things in themselves. To expect this in the present life is the business of mystics and theosophists. [V-Th/Pölitz, 28: 1052 (390)] Here, Kant notes that we do not participate in a mystical communion with God “in the present life”. But he does not indicate that such communion with God is entirely impossible. Instead, he seems to leave it open as, in principle, a possibility, albeit one foreclosed to us in this present earthly life. Given that Kant does not definitively rule out the possibility of such communion with God for finite beings, an opponent of Kant could argue that God has created the world so that some finite beings (albeit not any of us in this present life) would be able to glorify and celebrate God by knowing God’s perfections via a mystical communion with God. Granted this position would leave it open to question why exactly God has created us

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  165 in our current form, given that we are not currently able to participate in “religion” in Baumgarten’s sense. But this would not pose a decisive problem for a philosopher who chose to argue that God had created the world so that other beings could know and enjoy his perfections via a mystical communion or who maintained that God had created us so that we could know his perfections via a mystical communion in some future life, even if not in this life. Of course, Baumgarten himself maintains that we can, in fact, have standard knowledge of God’s existence and perfections. So, the possibility presented here regarding mystical communion is not Baumgarten’s own precise view. Yet, it seems that someone who was persuaded by Kant’s specific prohibitions on knowledge of God via arguments and experience but who remained sympathetic to the general thrust of Baumgarten’s position that God has created the world for the sake of his glory and celebration could adopt it. However, Kant’s disagreements with Baumgarten concern not only the possibility of knowledge of God and his perfections but also the value of such knowledge. As Christopher Insole has noted, Kant rejects the Leibnizian view, according to which glorifying and celebrating God’s perfections are supremely valuable, in favor of an emphasis on the supreme value of freedom, understood in terms of autonomy.20 The question of whether Kant succeeds in demonstrating the correctness of his views regarding the supreme value of freedom is, of course, one of the major questions animating discussions of Kant’s ethics, and I cannot hope to settle it here. However, it is important to recognize that Kant does not regard knowledge of God and his perfections as valuable for us but simply less valuable than freedom. Instead, Kant argues that knowledge of God and his perfections would be bad for us. More specifically, Kant thinks that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would undermine our ability to act morally. For example, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant writes: Assuming now that nature had here complied with our wish and given us that capacity for insight or that enlightenment which we would like to possess […] God and eternity with their awful m ­ ajesty would stand unceasingly before our eyes […] hence most actions conforming to the law would be done from fear, only a few from hope, and none at all from duty, and the moral worth of actions, on which alone in the eyes of supreme wisdom the worth of the person and even that of the world depends, would not exist at all. [KpV, 5: 146–147 (257–258)] Kant’s point here is that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections – or, as Kant puts it, knowledge of his “existence and his grandeur” – would entail that we inevitably acted out of fear of God’s punishment or hope for

166  Reed Winegar God’s reward, rather than obeying the moral law for its own sake [KpV, 5: 147 (258)]. Consequently, if we knew that God existed, then our actions would lack any moral worth.21 Kant himself clearly takes morally good actions to be more valuable than knowledge of God’s existence and perfections; indeed, given that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would undermine the possibility of us performing morally good actions, such knowledge would be not merely less valuable but, in fact, bad for us. Consequently, Kant takes it to be good that we lack such knowledge. It is, however, unlikely that Baumgarten and his fellow Leibnizians would find this argument persuasive. This is for two reasons. First, the Leibnizian tradition does not share Kant’s conception of free will. Instead, the Leibnizian tradition endorses a compatibilist theory of free will, where actions that are psychologically determined by anticipated pleasures and pains still count as free. On Leibniz’s own presentation of this theory, people always act for the sake of what seems best to them. Leibniz understands goodness in terms of perfection and claims that pleasure is the knowledge of perfection. Therefore, Leibniz maintains that people always act for the sake of what seems most pleasant to them. Although this might initially make Leibniz’s theory of action seem egoistic, Leibniz argues at length that it is compatible with his view that people should love one another in accordance with the eternal laws of natural justice, as doing so will ultimately provide them with the most knowledge of perfection and, thus, with the most pleasure: “Finally, under this most perfect government there will be no good action without reward and no evil action without punishment, and everything must turn out for the well-being of those who are good […]” (Leibniz 1970: 652). Given this conception of free will, Leibniz and his followers do not share Kant’s concern that knowledge of God’s existence would undermine the proper motives of free moral action. Second, even if knowledge of God and God’s perfections did undermine human freedom by compelling people to act on the basis of divine rewards and punishments, Leibniz might still prefer such knowledge over freedom. Leibniz’s axiology prioritizes happiness, and given Leibniz’s theory of pleasure, he holds that to know God’s perfections is the greatest pleasure. Putting this point in terms of his own conception of love of God, he writes, “this love must give us the greatest pleasure of which one is capable, since God is its object” (Leibniz 1970: 641). And elsewhere he adds: One is happy when one loves God, and God, who has done everything perfectly, cannot fail to arrange everything thus, to elevate created beings to the perfection of which they are capable through union with him, which can subsist only through the spirit […]. But one cannot love God without knowing his perfections, or his beauty. (Leibniz 1972: 84)

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  167 Leibniz is concerned with human freedom to the extent that he is concerned to show that humans, rather than God, count as responsible for their virtuous and sinful actions. But he does not share Kant’s perspective that freedom, as such, is of supreme value. Instead, Leibniz’s axiology prioritizes happiness, understood in terms of the pleasure resulting from cognition of perfection. Obviously, a full discussion of these issues goes beyond the scope of this chapter. But given their conception of free will and their views regarding the value of happiness, Leibniz and his followers do not share Kant’s worry that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would undermine the worth of their lives. Instead, Leibniz takes it to be perfectly reasonable for virtuous people to act for the sake of divine rewards and to avoid divine punishments, and he recognizes no greater good for us than knowledge of God’s perfection and the pleasure that such knowledge affords us. Of course, Kant himself famously derides Leibniz’s compatibilist theory of free will as the “freedom of a turnspit” and takes his own arguments in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason to refute both Leibniz’s conception of virtuous action and Leibniz’s assessment of the value of happiness [KpV, 5: 97 (218)]. But whether Leibniz and his followers should find those arguments persuasive is much too large of a question to attempt to answer here. Up to this point, I have aimed to illustrate that much of Kant’s disagreement with Baumgarten over the final end of creation is based on their different views regarding both the possibility and the value of knowledge of God’s existence and his perfections. I have also contended that Kant’s arguments here do not decisively undermine the Leibnizian tradition’s views regarding the final end of creation, even if they do put some pressure on Leibniz and his followers. However, I believe that appreciating Kant’s disagreement with the Leibnizians over the value of knowledge of God and his perfections does help to clarify two important aspects of Kant’s thought regarding moral belief and physico-theology. First, Kant famously claims to deny knowledge to make room for faith. There is a tendency amongst commentators to see Kant’s conception of faith in God’s existence as a sort of fallback position. That is, commentators often assume that knowledge of God’s existence would, in principle, be valuable but that we simply cannot possess it. Consequently, commentators sometimes view faith in God’s existence and perfections as an inferior replacement for knowledge. However, Kant does not share this view. Instead, Kant maintains that knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would be bad for us. Kant’s view is that mere faith in God’s existence and perfections is better for creatures like us than knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would be. For belief in God, unlike knowledge of God, is compatible with our ability to perform free moral actions.22 This aspect of Kant’s position reflects his

168  Reed Winegar assessment of the human vocation in terms of free moral action, rather than in terms of knowing God’s perfections. As such, it represents a decisive turn away from not only the Leibnizians’ metaphysical pretensions but also from their conception of the ultimate goods of human life. Second, much of the third Critique deals with issues related to the physico-theological tradition. As noted above, the Leibnizian tradition valued physico-theology as a route to knowledge of God’s perfections. Considering the marvels of nature, including its harmony and teleological arrangements, acquainted one with God’s perfections and provided an occasion for enjoying those perfections. As such, physico-theology came to be regarded by many thinkers as a key component of our own greatest good and became a major focus of not merely philosophical treatises but also polite literature and poetry. Discussions of Kant’s own attitude toward physico-theology typically focus on Kant’s ambivalent views regarding the use of the physico-theological argument for leading people to endorse God’s existence. As indicated previously, Kant argues, on the one hand, that the physico-theological argument cannot provide knowledge of God’s existence, but on the other hand, he also presents a physico-theological argument (reinterpreted in terms of reflecting judgment, rather than knowledge) from plants and animals that constitutes one key part of an extended argument, culminating in moral faith in God’s existence. However, such discussions have tended to overlook Kant’s more thoroughgoing reassessment of the value of physico-­theology, including his own merely reflective physico-theology. For thinkers in the Leibnizian tradition, physico-theology provided a means for tasting and enjoying God’s perfections and, thus, belonged to the ultimate aims of human life. Kant’s Critical reassessment of ­physico-theology rejects this understanding of physico-theology’s significance for the aims of human life. For Kant, the value of physicotheology does not lie in its ability to provide us with occasions to know and enjoy God’s perfections. Instead, for Kant, the value of (his own reflective) physico-theology is related specifically to reassuring us of the possibility of successful free moral action. One of Kant’s main aims in the third Critique is to show that we should reflectively judge nature in such a way that it appears amenable to the realization of our moral ends. In a famous passage, he writes: The concept of freedom makes the end that is imposed by its laws real in the sensible world; and nature must consequently also be able to be conceived in such a way that the lawfulness of its form is at least in agreement with the possibility of the ends that are to be realized in it in accordance with the laws of freedom. [KU, 5: 176 (63)]

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  169 Kant’s discussion of our need to reflectively judge plants and animals as the products of a divine mind operating for the sake of ends represents one of the ways in which, according to Kant, the reflecting power of judgment leads us to a view of nature as ultimately hospitable to the realization of our moral ends.23 Accordingly, Kant values physico-theology to the extent that it helps to reassure us in our moral efforts by providing us with a perspective of nature as amenable to, rather than indifferent or hostile to, the realization of our freely adopted moral ends. In this way, Kant’s third Critique belongs to his more general reassessment of the ultimate aims of human life in terms of free, moral praxis, rather than in terms of knowledge of God’s perfection. 9.5 Conclusion Kant disagrees with the Leibnizian tradition over the final end of creation. Where the Leibnizians claim to know that God has created the world to mirror his own perfections, Kant claims that we should adopt the perspective (but not claim to know) that God has the created the world for the sake of human beings under moral laws. This disagreement is informed by their different views regarding not merely the possibility but also the value of knowledge of God’s perfections. Appreciating the value that the Leibnizians assigned to knowledge of God’s perfections clarifies two aspects of Kant’s overall position. First, it clarifies the ethical, rather than merely theoretical, significance of Kant’s claim to deny knowledge to make room for belief. Second, it clarifies Kant’s reassessment of the value of physicotheology in the third Critique, where he rejects the Leibnizian suggestion that physico-theology acquaints us with God’s perfections and replaces it with a view where (properly reflective) physico-theology is valuable to the extent that it allows us to see nature as a realm in which we can, through our own free actions, achieve our moral ends. In this way, the third Critique promotes Kant’s view that the ultimate calling of our life is a call to action, rather than contemplation; as Voltaire’s Candide tells Pangloss: “We must go and work in the garden” (Voltaire 1947: 144). Notes 1 This essay is dedicated to Paul Guyer, whose own work on Kant’s third Critique has done so much to highlight its importance for Kant’s overall moral philosophy. 2 Kant alludes to this passage at the conclusion of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer [TG, 2: 373 (359)]. 3 This question is a common topic of much popular philosophy, e.g. Holt (2012). 4 Insole (2020: 69 and 351) notes that the pre-Critical Kant denied that human beings have a privileged status in the order of creation and that Kant had changed his mind by the third Critique. In fact, Kant’s lectures show that he

170  Reed Winegar had changed his mind on this point by the mid-1780s; e.g., see [V-Th-Pölitz 28: 100–104 (428–432)] and [V–NR/Feyerabend 27: 1319–1320 (81–83)]. Unfortunately, space does not permit me to examine Kant’s earlier views here. 5 Guyer (2021) also examines the relationship between Kant’s moral teleology in the third Critique and that of Leibniz. Although Guyer briefly notes their different attitudes toward the possibility of knowledge of God, Guyer does not highlight their differing attitudes towards the value of knowledge of God and his perfections. Insole (2020: 349–352) does stress that Leibniz places our greatest good in knowledge of God’s perfections and that Kant rejects this view. My interpretation builds on this insight. But, in contrast to the interpretation that I present below, Insole does not emphasize the extent to which Kant, unlike Leibniz, thinks that human knowledge of God’s existence and perfections would be bad. Moreover, Insole does not examine the importance of this disagreement between Kant and Leibniz for appreciating Kant’s views regarding the values of belief and physico-theology, as I do below. Finally, Insole does not evaluate the debate between Leibniz and Kant in the same way that I do below. 6 Insole (2020) stresses this point. 7 See Kuehn (2001: 345) and Winegar (2017) for further discussion of this point. 8 Hedley Brooke (1991: 285) also emphasizes that physico-theology played various roles in 18th- and 19th-century thought beyond the attempt to demonstrate God’s existence and perfection. Hedley Brooke (1991: 286) mentions, for instance, the use of such arguments “to evoke a sense of awe and wonder” in the face of God’s creation. However, Hedley Brooke does not specifically attend to the Leibnizian tradition’s interpretation of such awe and wonder as an acquaintance with and enjoyment of God’s perfections. 9 Cf. note 5 above. Pogge (1997) and Zammito (1992: 342) also note the third Critique’s importance for Kant’s views regarding issues related to life’s meaning. However, they do not directly address the contrast between Kant’s views regarding the final end of creation and that found in the Leibnizian tradition. 10 Kant does not maintain that God literally acts for the sake of ends; instead, Kant claims that the notion of God literally acting for the sake of ends is illicitly anthropomorphic. Nevertheless, Kant does maintain that we should still symbolically represent God in terms of acting for the sake of ends. I discuss this aspect of Kant’s position more fully in Winegar (2015, 2018a, and forthcoming). 11 I will not evaluate this argument here. For more detailed discussions of this argument, see Davidovich (1993, 104–119), Dean (2014), Fisher (2021), ­ Guyer (2005: Chs. 11–13, 2014, and 2021), Pogge (1997), Wicks (2004: Ch. 5), Winegar (2017), and Zammito (1992: Ch. 17). 12 Guyer (2014 and 2021) provides a similar interpretation, according to which Kant has a basic commitment to the supreme value of freedom. Given that no merely natural thing is free, no merely natural thing possesses supreme value. Therefore, no merely natural thing can serve as the final end of creation. 13 Guyer (2000: Ch. 3) draws attention to this passage. 14 One might worry that Kant’s talk of “subordination” here presents a picture where human beings may wantonly exploit nature. However, as various commentators have noted, human beings. even considered as the final end of creation, must treat nature in accordance with the moral law; e.g., see Davidovich (1993: 115) and Höffe (2018: 289). In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that people ought not wantonly destroy nature [MS, 6: 443 (564)]. 15 See [V-Th-Pölitz, 28:1099 (428)] as well.

Why Is There Something, Rather than Nothing?  171 6 Höffe (2018: 279) 1 17 See Insole (2013 and 2016) for extended discussions of this point, including the suggestion that Kant’s views on creation and freedom might have shifted later in the Opus Postumum. 18 These aspects of Kant’s position are well-known, and I will not further examine the reasons behind them here. 19 I also discuss this aspect of Kant’s view in Winegar (2018b: 1241). 20 Insole (2020: 349–353) 21 I will not evaluate the overall strength of this argument within the specific context of Kant’s own ethical presuppositions; see Watkins (2009) for a critical assessment to this effect. 22 Watkins (2009: 90–91) argues that faith in God’s existence and perfections would present the same problems for free moral action as knowledge of God’s existence. As Watkins notes, Kant takes faith to amount to a firm conviction. According to Watkins, a firm conviction of God’s existence would not differ significantly enough from knowledge of God’s existence to prevent it from also undermining our ability to act morally. However, Kant clearly takes the relevant type of knowledge of God’s existence and perfections to include certainty: “God and eternity with their awful majesty would stand unceasingly before our eyes (for what we can prove perfectly holds as much certainty for us as what we are assured of by our sight)” [KpV, 5: 147 (258)]. Kant’s suggestion is that certainty about God’s existence would undermine our ability to act morally. Although morally justified faith in God’s existence amounts to a firm conviction, it still falls short of certainty. 23 Guyer (2005: Chapters 11–13) stresses this point.

Bibliography Baumgarten, A. G. (2013): Metaphysics: A Critical Translation With Kant’s Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials, ed. by C. D. Fugate, J. Hymers (London: Bloomsbury). Davidovich, A. (1993): Religion as a Province of Meaning: The Kantian Foundations of Modern Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press). Dean, R. (2014): Perfected Humanity: Nature’s Final End and the End in Itself. In Politics and Teleology in Kant, ed. by P. Formosa, A. Goldman, T. Patrone (Cardiff: University of Wales Press), pp. 228–244. Fisher, N. (2021): Kant’s Organic Religion: God, Teleology, and Progress in the Third Critique. In Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, ed. by P. T. Wilford, S. A. Stoner (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 77–93. Guyer, P. (2000): Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2005): Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom: Selected Essays (Oxford: OUP).    . (2014): Freedom, Happiness, and Nature: Kant’s Moral Teleology. In Kant’s Theory of Biology, ed. by E. Watkins, I. Goy (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 221–238.    . (2021): The Teleologies of Leibniz and Kant: So Close Yet so Far Apart. In Leibniz and Kant, ed. by B. C. Look (Oxford: OUP), pp. 233–264. Hedley Brooke, J. (1991): Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: CUP).

172  Reed Winegar Höffe, O. (2018): Der Mensch als Endzweck (§§ 82–84). In Immanuel Kant: Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. by O. Höffe (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 273–290. Holt, J. (2012): Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story (New York, NY: Norton). Insole, C. J. (2013): Kant and the Creation of Freedom: A Theological Problem (Oxford: OUP).    . (2016): The Intolerable God: Kant’s Theological Journey (Grand RapidsCambridge: William B. Eerdmans).    . (2020): Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law ­(Oxford: OUP). Kuehn, M. (2001): Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: CUP). Leibniz, G. W. F. (1970): Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd edition, ed. by L. E. Loemker (Dordrecht: D. Reidel).    . (1972): The Political Writings of Leibniz, ed. by P. Riley (Cambridge: CUP). Pogge, T. (1997): Kant on Ends and the Meaning of Life. In Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls, ed. by A. Reath, B. Herman, C. M. Korsgaard (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 361–387. Sulzer, J. G. (2005): Dialogues on the Beauty of Nature and Moral Reflections on Certain Topics of Natural History, transl. by E. Miller (Lanham: University Press of America). Voltaire (1947): Candide: Or Optimism, transl. by J. Butt (London: Penguin Books). Watkins, E. (2009): Kant on the Hiddenness of God, «Kantian Review» 14/1, pp. 81–122. Wicks, R. (2004): Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Judgment (London: Routledge). Winegar, R. (2015): Kant’s Criticisms of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, «British Journal for the History of Philosophy» 23/5, pp. 888–910.    . (2017): Kant and Hutcheson on Aesthetics and Teleology. In Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by E. Robinson, C. W. Surprenant (London: Routledge), pp. 71–89.    . (2018a): God’s Mind in Kant’s 3rd Critique. In Natur und Freiheit. Akten des XII. Kant-Kongresses 2015, ed. by V. Waibel, M. Ruffing, D. Wagner (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), pp. 1685–1692.    . (2018b): Kant on Intuitive Understanding and Things in Themselves, «European Journal of Philosophy» 26/4, pp. 1238–1252.    . (forthcoming): Kant and Religion. In Oxford Handbook of Kant, ed. by A. Gomes, A. Stephenson (Oxford: OUP). Wolff, C. (1741): Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Absichten der natürlichen Dinge (Magdeburg: Renger). Zammito, J. H. (1992): The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).

10 Kant’s Philosophy of History, as Response to Existential Despair Rachel Zuckert

In his philosophy of history, Kant makes hopeful projections concerning moral and political progress: Over the course of human history, states will be established and become republics, a federation of republics will be formed to ensure international peace, and these political developments may bring about individual and social “enlightenment”.1 These projections have often been understood as similar in status and import to the “postulates of practical reason” (concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God) that Kant discusses in the Critique of Practical Reason.2 They are taken, that is, not to be claims to know what the future will bring, but as Kant’s articulation and defense of certain beliefs as aids to, even presuppositions of, moral agency. To remain steadfastly committed to moral action, subjects must believe that their efforts to improve the human situation will not be futile, washed away by folly and wickedness over the course of human history, but rather will contribute to lasting progress. Kant is taken, in sum, to propound a “consoling”3 progressive view of history to address a problem of moral despair.4 It seems undeniable that Kant aims to articulate a view of history that supports moral commitment; he explicitly claims so at TP, 8: 309–310 (306–307).5 In this chapter, however, I shall propose that there is another source of despair that Kant aims to address in his account of history, namely experienced conflicts within human nature. These conflicts give rise to a “happiness problem” for they are painful; they make happiness (the satisfaction of all of one’s desires) impossible. Such unhappiness, moreover, gives rise to what I call an “existential” despair (evoking, anachronistically, similar concerns articulated by the twentieth-century existentialists6): A despair at the folly of human history, at the self-destructive, self-disharmonizing character of human nature and the unintelligibility of human striving. In this light, Kant’s hopes for moral-political progress may be understood as compensatory: As ways to redeem suffering or to find meaning in human existence. As I shall also suggest, on this view Kant’s philosophy of history has a methodological-theoretical status somewhat DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-14

174  Rachel Zuckert different than scholars often hold: Aiming neither to guide investigation nor to support action (i.e., functioning neither as regulative idea nor postulate), it is merely reflective judgment, which allows us to interpret – to describe and make sense of – experienced conflict and suffering. I start by making a textual case for Kant’s interest in these issues, as included within his discussions of Rousseau’s portrayal of human history as degenerative in the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (henceforth Second Discourse). For Rousseau, human historicality – the mysterious human capacity of “perfectibility”7 that propels human beings to change, to project the future or adapt to manifold ­circumstances – is problematic not only for moral reasons, but also because it imperils human happiness; so too, I shall suggest, for Kant.8 In the remainder of Section 10.1, I characterize this problem, or complaint, as existential despair concerning the unintelligibility of human existence, or a secular problem of evil. In Section 10.2, I propose that Kant uses the terminology of natural purposiveness in his account of history to interpret, and so render intelligible, such suffering. I conclude with brief reflections on the methodological status of his account, as merely reflective judgment. 10.1 Two Striking Examples in Kant’s Response to Rousseau: Natural Conflict and Existential Despair In the Second Discourse, Rousseau famously rejects his contemporaries’ Enlightenment celebration of historical progress, in the various forms of increased knowledge, wealth, social complexity, moral virtue, or political insight. Such development is, Rousseau argues, largely harmful to human beings. Whereas in the state of nature and in less-developed societies, such as those in which many indigenous peoples lived in his time, human beings are free, happy, and morally good, in civilized society these goods are lost, replaced by slavishness, competition, and hypocrisy.9 In Idea of Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View, Kant identifies Rousseau as a major interlocutor for his philosophy of history, writing that “Rousseau was not so wrong when he preferred … the condition of savages” over the state of culture “halfway through [the] formation [of] human nature,” for: We are cultivated in a high degree by art and science. We are civilized, perhaps to the point of being overburdened, by all sorts of social decorum and propriety. But very much is still lacking before we can be held to be already moralized. For the idea of morality still belongs to culture; but the use of this idea which comes down only to a resemblance of morals in love of honor and in external propriety constitutes only being civilized…. But everything good that is not

Kant’s Philosophy of History  175 grafted onto a morally good disposition, is nothing but mere semblance and glittering misery. [IaG, 8: 26 (116)]10 Rousseau is in many ways correct, Kant claims: So far – in the historical period before the establishment of international peace – “cultivation” and “civilization” have led not to true progress, but to “mere semblance and glittering misery”. Certainly one concern here is related to morality: Social development is not true progress if it produces only the “mere semblance” of morality, mere love of honor or propriety not “grafted onto a morally good disposition”.11 Thus, as on the common view of his philosophy of history, Kant aims to address Rousseau’s criticism of human historicality – he is “not so wrong”, but he is wrong – by showing that there will not just be social and psychological “cultivation” and “civilization” (understood as evaluatively neutral terms meaning an increase in social and intellectual complexity – as I will use them, and “development” as well), but that there will eventually be true, that is, moral-political, progress. One need not, in other words, succumb to moral despair. But Kant recognizes that Rousseau has another complaint about human historicality: “Glittering misery”. Accordingly, in a later discussion, he explicitly identifies two Rousseauean concerns about “culture” (historical development)12: First, how it “can proceed in order properly to develop the predispositions of humanity as a moral species to their vocation”, i.e., how to resolve a potential conflict between culture and morality. But, Kant notes, Rousseau also – distinctly – “quite correctly shows the unavoidable conflict of culture with the nature of the human species as a physical species, in which each individual was entirely to reach his vocation” [MAM, 8: 116 (169)].13 I take Kant’s term, “physical”, to indicate that the latter conflict comprises not a moral problem but a source of pre-moral suffering – unhappiness – and (I will suggest, for Kant) also of despair over an extra-moral meaninglessness of human life. Kant not only recognizes this second concern in Rousseau, but also shares it. In a footnote to the discussion, Kant provides three examples of the sort of “conflicts” that Rousseau has so “correctly” shown to be the result of historical development: Concerning sexual maturity; intellectual projects; and human inequality [MAM, 8: 116–118n (169–170)]. The third example, the announced topic of Rousseau’s Second Discourse, concerns a way in which cultural development – increasing division of labor and correlative development of manifold human capacities distributed across individuals – is to be criticized from a moral-political point of view. Rousseau “complains with much truth”, Kant writes, that such development creates conditions of inequality not just “of natural gifts or goods

176  Rachel Zuckert of fortune but of their universal human right” [MAM, 8:118n (170)] – a moral-political wrong that (one assumes) is to be rectified, eventually, through the political progress Kant projects in his account of history.14 This example, then, is of the first conflict that Kant takes Rousseau to identify. Though Kant does not explicitly indicate so,15 the other two examples are cases of the other sort of conflict (not culture-morality, but culture-nature). The first describes a conflict between sexual and civil maturity: “The youth in the crude natural condition…becomes a man” at “about sixteen or seventeen years”; in society, one’s natural sexual maturity remains so. Yet the civil condition of maturity – the time at which one could start a family – “is postponed […] on average about ten years” because one must acquire skills and social position to support that family. Thereby arises, Kant claims, an “unavoidable conflict” between nature and “the civilized condition”, which causes “unavoidable injury” to natural and civil ends: The “suppression” of natural drives (as demanded by society), on one hand, and, though Kant does not spell this out, presumably (what people in civilized conditions might call) irresponsible sexual behavior on the other [MAM, 8: 116–117n (170)]. The second example concerns a conflict between intellectual projects and human lifespan: Over the course of a life, a gifted scholar acquires great knowledge and judgment, and therefore could accomplish much more, Kant writes, than “entire generations of scholars could achieve successively, if only this mind with its youthful power lived for the time ­allotted to these generations all together”. But things are not so; with age, the scholar “becomes dull and must leave it to a second generation (which begins again from ABC…)” [MAM, 8:117n (170)]. The individual’s natural lifespan is thus in conflict with her aspirations to contribute to culture, in the form of the development of arts and sciences.16 One could also, I note, expand this example into a non-moral version of the concern about inequality – as (not-directly-moral) damage brought about by increasing division of labor and socio-economic development. As Kant acknowledges, labor specialization tends to consign some individuals to menial labor, to support others pursuing artistic or scientific projects.17 Such economic inequality is a distinct harm from the political inequality that both Rousseau and Kant bemoan (though, as Rousseau emphasizes, it can promote political inequality [1997: 169–175]). For even if all are politically treated as equals, some are socially supported in perfecting themselves, at the cost of others’ unrealized potentialities. Indeed, even if such economic exploitation could be avoided, the culturally promoted proliferation of human possibilities will mean that no individual – with limited time and energy – can exercise or develop them all. Thus it is not just that scholars will want to write more books than they can, but also that all individuals will in principle have abilities that might be, but

Kant’s Philosophy of History  177 cannot be, perfected, desires for self-expansion and self-expression that will be frustrated.18 In short, “this course [of development], which for the species is a progress […] is not the same for the individual” [MAM, 8: 115 (169)]. Kant’s examples thus describe culture-nature conflicts – between an individual’s “physical” desires or abilities, and those relating to imperatives of cultural development, between demands placed upon individuals by membership in the species (to reproduce, to die to make space for other members of the species) and those related to social projects (economic or intellectual). Morality seems irrelevant here: The costs are not vice but misery, and moral aspirations are not at issue, only non-moral cultural striving. Here individuals undergo pre-moral suffering, resulting from inability to satisfy non-moral desires, because of non-moral obstacles. These examples are not merely glosses upon Rousseau’s view, I suggest, but represent Kant’s own concerns: Kant supplies them himself, and they apparently hold abiding interest, as he repeats them in the Anthropology at 7: 325–326 (421–422). I venture to think that for Kant personally these situations were sources of suffering: He was prevented from marrying for class and economic reasons, and at the time of writing the history essays, he must have felt pressured in his intellectual projects by the threat of ­impending senility and death. But, as noted above, Kant (like Rousseau) appears to take such unhappiness to be broadly shared, for he characterizes developed society as, in general, a condition of “glittering misery [Elend]” [IaG, 8: 26 (116); see also KU, 5: 432 (299), MAM, 8: 120 (173)]. What, then, is the problem or concern instantiated in these examples of culture-nature conflict? As a first pass, one could denote it a “happiness problem”. That is, like Rousseau, Kant sees two complaints to be made – or two sources of despair – concerning historical development: It produces vice and misery, it raises doubts concerning not just the realization of moral ends, but also the attainability of happiness. And, indeed, when Kant returns to the discussion of these conflicts in the Anthropology, instead of the inequality example, he simply notes as a third point that the “species seems to fare no better in achieving its destiny with respect to happiness, which man’s nature constantly impels him to strive for” [Anth, 7: 326 (421)]. Kant’s reference to “nature” in this passage indicates a difference between Kant and Rousseau, however, and one that (I will suggest in a moment) transforms the problematic: On his view, such misery, and the conflicts that give rise to it, themselves arise from nature. For, Kant claims, “even if the most beneficent nature outside of us had made the happiness of our species its end, that end would not be attained in a system of nature upon the earth, because the nature inside of us is not receptive to that” (KU, 5:430 [298], my emphasis). This lack of receptiveness for happiness

178  Rachel Zuckert Kant glosses, in turn, as “the conflict in the natural predispositions of the human being” [KU, 5: 430 (298)].19 There may be many such conflictual tendencies in human nature, but one is (what Kant calls, in describing Rousseau) culture-nature conflict. For it is not just sexual desire or lifespan that are natural, on Kant’s view. Culture too – the striving for development, socioeconomic or intellectual – is itself a natural drive, to perfect our various capacities [IaG, 8: 22 (113); KU, 5: 431 (299)]. This drive is, in turn, based on both the human natural freedom from instinct (understood by Kant, following Rousseau, as an ability to experiment with different foods or practices, rather than simply to follow instinct) as well as reason, which allows human beings not only to formulate alternative possibilities, but also to set future goals, and so prompts cumulative and complexifying change.20 Reason also directly drives human beings to engage in the arts and sciences – and so, Kant suggests, to aspire to goals beyond their own natural lifespans. For, in general, “reason in a creature is a faculty of extending the rules and aims of the use of all its powers far beyond natural instinct, and it knows no boundaries to its projects” [IaG, 8: 18–19 (109)]. Conflicts in human nature can explain unhappiness: Happiness is the “sum of satisfaction of all inclinations” on Kant’s view [GMS, 4: 399 (54)], and conflicts among desires render such holistic satisfaction impossible.21 But this explanation also, I suggest, renders the “happiness problem” another sort of problem as well: An existential problem, concerning extramoral unintelligibility. Such lack of intelligibility may be expressed in the following sorts of questions: Why do things have to be as they are? Why, specifically, is human life filled with suffering? Why, more specifically, is human nature conflict-ridden, such that human beings inflict such suffering upon ourselves? Why, indeed, are human beings naturally driven to seek happiness [KpV, 5: 25 (159); MS, 6: 387 (519)], if also doomed never to achieve it? So too, I think, may one understand Kant’s references to the troubling “folly” (Torheit) or “farce” (Possenspiel) of human history.22 Such references occasionally have a moralized meaning (describing repeated moral failures of the species23), but often seem to express a broader complaint about the pointlessness of human striving: For what, all our efforts, if they lead only to unhappiness? One could see such questions as pressing a renewed, sharpened, secondorder version of the happiness problem: Not only do humans suffer, but also pointlessly and inexplicably – and so one might also suffer from that unintelligibility. But I propose that such complaints can be understood as complaints of reason, akin to accusations of practical irrationality. Practically irrational human beings strive (self-frustratingly) to satisfy desires that are singly or jointly unfulfillable. So too human beings who strive for a happiness naturally pre-determined as unachievable. Precisely because

Kant’s Philosophy of History  179 such irrationality is built into human nature, however, it is not particular human agents or choices that are irrational, but the given configuration of  human nature, where and how we find ourselves. The world, or at least the human world, human nature, is out of joint. As I have suggested, this concern is in the spirit of the existentialists’ worry about the pointlessness of human existence – but also, in less anachronistic terms (i.e., as Kant and Rousseau themselves see it), it is a secularized problem of evil. For Kant not only follows Rousseau in a negatively evaluative description of civilized society – as filled with “semblance” and “glittering misery” – but also in taking this description to pose a challenge, to raise the question why (our) nature has to be the (awful, harmful) way that it is. Correlatively, both claim that their project is, in some way, to justify nature, to defend it against a charge of evil-doing (just as, in theodicy proper, one aims to defend a benevolent God).24 In portraying human beings in the state of nature as free and happy, Rousseau claims to have countered an “Indictment” against Nature (1997 [1755]: 150; see also 197): It is not nature, but chance, together with some not-­entirelyintentional human agency, that drove sociohistorical development and caused the unhappiness and vice of civilized society. Kant cannot respond so to this question – or dismay – about human nature and historical ­development, as on his view misery in developed society arises not from chance or unintended consequences of human action, but from conflictual tendencies within human nature. Nonetheless, Kant claims in MAM, similarly to Rousseau (if in more moralized terms), that his account of history can allow us to be “content with providence…in order to grasp courage even among our toils” and take “responsibility” for our ills, so that we will also pursue the “remedy against them, which consists in self-­ improvement” [8: 121 (173); see also IaG, 8: 30 (119)]. I turn now to consider how to understand this claim: How Kant’s account of history can be seen as a response to existential despair, and one that turns his reader towards morality (“self-improvement”). 10.2 Kant’s Response: Reflective Judgment as Interpretation, Morality as Compensation I remark, first, that there are different ways to respond to the suffering Kant describes in his examples. One might propose policy or technology solutions; for example, changes in sexual mores combined with technologically perfected birth control could eliminate the need for “suppression” of sexual desire in economically developed society. One might propose educational initiatives or social organizations that would work to moderate or transform individuals’ desires (e.g., not to want to write more books than they can).25 Kant hopefully gestures at the possibility that history will bring

180  Rachel Zuckert progress of this kind as well: In MAM, concluding the discussion on which I have been focusing, Kant writes that the natural predispositions “suffer injury from progressing culture and injure culture in turn” because “they were aimed at the merely natural condition”. But, he claims, such damage will be eliminated when “perfect art again becomes nature, which is the ultimate goal of the moral vocation of the human species” [8: 117–118 (171); see also 8: 117n (170): A “perfect civil constitution (the uttermost goal of culture) could remove” conflicts within human nature].26 But in the history writings, I suggest, Kant offers a response not to that happiness problem, but rather to the more second-order existential despair at the “folly” of history, the unintelligibility of the human situation: He does not project resolutions or propose remedies for self-inflicted suffering, but provides a way to understand it or (as it were) give it meaning. As the passage from MAM (8: 121) quoted above suggests, this response has two aspects: To provide an interpretation of human suffering and to prompt moral self-improvement, or (as I shall suggest) to portray moral striving as compensation for suffering. I now discuss each aspect in turn, though (altering Kant’s emphases) focusing more on the first, as an aim of Kant’s reflective-teleological account of history. To begin, I propose that the first two “propositions” in IaG can be understood as generalized descriptions of the situation of the individuals in Kant’s two examples. These propositions are, respectively: All natural predispositions of a creature are determined sometime to develop themselves completely and purposively [zweckmäßig]. [IaG, 8: 18 (109), emphasis removed] And: In the human being (as the only rational creature on earth), the use of reason sets as its goal [abgezielt] the development of predispositions, which can be completely achieved only in the species, not in the individual. [IaG, 8: 18 (109), emphasis removed, and translation altered] In both examples, that is, individuals experience a conflict between their own complete development and functioning (per the first proposition), and the species-wide striving for cultural complexity (per the second proposition) or, simply, reason. For, in a passage already quoted [IaG, 8: 18–19 (109)], Kant expands upon the second proposition, explaining that cultural striving arises from reason, which extends “the aims of the use of all [the creature’s] powers far beyond natural instinct, and… knows no boundaries to its projects”.

Kant’s Philosophy of History  181 The propositions also describe the situations of conflict in natural-­ teleological terms: The organic individual is determined to develop its ­capacities “completely and purposively”, except in the case of the human species, in which one capacity sets goals that transcend the individual. (Kant of course deploys the language of natural purpose throughout IaG, as well as in the KU and ZeF treatments of history and culture.) I suggest that by means of the terminology of natural purposiveness Kant provides an interpretive framework for characterizing the happiness problem: A framework that allows one both to articulate what it is as a problem, and to understand why that problem exists by placing it within a larger context. This contextualization, if it does not quite “justify providence” as Kant claims to do [IaG, 8: 30 (119)], at least might allow one to come to terms with it. That is, on Kant’s analysis of natural purpose, all parts of an organism are understood to be interdependent and reciprocally self-supporting. So, in a well-known passage, Kant writes that: Each part is conceived as if it exists only through all the others, thus as if existing for the sake of the others and on account of the whole, i.e., as an instrument (organ), which is, however, not sufficient… rather it must be thought of as an organ that produces the other parts…, which cannot be the case in any instrument of art, but only of nature. [KU, 5: 373–374 (245)] Each part is, in short, conceived as both means and end for all others; likewise, I suggest, the characteristic activities of those parts, or the exercise of the organism’s capacities. These too may be taken to occur each for the sake of the others (activities or capacities) in a natural purpose. This holistic, self-supporting functioning is the state toward which each organism will develop (ideally), in accord with Kant’s first proposition in IaG. But it is also a state that is potentially disrupted by any capacity that does not aim at this internally systematic functioning – that aims at goals outside the individual organism – such as reason, as described in the second proposition. For it is difficult to see how a part can “aim” at that other goal and, at the same time, at supporting the functioning of the other parts. Conceiving of human individuals as natural purposes, then, gives one an interpretive framework for characterizing the sorts of problems portrayed in Kant’s examples, where a capacity directs itself or other capacities beyond the holistic, reciprocally purposive functioning of the individual and therefore disrupts that functioning (causes it pain, hobbles its interrelated actions, and so forth). The scholar’s reason aims at goals that cannot be accomplished within that interrelated functioning, and thereby reorients

182  Rachel Zuckert that functioning in a painful, necessarily frustrated way. Likewise (if in a slightly more complicated way, as we will see in a moment) the teenager’s sexual drive: The holistic functioning of that organism within the context of civil society is disrupted by that drive, while at the same time the extraindividual, civilizational impulse driven by reason (on Kant’s analysis) is also responsible for the obstacles to that drive’s satisfaction. In more abstract terms, the structure of a natural purpose provides a framework for characterizing the happiness problem as a problem: The conflict among desires, or aspirations that transcend the individual’s abilities are not just painful for the individual, but also not “how things ought to be”, not how parts and functions ought to work together in an organism. In other words, the interpretive framework of natural purposiveness allows for a secularized reformulation of the problem of evil. For, to be formulated as a problem, the problem of evil requires belief in a benevolent God: Why would such a good being create such a terrible world? (Otherwise, evil is simply a fact about the world, bad but not demanding explanation or justification.) I suggest that for Kant, the framework of natural purposiveness sets up a similarly flouted, secular expectation. (Rousseau perhaps means the constructed image of the state of nature to serve a similar purpose.) The parts and capacities of a naturally purposive being should operate harmoniously with one another; they should not be in conflict with one another. Something is awry, if they are set up to conflict, as indeed we find in ourselves. The interpretive framework of natural purposiveness also furnishes a way of coming to terms with that situation: One may interpret societies or social projects (like the pursuit of scientific knowledge) as themselves, in turn, purposive wholes, in which individuals are contributing parts.27 Kant indicates, in a brief passage, that sexuality is judged even within natural (biological) description to be a case of such larger-scale purposiveness: There is only a single external purposiveness that is connected with the internal purposiveness of organization and is such that, without raising the question of for what end such an organized being must exist, nevertheless serves in the external relation of a means to an end. This is the organization of the two sexes in relation to one another for the propagation of their kind; for here one can always ask, just as in the case of an individual, why must such a pair have existed? The answer is that this is what here first constitutes an o ­ rganizing whole, although not one that is organized in a single body. [KU, 5: 425 (293–294)] Kant claims here that the sexual-reproductive organs are not functional parts of the individual organism, but of a larger “organizing whole”,

Kant’s Philosophy of History  183 namely, the reproducing pair. Likewise, they are (as if) designed to promote a different purpose, viz., the survival of the species.28 So, I suggest, can one read the second proposition in IaG as well: Reason (as well as the other natural capacities insofar as it prompts them to “perfect” themselves) is a purposive “part” not of the individual, but of a society- or species-wide project. Again, though Kant does not emphasize this point in either case, part-hood in larger purposive wholes makes sense of the part’s uneasy, disruptive presence in the individual: If the part is designed to contribute to other (larger) wholes, it understandably fits ill in – disrupts, does not serve the internal purposive functioning of, makes unhappy – the individual organism. (A claim that seems plausible not only about reason, but also about sexuality, Kant’s topic here – and the source of complication in the teenage sexuality example noted above.) Moreover, there may be many such wholes, at different levels of social organization: The sexual partnership mentioned by Kant, a socioeconomic collaboration, a trajectory in history. Parts or capacities may fit well or uneasily in more than one of them. Perhaps this reflection can help one to understand, see the reasons for, and thereby reconcile oneself to, one’s unhappy situation: Even if one does not succeed in making oneself happy, in writing books, or gaining social position, one may contribute to larger social projects or species-survival. One may recall, however, that Kant proposes to justify socio-historical development not by adverting to participation in broader social projects, but rather morality: History is truly progressive only if it will ensue in the foundation of rightful political institutions and moral “enlightenment”; if one is content with providence, one can focus on moral self-­improvement. The relationship between culture and morality is a more complex topic than I can fully discuss here.29 I suggest, however, that in the present ­context (of understanding Kant’s account of history as addressing existential despair), these promises may be understood as offering the individual compensation for suffering, reorienting that individual to an alternative, better goal for her striving. Such compensation can be seen to be needed for Kant’s justificatory project (concerning “providence”) for two reasons. First, and most immediately, this interpretation of one’s nature and participation in larger social projects – as conflictual but also comprehensible if judged in terms of natural purposiveness – does not solve the individual’s most fundamental happiness problem. Even if one can form a view concerning why one’s nature is arranged conflictually, one still suffers from the conflicts. Such interpretation does not, in other words, have much practical import; it is simply a way to make sense of one’s situation. Thus, the individual is still left with the question of what to do, which (achievable) goals to set, and so forth; this question is answered on Kant’s view (famously and in the first instance) by morality: One’s Bestimmung, rightly understood, is selfimprovement, not happiness.

184  Rachel Zuckert Second, as hinted in the previous passage from KU, 5: 425 (293), Kant argues that insofar as one judges organisms – or groups thereof – to be natural purposes, one may also ask why they exist, or, in the terms of the KU, what their “final end” might be.30 Whatever one might think of this line of argument in general, in the case of human cultural striving, one can see how this further “why” question arises, and thereby how the above-sketched resolution to the existential problem will not satisfy. For cultural striving appears, on Kant’s view, to be never-ending: There are always new ways in which human beings might “perfect” our capacities, engage in new practices, develop new skills, and so forth.31 Thus, though one might take one’s own individual (unhappiness-causing) striving to contribute to that larger complex, one may still ask the question anew: To what end all of it, why the never-to-be-completed proliferation of cultural possibilities, historical forms, and so forth? And this question, Kant argues, ultimately can be answered only by moral-political achievement, such as the institution of rightful republics or the establishment of international peace. Such achievements alone have unconditional and final value, not just a temporary value, in initiating some further phase of cultural-historical striving – and so cultural striving will, ultimately, be “justified” only if it can be shown to serve those ends.32 This last claim explains why Kant tends to assimilate (his responses to) Rousseau’s two concerns: The culture-nature conflict is, for Kant, not precisely resolved, but compensated for, by resolving the culturemorality conflict. For, if culture eventually becomes moralized, if it is even a condition for the achievement of moral and political ends, then this can justify – make up for – the culture-nature conflict and its accompanying suffering, give final meaning to unending cultural striving. Finally, I suggest that this “compensatory” role of morality can be understood, within the interpretive framework of natural purposiveness, as comprising (what we now call) plasticity. Though Kant does not attend as much to this characteristic of organic beings as do later theorists of biology, he does describe it as: The self-help of nature […] where the lack of a part […] necessary for the preservation of the neighboring parts can be made good by the others [or where] […] certain parts form themselves in an entirely new way because of chance defects or obstacles, in order to preserve that which exists and bring forth an anomalous creature. [KU, 5: 372 (244)] As I have discussed, both within individuals and in the larger cultural-­ historical scene, Kant understands human beings to be driven, even plagued, by “restless reason” [MAM, 8: 115 (168)]: A capacity that sets goals beyond, and so disrupts, the internally purposive functioning of the

Kant’s Philosophy of History  185 organism. I suggest, then, that Kant hopes that reason will perform this “self-help of nature”: that it will find rest in setting for itself new moral and political ends, which will “preserve”, rather than disrupt, the functioning of other human capacities, both within the individual and in larger social groups.33 Thereby, too, it transforms human beings into new creatures, who are, to echo Kant’s language, “anomalous” within the order of nature. 10.3 Conclusion and Coda: Reflective Judgment, Not Regulative Idea I have proposed that Kant’s philosophy of history is directed not only to foster moral commitment, by supporting hope in moral-political progress, but also to address existential despair at the apparent unrealizability of individual happiness and pointlessness of cultural striving. Kant’s account of history does so by providing an interpretation of human beings and ­behaviors as parts of two or more overlapping naturally purposive wholes. Such interpretation can make sense of individuals’ experience of history as folly and of human nature as a problem, and thereby may mitigate their consequent despair, and reorient individuals toward moral striving, as a more meaningful, compensatory alternative. On this view, Kant’s philosophy of history would not, then, be understood to have a methodological role or status similar to that of the postulates or regulative ideas. As just noted, this proffered interpretation of the human condition has little direct practical import; it is not a presupposition of moral (or other) action, but a pattern whereby to understand human existence. Such interpretation is also, I suggest, not a regulative idea in the strict, positive sense either. Because it deploys concepts of natural purposiveness, this account does not explain, but merely describes, the behavior and events with which it is concerned [see KU, 5: 383 (254)]. It is, one might say, privatively regulative: Not constitutive of its objects.34 But the account does not operate positively as regulative, that is, as guide or prompt to seeking new facts or formulating new laws or explanations; rather, it is a way to interpret facts we already know.35 It is merely, and solely, reflective judgment: Conceptualizing empirical particulars, with no expectation of contributing to natural scientific explanation proper, but only offering a mode of thinking that can help us to make sense of things as we find them, to situate ourselves within the world so described.36 Yet in doing so, by means of concepts of natural purposes, such interpretation is for Kant intimately connected to the overarching project of philosophy. For, as Paul Guyer has shown, on Kant’s view that project is the articulation of “a unified teleology of nature and morality”, toward “the development of human freedom [as] the only humanly conceivable goal”, while recognizing that this teleology “cannot be taken as a constitutive principle

186  Rachel Zuckert for speculative metaphysics, but…as a regulative principle of both theoretical and practical reasoning, as well as of historical and aesthetic judgment” (Guyer 2009: 59–61).37 Notes 1 IaG, 8: 21 (111) and 8: 28 (117). 2 KpV, 5: 122–148. For a thorough treatment, with well-taken qualifications, see (Guyer 2000: 374–402, 425–430). 3 IaG, 8: 30 (119). 4 See (Kleingeld 2001) for a canonical statement of this interpretive position. 5 See (Guyer 2020: 321–338) on Kant’s opposition to Mendelssohn in this passage. 6 E.g., Camus 1955. These sources of despair are not precisely the same: Kant’s worry concerns human nature, whereas the existentialists tend to reject the concept of human nature, focusing rather on a broader absurdity encountered in the world at large. 7 Rousseau 1997 [1755]: 141. 8 Because “historicity” is ambiguous (it can mean the way in which human beings are influenced by their historical context), I use the neologism “historicality” to refer to the capacity of human beings to have a history, i.e., cumulative and complexifying social change. 9 Rousseau 1997 [1755]: 197–203. Rousseau’s first Discourse of 1750 also plays a role in this project, though I will not discuss it here. 10 Kant also names Rousseau at IaG, 8: 24 (114) as a predecessor in hoping for international peace. 11 One of Kant’s rhetorical aims in IaG [8: 31 (120)] and in ZeF appears to be to reorient rulers toward moral conceptions of honor and honorableness. 12 At KU, 5: 431–433 (299–300), Kant distinguishes between the “culture of discipline” – education towards self-control that is useful for building moral character – and the “culture of skill”, namely development in individuals or society at large of arts and sciences (broadly understood). I take it that he ­refers in MAM to “culture” in this second sense, as do I, since this is the sort of culture both subject to and driving historical change. 13 As a counter-rereading of Genesis as philosophical speculative history, MAM is generally Kant’s most sustained engagement with Rousseau’s Second Discourse. I treat only a few aspects of that debate here. 14 As I will indicate, non-moral human inequality can also be understood as a “happiness problem”. 15 Indeed, at the opening of the footnote at MAM, 8: 116n (169), Kant seems to assimilate (responses to) the two kinds of conflict; I return to this issue below. 16 To anticipate discussion below, I think it is in this sense – the pursuit of sociocultural projects, not the ability to think critically, deliberate, etc. – that the capacity of reason is not fully developed in the individual, but only in the ­species, according to Kant, at IaG, 8: 18 (109). 17 KU, 5: 432 (299). I thank Dominique Codjia, who called my attention to the complexities of this passage. 18 The MAM passage on inequality [8: 118n (170)], quoted above, implies that economic inequality could be unproblematic if it does not produce moral-­ political inequality. In the KU, however, Kant appears willing to consider it itself to be an ill.

Kant’s Philosophy of History  187 19 As in MAM, Kant’s discussion in this passage is morally laden: Domination and war are “plagues” that human beings “invent” for ourselves. Though these phenomena are important for Kant – and closely related to the morally questionable driver of historical development, “unsociable sociability” [IaG, 8: 20-21 (111)] – the two examples show that there are other natural sources of conflict and suffering. 20 MAM, 8: 111 (165), 113 (167). Zuckert (2010) discusses Kant’s argument against Rousseau that one should count reason, and thereby also many historygenerating tendencies, as natural for human beings. 21 Kant proposes many reasons why happiness may be unachievable, e.g., one changes one’s mind about what will make one happy [KU, 5: 430 (297)], faulty short-term decision-making [GMS, 4: 399 (54)], and so forth. Though this large topic cannot be addressed here, many of those explanations also invoke reason. For example, Kant attributes the sheer multiplicity of desires (an unsatisfiable “swarm”, “infinity” or “abyss”) to the activity of reason at MAM, 8: 111–112 (165–166). As Shell notes (2003: 197, 223–224), Kant here mostly concurs with Rousseau. 22 IaG, 8: 18 (109); TP, 8: 308 (305); Anth, 7: 332 (427), where Kant distinguishes between Torheit (folly/foolishness) and Narrheit (foolishness combined with malice, i.e., a moral as well as prudential failing), and claims that the former is the “most striking characteristic mark of our species”. 23 Notably SF, 4: 82 (299), using the image of Sisyphus later so central for C ­ amus. So also Narren at TP, 8: 308 (305); see previous note. 24 These questions, and their responses, thus lie between the theoretical and the practical: They are questions about why things are as they are, but not in a way answerable by adducing efficient causal explanations. For the question is why things must be so bad. Kant’s “existential” problem is thus somewhat different from that of the existentialists: One experiences the world as bad (conflict-­ridden), not just blank or flatly meaningless, as Camus portrays. Thus, one might also situate Kant’s concerns near to Schopenhauer’s conflict-ridden metaphysics and to the portrayal of the tragically self-undermining character of human cultural life in (Simmel 1968 [1922]). Sonny Elizondo (in private communication) suggested that, in concert with Kant’s comments at the opening of “Idea” (concerning the possible unintelligibility of history), such conflictual unintelligibility of human nature might itself pose a philosophical challenge – or prompt a despair to be addressed – without being linked to the (im)possibility of happiness. Perhaps, though the challenge might lose some of its human urgency. 25 Rousseau seems to endorse the latter remedies, as he proposes an ideal individual education in Émile and in the Second Discourse praises several different models of better (more happiness-promoting) social organization (1997 [1755]: 114–122, 167). Kant endorses educational efforts to moderate and order sensible desires, in part to render oneself happier, at TP, 8: 312 (309). 26 Some such view must be attributed to Kant if one understands him to hope for the realization of the highest good within nature, not in the afterlife, i.e., that, through collective agency, human beings will make themselves happier as well as establish more rightful conditions. See (Guyer 2000: 389–392) and (Guyer 2005: 335). 27 Following Alix Cohen, who highlights the methodological role of reflective judgments of purposiveness to characterize social wholes or coordinated functioning without intentional direction (2009: 71–76, 110–121). 28 See Varden 2020 for more extensive discussion of Kant’s views concerning sexuality.

188  Rachel Zuckert 9 See Cohen 2009 and Sweet 2013. 2 30 KU, 5: 434–435 (301–302); on this argument, see Fisher 2021 and Guyer (2005: 320–334). 31 There is, Kant writes, “no end in sight” of cultural development [Anth, 7: 323 (419)]. 32 Unfortunately, this argument inclines Kant to Eurocentrism [IaG, 8: 29 (119)] and is on my view also connected to Kant’s racism (because on his view nonwhite races adapt to their geographical contexts instead of “perfecting” themselves, and so – given this argument – may also be “behind” in moral-political achievement). These difficult issues warrant further investigation, however; see Mills 2005 for ground-breaking discussion. 33 Though I cannot defend this claim here, I believe that this view of reason (as “plastic”) is preferable to a naturalist interpretation of Kant, according to which there is a function (morality) naturally assigned to reason [despite passages suggesting so, e.g., GMS, 4: 395 (50–51)]. I thank Sam Filby for discussion on this point. 34 Following Kleingeld 2001, Guyer (2000: 409–410, 425–428; and 2009: 70) we may (charitably) best understand Kant’s invocation of natural purposiveness in IaG as regulative in this privative sense. 35 One could also distinguish between regulative “status” (i.e., not constitutive, neither known, nor even claimed definitely to be true of objects) and “function” (guides empirical investigation). I am proposing that the former, but not the latter, holds of Kant’s account of history, contra Kleingeld 2001 and 2008. With Makkreel 1990 and Cohen 2009, and I think consistently with Guyer (2000: 425–430), I take Kant’s account of history rather to be interpretive reflective judgment. To be clear: I do not mean to deny that many uses of reflective judgment contribute to empirical scientific investigation (on this, see Guyer 2005: 11–37), but just to identify another use. 36 Kant introduces the notion of a judgment of “mere reflection” at KU, 5: 190–191 (76–77) to describe judgments of taste. I am proposing to broaden that class, to include interpretive judgments not in service of scientific explanation. Though such judgments are not judgments of taste (they are likely to be more conceptually laden, and not to be based on pleasure), they perhaps arise from a broadly aesthetic activity of “making sense”, seeing how things fit together. As Katalin Makkai remarked (private communication), reflective judgments responsive to the existential problem are like aesthetic judgments as they too lie between theoretical and practical concerns, forms of evaluatively (but not practically) oriented judgment. 37 I am grateful to Katalin Makkai for comments on a draft of this paper, and to Eleonora Antonakaki Giannisi, Claire Becerra, Senthuran Bhuvanendra, Tomer Cherki, Dominique Codjia, Sam Filby, Juan Carlos González, Mark Gorthey, Ella Harmon, Kasey Hettig-Rolfe, Mauricio Maluff-Masi, Bas Tönissen, and Jaeha Woo for thought-provoking discussion.

Bibliography Camus, A. (1955): The Myth of Sisyphus, transl. by J. O’Brien (New York, NY: Vintage). Cohen, A. (2009): Kant and the Human Sciences: Biology, Anthropology and History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

Kant’s Philosophy of History  189 Fisher, N. (2021): Kant’s Organic Religion: God, Teleology and Progress in the Third Critique. In Kant and the Possibility of Progress, ed. by S. Stoner, P. Wilford (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 77–93. Guyer, P. (2000): Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2005): Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom (Oxford: OUP).    . (2009): Kant’s Teleological Conception of Philosophy and Its Development, «Kant Yearbook» 1, pp. 57–97.     (2020): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP). Kleingeld, P. (2001): Nature or Providence? On the Theoretical and Moral Importance of Kant’s Philosophy of History, «American Philosophical Quarterly» 75/2, pp. 201–219.    . (2008): Kant on Historiography and the Use of Regulative Ideas, «Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science» 39, pp. 523–528. Makkreel, R. (1990): Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the Critique of Judgment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Mills, C. (2005): Kant’s Untermenschen. In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, ed. by A. Valls (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 169–193. Rousseau, J.-J. (1997 [1755]): Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men. In The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. by V. Gourevitch (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 111–222. Shell, S. M. (2003): Kant’s “True Economy of Human Nature”: Rousseau, Count Verri, and the Problem of Happiness. In Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, ed. by B. Jacobs, P. Kain (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 194–229. Simmel, G. (1968 [1922]): On the Concept and Tragedy of Culture. In The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays, ed. by K. P. Etzkorn (New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press), pp. 27–46. Sweet, K. (2013): Kant on Practical Life: From Duty to History (Cambridge: CUP). Varden, H. (2020): Sex, Love and Gender: A Kantian Theory (Oxford: OUP). Zuckert, R. (2010): History, Biology, and Philosophical Anthropology in Kant and Herder, «Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism» 8, pp. 38–59.

11 Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress A Neo-Stoic Debate Melissa Merritt

11.1 Introduction The question whether humankind is continually progressing “toward improvement in its moral determination [moralische Bestimmung]”, as Kant puts it in his 1798 Conflict of the Faculties [SF, 7: 81 (298)], has a long history in German rationalist thought.1 As a result, various interventions on the topic can plausibly be represented as a philosophical debate – ­albeit one that spanned the better part of the eighteenth century,2 and as a result involved a fair bit of talking to the dead. Thus, in the 1793 On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It Is of No Use in Practice, Kant presents his own affirmative answer to the question about human progress as a reply to his late friend Moses Mendelssohn [TP, 8: 307–308 (304–306)], who in his 1783 Jerusalem argued that while an individual human being may progress, humankind as such only “continually fluctuates within fixed limits” (Mendelssohn 1783: 2: 47/1983: 97)3 – a position Mendelssohn takes in reply to his late friend G.E. Lessing’s 1780 The Education of the Human Race. “Only look around you at what actually happens”, Mendelssohn exhorts, and “as far the totality of the human race is concerned, you will find no continual progress in its development that brings it ever closer to perfection” (1783: 2: 46/1983: 96). No doubt: For while we may take heart that witches are no longer burned at the stake, there is at least as much at hand in our own time to lament. The attractions of Mendelssohn’s position do not turn simply on the plain facts in evidence when we just “look around”. Mendelssohn’s baulking at a thesis marshalled by Lessing and others to support claims of Christianity’s developmental superiority over Judaism is justified for other kinds of reasons, too.4 And it is plausibly a sign of Mendelssohn’s solid good sense to chide Lessing for having us picture “the collective entity of the human race as an individual person” that providence has “sent […] to school here” for its upbringing (Mendelssohn 1783: 2: 44–45/1983: 95–96). Inasmuch as moral progress is understood to be the DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-15

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 191 work of choice, manifest in appropriately developed attitude and disposition rather than simply in outward deed, what sense can there be in supposing it to be a possible attribute of the species, conceived as some such corporate entity? Thus, Paul Guyer’s recent proposal that Kant misunderstands himself – that his own theory of freedom commits him, malgré lui, to Mendelssohn’s position on human progress (Guyer 2020: 321–337) – might be met with a sigh of relief. Yet the interpretive risks of attributing such unsubtle self-misunderstanding to Kant run high, and are not underwritten, I will argue, by examination of the relevant texts in their intellectual context. Kant makes his own position quite clear in Part Three of Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone: The progress of individuals cannot be independent of the progress of the species, acting as a corporate agent. Guyer fails to take the measure of this arresting claim, which constitutes Kant’s starkest rejection of Mendelssohn’s position on human progress. Full examination of Kant’s extremely demanding view on human progress lies outside of my present scope; my more restricted aim is to draw attention to the neo-Stoic context of the debate, to show how Kant arrives at this conclusion and rejects the prima facie more sensible position of Mendelssohn. Kant canvasses three possible positions on the issue: Humanity is continually regressing towards evil, or “moral terrorism”; continually progressing toward good, which he dubs “eudaimonism” (or “chiliasm”, if we’re taking the long view); and the position he associates with Mendelssohn, that humankind as such is neither progressing nor regressing but in “eternal oscillation” within some fixed range, which he calls “abderitism” [SF, 7: 81 (298); also VASF, 23: 459].5 To get our bearings on the intellectual context of Kant’s debate with Mendelssohn, I begin by examining the significance of the label abderitism (Section 11.2). I then identify the Stoic conceptual framework widely presupposed in the eighteenthcentury German discussion of human progress, which helps us appreciate the teleological mode of argument that Kant deploys in his work on the topic (Section 11.3). Finally, I explain why this background is required to understand Kant’s rejection of abderitism in the aforementioned texts, especially the Religion (Section 11.4). My broad aim is to indicate how Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s divergent positions on human progress reflect competing views about the philosophical import of Stoicism for German Enlightenment thought. 11.2 “Abderitism” Guyer suggests that Kant coined the term “abderitism” with reference to the in habitants of ancient Abdera, who were “renowned for their supposed vacillation” (2020: 321). However, this gloss, for which there is

192  Melissa Merritt little textual basis, leaves the term essentially unexplained.6 We might instead remark upon Kant’s casual deployment of the term, as if it needed no explanation – a sign of his presuming a frame of reference with his readership that may well be lost to us now. In antiquity, the citizens of the Thracian city of Abdera had a notorious reputation – one that is reflected, for example, of Cicero’s shorthand “id est ’Aβδηριτικóν” (“it’s Abderitic”) for something like: “It’s senseless” (Letters to Atticus 7.7.4 [Cicero 1999: 2: 212]; see also 4.17.3). “Abdera” designated rampant foolishness, stupidity verging on lunacy.7 Bayle (1820 [1697]) devotes an entry to Abdera in his Dictionary, recounting Lucian’s story of a mysterious fever that swept the city one summer, inducing trances among theater-goers, who for weeks on end could do nothing but throng the streets, reciting tragedies – a contagion that abruptly subsided with the onset of a cold winter. But while the Abderites have been decried as fools through history, Bayle observes, nevertheless many “great men” have come from there: the sophist Protagoras; the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus; Anaxarchus, a philosopher who accompanied Alexander to India; the historian Hecataeus; and Nicaenetus the poet. Hence Juvenal, one of Bayle’s sources, takes the great intelligence of Democritus to show “that exemplary men of excellence can be born in a dense climate, in a country of morons” (Satires 10.48–50).8 What we have just learned may have only increased our puzzlement about Kant’s labelling Mendelssohn’s view of human progress “the abderitic hypothesis” [SF, 7: 82 (292)]. Certainly Kant is not saying that Mendelssohn is a raving lunatic. The clue, rather, lies in the remark from Juvenal. Mendelssohn, we noted, takes progress to be the remit of individuals – not of the species as a whole, and a fortiori not of this or that human community. Thus progress, and any possible excellence, would be in some significant sense independent of whatever degree of enlightenment (or endarkenment) that may be ascribed to the species or any particular human community as such – just as Democritus’s wisdom is independent of the general foolishness of the Abderites. We need not object that Kant could not reasonably expect his readers to recall this particular entry of Bayle, or the quips of Cicero9 or Juvenal. Democritus, as the protagonist of Christoph Wieland’s satirical novel History of the Abderites, published serially in Der teutsche Merkur beginning in 1774, provided a popular emblem of the idea in question.10 The novel is a comedy of errors following Democritus’s return to Abdera after many years, having grown learned and wise through far-flung travels.11 Although Democritus at first appears harmlessly eccentric to the Abderites, before long, he’s roundly derided as mentally ill. On this basis, a cousin petitions to place Democritus under guardianship to claim control of his inheritance, and calls Hippocrates as a medical witness for his case.

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 193 Hippocrates arrives in Abdera and, meeting Democritus for the first time, instantly recognizes him as a fellow sage – or, as Wieland puts it, a fellow cosmopolitan. Offering his expert advice in the senate the next day, Hippocrates testifies to the sickness of the Abderites themselves and departs, leaving them at first dumbstruck, and then rushing to outdo one another in claiming to have spotted him as a quack all along.12 Kant draws on a popular image from Wieland (and Juvenal) – the wise Democritus in his foolish native city – that he extends as a label for a view of human progress: Namely, that the progress of an individual is independent of humanity’s saturation of folly and wickedness – which, if the image holds, is considerable and unbudging. But Kant’s coinage of the term is not exactly a reference to Wieland: At any rate, Wieland’s own view of human progress not “abderitic”, on Kant’s terms, at all. We can see this in Wieland’s 1788 The Secret of the Order of Cosmopolitans, an essay on the philosophical underpinnings of The History of the Abderites that also offers some indication of the intellectual context of the broader German debate about human progress.13 Wieland opens by recalling the mysterious bond between Democritus and Hippocrates, and sets out to explain how, and in what sense, cosmopolitans form an “invisible society” (Wieland 1930: 207). In Wieland’s account, the natural law of right reason (214, 222) that binds cosmopolitans remains hidden from “the great heap” of humanity (210). Yet this “secret” bond, Wieland claims, does not undermine rule of law in ordinary communities (217–218). Nor is it at odds with Enlightenment progress: for one does not enter the cosmopolitan order through any secret initiation or esoteric teaching; rather one is “born to it” (210). Wieland argues here from assumptions about providence that were common in eighteenth-century German discussion about human progress. Broadly, they are presuppositions about how we are equipped, in the way we are created, so that we are predisposed to do the things we need to do to develop our essentially rational nature to completion. These assumptions draw from the comprehensive natural teleology of the Stoic tradition, as we will see in more detail in Section 11.3. Wieland sketches the Stoic conception of providential nature, taking it to yield an “irrevocable moral axiom: That by means of an unerring organization of nature, the human race perpetually approaches the ideal of human perfection, and the happiness arising from it, without ever reaching it” (222). He follows with a Lessing-style picture of humankind progressively developing through history (222–223). For Wieland, the progress of the species can only rest with those born to the cosmopolitan order – and not everyone is. Here we must register Wieland’s elitist distortion of Stoic cosmopolitanism.14 Although being born to the order does not, Wieland notes, mean that the individual cosmopolitan has no need to learn and be instructed (210); nevertheless, Wieland gives

194  Melissa Merritt no indication that such development would involve struggle or difficulty. So, progress is beyond the ken of Abderite-style fools, and not thematized as a challenge for those born into the cosmopolitan order. The upshot is a restricted view of cosmopolitan duty. When the ignorance of “the great heap” proves impenetrable – as it does for Democritus by the end of Wieland’s novel – the cosmopolitan may withdraw, to take up other, essentially private, pursuits.15 We can thus see that Kant’s label “abderitism” evokes Wieland, without yet referring to Wieland’s own view of human progress. For Wieland, like Kant, is a “eudaimonist” on the matter – i.e., he takes the species to be continually advancing toward the perfection of our essentially rational nature. Yet, otherwise, their views are starkly different. For one thing, the Stoic works that most influenced Kant were preoccupied with the practical difficulties of progress (rather than, say, with the theoretical determination of the attributes of the sage).16 And for Kant, as we will see in Section 11.3, this difficulty cannot be bracketed in the teleological account of the development of the species. Moreover, as we will see in Section 11.4, Kant claims that the progress of individuals ultimately requires the progress of the species, which leads him to posit an extremely demanding form of cosmopolitan duty. 11.3  Teleological Arguments About Human Development I would like now to identify a certain kind of argument that Kant makes, in several texts, about human development. The texts I chiefly have in mind are the 1784 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim, which we turn to here, and the 1793 Religion, which we will consider in Section 11.4. These arguments presuppose a providential teleology rooted in the Stoic tradition; and Kant’s rejection of abderitism will be examined in this light. Idea consists of a series of “Propositions” established from a providential natural teleology. We should not be surprised by Kant’s open acceptance of this premise [IaG, 8: 18.23–24 (109)]: The essay is a contribution to the ongoing German discussion about human progress, the parties to which commonly accepted the same broadly Stoic providential natural teleology. Idea is framed as a response to abderitism, which Kant signals at the outset by observing that there is no apparent plan of progress, whether instinctive or contractually arranged, in human life; writ large, human life appears “woven together” from nothing but folly, vanity, and malice, “despite the wisdom appearing now and then in individual cases” [8: 17–18 (108–109)]. The essay is also a consolation writing [see 8: 30 (119)].17 Traditional consolation writing – which, incidentally, Seneca made a Stoic specialty – aims to show that what seems bad (e.g., exile, death, and so on)

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 195 isn’t really. Of course, the folly, vanity, and malice constituting the warp and weft of human life is bad; but, Kant argues, we are rationally warranted in taking it to be part of a providentially governed developmental process that leads toward the completion of our essentially rational nature. However, this developmental process will only unfold as it should if we do certain things – above all, change the terms of our social and political communion. Abderitism affords no motivation to do those things. The broad argumentative arc of the essay goes as follows. The “First Proposition” is established on the basis of the “the teleological doctrine of nature”: “All natural predispositions of a creature are determined [bestimmt] sometime to develop themselves completely and appropriately [zweckmäßig]” [IaG, 8: 18 (109)]. This is not simply the idea that living things are to be represented as functionally organized. Rather it is a point about creatures who have been providentially endowed so that they develop to completion. The application of this principle to the human being generates the central problem of the essay: The development of our predispositions, as rational animals, appears to give rise to social conditions that are inappropriate (or zweckwidrig) for our completion as essentially rational beings. Kant returns to this problem in the Religion, as we will see in Section 11.4; both works argue for a “cosmopolitan” solution to the problem, which we will consider in turn. To understand Kant’s arguments, we need to acknowledge the Stoic background that they presuppose. The Stoic account of human development is a specification of their general account of animal development, which is all part of the comprehensive teleology that flows from their commitment to the rational governance of nature.18 Animals are distinguished from plants in being alive19 – a designation Stoics explain in terms of agency. Animals do not simply grow in the right conditions, but rather must do certain things to realize fully as a creature of a certain kind. To do these things is to act appropriately, i.e., to perform kathēkonta, or officia in Cicero’s Latin (DF 3.20 [Cicero 1998:105]). Nature, therefore, endows each animal with affinities for those actions and things that preserve its constitution, and alienates or repulses it from “whatever appears to promote its destruction” (DF 3.16 [1998:103]). In this way, animals are oriented, in the way they are created, towards the completion of their natures – predisposed to act appropriately. And as this follows for the human being as well, the Stoics arrive at the fundamental ethical maxim: “to live consistently and harmoniously with nature” (congruenter naturae convenienterque vivere, DF 3.26 [1998: 108]) – for nature leads us to virtue (DL 7.87).20 But where all other animals can only be complete according to their kind, the human being stands to be complete “in accordance with universal nature, and universal nature is rational”; so it can be said that nature orients the human being to good in an unqualified sense (Seneca Ep. 124.14 [2015: 500]).

196  Melissa Merritt We cannot here examine the Stoic account of human development in any detail. One programmatic point, however, must be made. These Stoic arguments are concerned with how things proceed from “natural principles” (see e.g., DF 3.20) – with how things go when we successfully take up nature’s lead. But we do not in fact tend to develop as we should: Indeed, on the Stoic view, we corrupt ourselves as soon as we acquire reason.21 This is another large topic that we cannot examine in any detail here. Roughly, the idea is as follows. Once we come into the use of reason, our actions are expressions of commitment to views about what is a reason for doing what; we are at that point subject to endemic evaluative confusion that one account attributes to “the persuasiveness of external things [τὰς τῶν ἔξωθεν πραγματειῶν πιθανότητας] or to the communication of our associates [τὴν κατήχησιν τῶν συνόντων]” (DL 7.89).22 The important point is that this corruption is unnatural: It’s a turning-away from the end that nature sets for us,23 and so must consist in a perversion of the predispositions that properly orient us to that end, the good. Here we stray from nature’s developmental mandate: So, it is not an episode of the story of human development from natural principles.24 Although Kant’s own account of human development draws on these Stoic sources, he insists that our badness must be part of a developmental story that can still turn out well in the end. That, indeed, is the consolatory message of Idea. Another, more positive, point of comparison must be observed. The telos governing these accounts of human development is the completion (full realization or perfection) of our essentially rational nature. But the advances we make along the way are not exclusively moral, although – by Kant’s lights at any rate – the entire progression is governed by a moral end. Kant argues that providential nature was measured out our merely animal endowments meagerly, to spur us to exercise ingenuity and develop not only “the greatest skillfulness” of the sort required for technological and cultural progress, but also “the inner perfection of the way of thinking” [IaG, 8: 20 (110)] – which, for Kant, is typically a way of referring to moral virtue.25 We see the point borne out in the “cosmopolitan aim” invoked in the title of Idea, as well. Although the essay is largely a concerned with a progression toward political federation-of-states cosmopolitanism, it nestles this progression within the scope of one that drives towards “a moral whole” [8: 21 (111)], “a universal cosmopolitan condition as the womb in which all original predispositions of the human species will be developed” [8: 28 (118)].26 Now let us bring this background to bear on Kant’s argument against abderitism. The first claim of Idea, that all of a creature’s natural predispositions are determined to develop to completion, entails that the creature itself is so determined; and since – as the essay goes on to argue – we are, in the course of this development, collectively establishing social conditions

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 197 that countermand the developmental imperative at issue,27 the progress required under the assumption of providence must concern the species, not just the individual. That is Kant’s master argument against abderitism. In Conflict of the Faculties and Theory and Practice, Kant appeals as well to the unbearability of abderitism’s here-and-there outcroppings of (individual) progress: “In the long run it turns into a farce” that no reasonably well-disposed human being can enjoy [TP, 8: 308 (305); see also SF, 7: 82 (299)]. Kant then takes himself to be entitled: To assume that, since the human race is constantly advancing with respect to culture, as its natural end, it is also to be conceived as progressing toward what is better with respect to the moral end of its existence […]. I do not need to prove this presupposition; it is up to its adversary to prove [his] case. [TP, 8: 308–309 (306)] Kant says that he is entitled to assume the eudaimonistic view of human progress for two reasons: (1) Human cultural progress can, presumably, be admitted as a plain fact; and (2) providential teleology is common ground in the debate about human progress. Cultural progress indicates a general advance toward an end that we can only conceive as the completion of our essentially rational nature; and as long as we grant that we are in principle endowed with what we need to progress toward that end, then we must suppose that our progress – such as it is – moves ultimately toward “the moral end” of our existence. Mendelssohn, the adversary explicitly in view in this passage, endorses the providential teleology at issue;28 so it is left to him to defend the coherence of abderitism, given (1) and (2). Here, it is helpful to consider a different kind of Stoic discussion of human development, one we know about from Seneca’s discussion of Posidonius in Letter 90.29 Evidently, Posidonius was interested not just in the highly abstract argument about human development from “natural principles” outlined previously, but also in concrete inquiry into human progress, down to the nitty-gritty details of evolving material culture. Seneca criticizes Posidonius for supposing that wisdom drives such developments: “Not content” to trace the evolution of farming equipment, Posidonius “proceeds to lower the sage into the flour mill, saying that it was he who first began to bake bread, in imitation of nature” (Ep. 90.21–22 [Seneca 2015: 327–328]) – and so on in this vein. Seneca cautions against the assumption that technological and cultural innovations have any direct relation to moral progress, even if both require the development of reason. Posidonius might have been fascinated to describe how looms first evolved, but what would he have made of “our modern looms, which produce clothing that is virtually transparent and gives no aid to the body or even

198  Melissa Merritt to decency” (Ep. 90.20 [Seneca 2015: 329])? There is no reason to suppose that technological and cultural advances contribute to genuine progress: They are more an expression of restlessness, or an interest in keeping boredom at bay. Related to these claims is the strong view Seneca takes on the social sources of corruption, which he took to justify certain forms of withdrawal, in order to find more suitable conditions for one’s own progress.30 Now, Kant suggests that a similar world-weariness stands behind abderitism. The proponent of abderitism, in his presentation, observes as follows: Bustling folly is the character of our species: people hastily set off on the path of the good, but do not persevere steadfastly upon it; indeed, in order to avoid being bound to a single goal, even if only for the sake of variety they reverse the plan of progress, build in order to demolish […] [SF, 7: 82 (299)] While Kant is clearly sympathetic to this world-weariness,31 he rejects the abderitic response.32 This expression of sympathy plays a dialectical role in the debate. The proponent of abderitism must recognize the unsuitability of our communities, our social worlds, to individual moral progress. That leaves two ways open. One is to cleave to abderitism, and take progress to be an individual, essentially private affair that permits certain kinds of withdrawal and restricts cosmopolitan duty.33 The other is to find sufficient grounds for hope and recognize that progress cannot be an essentially private affair: This is Kant’s path. As we will see next, it leads to an extremely demanding conclusion about cosmopolitan duty. 11.4  Kant’s Rejection of Abderitism in the Religion My aim in Sections 11.2 and 11.3 was to draw attention to the intellectual context of the German debate about human progress, focusing particularly on the Stoic ethical-teleological conceptual framework that was widely accepted by the parties to this debate. This positions us to recognize that Kant’s claims about human progress fall within the scope of a teleological argument, and thus that his endorsement of eudaimonism – i.e., the view that humankind makes continual moral progress – must be assessed in the context of such an argument. Here, I focus on Kant’s view of human development and progress in the Religion, with Idea in a supporting role. I will outline an interpretive approach that draws on the Stoic background to these arguments and should improve our understanding of Kant’s rejection of abderitism. Let me first recapitulate and elaborate Guyer’s view that Kant is committed to Mendelssohnian abderitism. Mendelssohn, we noted, expresses

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 199 skepticism about any conception of the species as a single corporate entity on its own developmental path, and contends that progress can only be the remit of individuals. Thus, the species, and a fortiori any particular human community, can only be an aggregate of individuals; and any measure of its progress can only be a kind of sum of the various advancings and backslidings of the individuals comprising it at any given time. Moreover, Guyer adds – apparently on Mendelssohn’s behalf – inasmuch as some of these individuals are babies and young children in a prerational state and thus not able to make moral progress at all, there can be no sense in the idea of the species as a whole making progress (2020: 235). Moreover, Guyer suggests, abderitism is the only possibility if we take moral progress to require certain developments in attitude and disposition. For Kant observes that while we can be coerced into outward performances, we can never be coerced to make some performance for some particular end [MS, 6: 381 (513)]. Ends can only be freely adopted; and moral progress requires the adoption of certain ends. Genuine moral progress is therefore not expressed in outward performances, but in the exercise of the firstpersonal practical point of view, which we can only readily countenance in the singular – in the “I”, not the “we”. The species is simply not an entity to which any genuine notion of moral progress can be ascribed. That is an outline of the abderitism that Guyer attributes to Mendelssohn and claims is required by Kant’s theory of freedom. Noting Kant’s express charge about the abhorrence of abderitism, Guyer adduces Mendelssohn’s commitment to immortality: Each has the not just the duration of natural life, but an eternity, in which to develop to completion. But Kant, Guyer contends, had given up on the practical postulate of immortality by the time of the Religion, in favor of the view that “complete conversion from evil to good is possible for every individual at any and every time of their natural life” (2020: 234). Guyer alludes here to the account of “radical evil” and its overcoming presented in Part One of the Religion. Radical evil is the fundamental corruption of the human being’s evaluative point of view that we each invariably bring upon ourselves in an act of free choice, just as soon as we come into the use of reason [RGV, 6: 38.2 (84)]. In Religion Part One, Kant provides a highly abstract moral-psychological account of this corruption, explaining it as the subordination of the principle of morality to the principle of self-love [6: 36 (82–83)]. Radical evil, on this account, can only be overcome in an act of free choice that reverses this order, effecting a “revolution” in the disposition and way of thinking (Gesinnung and Denkungsart) [6: 47.24–34 (92)]. Inasmuch as this conversion rests on a single act of free choice, it is not conceived as a process: but it does not follow that we make ourselves good in an instant. Guyer, in supposing as much, fails to register the overarching developmental concerns of Kant’s argument.

200  Melissa Merritt To appreciate what goes missing in Guyer’s account, let us look more closely at the relevant passage: If by a single and unalterable decision a human being reverses the supreme ground of his maxims by which he was an evil human being (and thereby puts on a “new man”), he is to this extent, by principle and attitude of mind, a subject receptive to the good; but he is a good human being only in incessant laboring and becoming i.e. he can hope […] to find himself on the path of constant progress from bad to better. [RGV, 6: 47–48 (92)] The “revolution” is not a complete conversion to good: It rather makes one receptive to the good, puts one on the path of progress. Kant’s point can be elaborated when we recognize how his argument draws from Stoic accounts of human development. The premise of Kant’s argument in Religion Part One is the “original predisposition to good in human nature”: As original, it is laid in us in the way we are created; as a predisposition to good, it orients us to act appropriately, i.e. do the things we need to do to complete our essentially rational nature in a specifically human way.34 The development that it governs is, moreover, comprehensive: It is not simply to do with moral perfection narrowly construed. Now, radical evil is the selfinflicted corruption of this predisposition [RGV, 6: 43.18–20 (88)]; thus its overcoming, the “restoration” of this affective orientation “to its power” [6: 44 (89)], does not make one straightway good, sans phrase. It rather makes one (again) a progressive, someone genuinely on the path to good. That parenthetical qualification is meant to acknowledge the fact that the original predisposition to good must be uncorrupted in our prerational state: Babies act appropriately – i.e., in completion-promoting ways – fully guided by the “element” of the original predisposition that does not involve reason, the “predisposition to the animality of the human being” [RGV, 6: 26 (74–75)]. This element includes, among other things, our affinity for human fellowship [6: 26.17–18] that is obviously manifest in babies. Let me take this as an example for making two general points about the original predisposition to good. First, we should not suppose that this element (the predisposition to animality) continues to orient us in a non-rational or brutely animal way once we come into the use of reason: Our affinity for human fellowship is surely transformed when we come into the use of reason. Second, though, Kant suggests that we corrupt the original predisposition to good just as soon as we come into the use of reason – a point he likens to preparing a rootstock so that it can take a graft, diverting its energy for an alien end [6: 26–27 (75)]. So, for example, through fellowship the human being “feels himself more a human being,

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 201 i.e., feels the development of his natural predispositions”; but yet the development of those predispositions that aim at the use of reason kindles, at the same time, the human being’s propensity to individualize or isolate herself [IaG, 8: 20–21 (111); compare RGV, 6: 27 (25)]. The human being is attached to the exercise of her own agency, and must be, to develop her rational capacities: Indeed, this is the crux of the predisposition to humanity, the second element of the original predisposition [RGV, 6: 27 (75)].35 As a result, at some point we will invariably see the agency of others as potentially undermining our own, and resist this; and we will expect resistance from others just as much as we each dole it out ourselves. On this ground “can be grafted the greatest vices of secret or open hostility to all whom we consider alien to us” [RGV, 6: 27 (75)]. But the resistance will sweeten the relish of what is then so hard-won by our own hands, driving us to develop our powers all the more. Now it is this resistance that awakens all the powers of the human being, brings him to overcome his propensity to indolence and, driven by ambition, tyranny, and greed, to obtain for himself a rank among his fellows, whom he cannot stand, but also cannot leave alone. [IaG, 8: 21 (111)] Providence has set us up to be thus antagonistically situated in society, to impel us to act in ways that must be understood as appropriate, in essentially Stoic terms: that is, as promoting the completion of our essentially rational nature. Yet in so acting, we collectively create inappropriate (zweckwidrig or completion-deterring) social conditions, countermanding the developmental imperative at issue. Religion Part One is concerned with the nature of radical evil and its overcoming in an act of free choice: Its dramatic arc concerns an individual’s conversion to progress. Given the considerations just adduced, however, this individual’s achievement must prove utterly fragile. That is the predicament Kant foregrounds at the start of Religion Part Three. We need not assume the post-revolution hero’s associates are “sunk into evil” and nefariously intending harm: “it suffices that they are there, that they surround him, and that they are human beings, for them to corrupt each other’s moral disposition and make each other bad” [RGV, 6: 94 (129)]. Kant echoes here Senecan themes about the communication of fault, or vice, in essentially mindless ways – like a contagion spread through mere proximity, or a deadly crush as we jostle in a crowd.36 But our post-revolution hero – the “morally well-disposed human being” – recognizes that he is “in this perilous state through his own fault” and is thereby “bound [verbunden] […] to apply as much force as he can muster in order to extricate himself from it” (6: 93). There must be some way, the hero reasons, “to establish a union

202  Melissa Merritt which has for its end the prevention of this evil, and the promotion of the good in the human being”: Otherwise he cannot coherently will his own perfection. This union is an “ethical commonwealth [ethisches gemeines Wesen]” [6: 94 (130)]), which Kant characterizes as “a universal republic based on laws of virtue” [6: 98 (133); see also 6: 100 (134)]. However, the ethical commonwealth cannot be brought into being through any individual effort. Even if all of us were each to make the radical-evil-overthrowing choice all at once, we would not thereby establish this ethical commonwealth. For the realization of this commonwealth requires that the human species act as a corporate agent: The duty at issue is not one that an individual human being has to another, but rather “a duty of its own kind” – namely, a duty of “the human race towards itself” [RGV, 6: 97.17–19 (132)]. The ethical commonwealth requires rather a union of such persons into a whole toward that very end [sc. moral perfection], [i.e.] toward a system of well-­disposed human beings, in which, and through the unity of which alone, the highest moral good can come to pass […]. [6: 97–98 (133); my emphasis] Examination of Kant’s conception of the ethical commonwealth is a complex and difficult topic unto itself. For our purposes, it may suffice to acknowledge the extreme demandingness of the duty. The post-revolution hero, who (as we noted) recognizes the need to establish the ethical commonwealth, also cannot work toward this end as long as she thinks of morality as an individual pursuit, and virtue as a private good. Now, one of Kant’s points about the corruptibility of the “predisposition to humanity” is that we are inclined to value our own agency in fundamentally perverted ways: So we might be inclined to value virtue, too, as one’s own work. Perhaps this is the sort of evaluation Seneca encourages, when he remarks that we should be glad to be endowed with a rational capacity that we are called upon to make perfect, rather than having been created perfect by nature, like gods: For then we would have been robbed of the “special value and splendor” of virtue, that “we have ourselves to thank for it” (Ep. 90.2, [2015: 324]). One must transcend that way of thinking in order to enter into the Kantian idea of the ethical commonwealth: One must see that it is not my virtue or your virtue that really matters. Kant gestures here to an idea that – I think it is fair to say – we can scarcely appreciate from where we stand. We can only grope around with loose and highly imperfect analogues. Kant himself remarks that the “sublime, never fully attainable idea” of the ethical commonwealth must be scaled down for any recognizable human purpose, proposing that its best approximation takes the form of “a church” [RGV, 6: 100 (135)]. Some

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 203 readers, no doubt left alienated by this proposal, have suggested the demanding ideal be domesticated in terms of other kinds of partnership, such as friendship.37 But since the commonwealth is an association under laws of virtue, such proposals are only apt if we have a rather special kind of friendship in mind – namely, something akin to the friendship between progressives that is arguably manifest in Seneca’s Letters.38 At any rate, we can return now to the “old question”. The human race can only progress, Kant has told us, through the establishment of the ethical commonwealth; but that is only possible through some profound evaluative transformation in the species as a whole – or, in the approximations, of much smaller communities within it. With this in mind, let us revisit Kant’s endorsement of the eudaimonist theory of human progress: We are entitled to assume that “the human race […] is progressing toward what is better with respect to the moral end of its existence, and that this will indeed be interrupted from time to time but will never be broken off” [TP, 8: 308–309 (306)]. I leave it an open question whether “the church”, at least as anyone has ever known it, offers a genuine approximation of the ethical commonwealth; what I want to do in closing is consider Guyer’s failure to register the demanding idea of the ethical commonwealth, and its role in Kant’s conception of human progress. Guyer (2020: 326–327) supposes that since radical evil and its overcoming are each made possible by an act of free choice, there can be nothing inevitable about either: Just as we choose evil, so we can choose good – and having made the one choice does not block the possibility of making the other at some other time. And so, he argues, since there is nothing inevitable about the progress of individuals, by extension there can be nothing inevitable about the progress of the species, conceived as an aggregate of individuals; thus, despite Kant’s explicit endorsement of eudaimonism in regards to human progress, his own theory of freedom commits him to abderitism. In arriving at this view, Guyer tacitly supposes that the radical-evil-overthrowing choice is an expression of freedom in essentially voluntarist terms. Recall, though, that Kant speaks here of an “unalterable decision” [RGV, 6: 47.37–48.1 (92)]: He does not characterize the choice that overcomes radical evil as one that might be succeeded by a choice that again reinstates it. Once we find the path of progress, we can’t go back: That is the upshot of Kant’s remark. But our advancement on this path may only come in fits and starts, since it depends on the establishment of the ethical commonwealth – or at least on genuine and suitable approximations of this extremely demanding idea. Why does Kant endorse eudaimonism when it points to an idea of cosmopolitan duty so demanding that we can scarcely grasp what it requires? The answer, really, is that it is entailed by the providential teleology that is commonly presupposed in the German debate about human progress.

204  Melissa Merritt To reject that presupposition is to deny – or at least rule out for the sake of argument – that we are endowed with what we need to develop our essentially rational nature to completion, which for Kant is to suppose that we are unable to do what morality requires of us. But to accept the presupposition is to say that progress, of some sort, is possible. Mendelssohn, who accepts this presupposition, claims that progress is only possible in individuals, not the species. But Kant takes abderitism to be incoherent: If we are to suppose that we are endowed with everything we need to perfect our essentially rational natures, then it must be possible for the human race to establish the ethical community, or at least those approximations suitable for its continual (if not uninterrupted) progress – even if, from any familiar first-person practical point of view, we can scarcely appreciate what this asks of us. We must be eudaimonists about human progress, Kant supposes, on grounds of rational faith. Notes 1 Translation modified: The Cambridge translation has “destiny” for Bestimmung. However, what is possibly “improved” is not the final destination, as this rendering implies, but our readiness for that end; hence I’ve opted for the more literal “determination”. 2 It is an aspect of the debate about the Bestimmung des Menschen (the “destiny” or “determination” of the human being). For excellent historical discussion, see Kuehn (2009), and Brandt (2007), who highlights the Stoic background of the debate. 3 Mendelssohn (1783) has two parts, with the pagination resetting at the start of the second part; here I cite page 47 of part 2. Translations are my own; but I’ve consulted Arkush’s, also cited here. 4 “A better instructor must come and snatch the exhausted primer” – the Hebrew bible – “from the child’s grasp. Christ came” (Lessing 2005: 231). On the interpretation of Lessing, see Allison (2018 [1966]); on Jerusalem as a reply, see Altmann (1973: 514–552). 5 The Religion opens with a version of the terrorism/eudaimonism distinction [RGV, 6: 18–20 (69–70)], but without those labels, presenting eudaimonism as an Enlightenment view with Stoic roots. He also deploys the term chiliasm [RGV, 6: 34 (81)], distinguishing a “philosophical” variety that aims at perpetual peace through federation-of-states cosmopolitanism, from a “theological” variety that “awaits the completed moral improvement of the human race”. In this chapter, I am concerned with the debate about ethical (not political) progress, though Guyer (2020) addresses both. Since Kant regards moral terrorism as a non-starter – its truth, he contends, would entail that the human race would already have destroyed itself [SF, 7: 81 (298)], ignoring the possibility that we may indeed be in the process of doing just that – I will not consider it further here (likewise Guyer 2020: 321n1). 6 Guyer does not indicate the source from which he draws this view. He may be thinking of a passage from Cicero on Democritus, a famous citizen of Abdera. Cicero recognises him as great, but censures him for his fanciful dithering about “the nature of the gods”, deeming his proposals “more worthy of Democritus’s native city than of himself” (ND 1.120 [Cicero 1933: 114–117]).

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 205 7 See, e.g., Martial, Epigram X.25 (Martial 1993: 340–341). 8 “[…] cuius prudentia monstrat / summos posse viros et magna exempla daturos / vervecum in patria crassoque sub aere nasci” (Juvenal 2004: 370–371). 9 See also n6. 10 Notably, Kant claims that abderitism, if true, can only result in a “farcical comedy” [SF, 7: 82 (299)], or a “farce” that we cannot reasonably enjoy as a portrayal of “real life” [TP, 8: 308 (305)]. We’ll return to those remarks in Section 11.3. 11 Bayle, s.v. Democritus, reports that his “extraordinary inclination for the sciences” led him to travel to Egypt, Babylon, Persia, India and Ethiopia to consult with philosophers, priests, and ascetics. 12 I’ve outlined the dramatic arc of the second instalment of the novel Hippocrates in Abdera (Wieland 1993). 13 Das Geheimniß des Kosmopoliten-Ordens (Wieland 1930). Translations are my own. 14 Kleingeld (2012: 16) is right to emphasise this point. But she errs in tracing it to Wieland’s distinction between “world-residents and world-citizens” (Wieland 1930: 214). On most Stoic accounts, the cosmopolis is the community of all rational beings – thus including in its membership not just perfectly rational ­beings (gods), and human beings with perfected reason (sages), but also ordinary human beings (non-sages, i.e. progressives and fools). But the textual sources, Vogt (2008: 65–110) argues, suggest a distinction between such mere belonging or “residency” and full-fledged citizenship. Here we might observe that Kant draws a similar distinction in the Groundwork: we all belong to the “kingdom of ends” in virtue of possessing a rational will, but one actively takes one’s place in it as a “lawgiving member” – a citizen, we might say – by developing and acting from a good will (see e.g., 4: 433–435). There is nothing elitist about either the Kantian, or the original Stoic, view: for it is possible, at least in principle, for anyone to make themselves fit for such citizenship. Wieland’s elitism therefore does not stem from the resident/citizen distinction, but rather from his founding claim that cosmopolitans are “born to” the order, whereby it follows that only some are able to develop into full-fledged “world-citizens”. 15 See also Kleingeld (2012: 25–26). 16 I am thinking above all of Seneca – progress is the dominant and unifying theme of his Letters – but also Epictetus and (as a source of Stoicism) Cicero (see e.g. Tusculan Disputations 4.59 [1927: 394–395]). The question of the particular Stoic influences on Kant is too broad to take up here; but for an indication of the significance of at least Seneca and Cicero on select topics, see Merritt 2021a and 2021b. 17 On this point see also Bittner 2009. 18 Specifically at issue is the Stoic doctrine of oikeiōsis, which I very briefly outline here, drawing on three canonical sources: Diogenes Laertius (7. 85–88 [1925: 192–197]), Seneca (Ep. 121 and 124 [2015: 484–489, 497–502]), and Cicero (DF 3.16–26 and 3.62–64 [2001: 69–73, 84–85]). 19 See, e.g., ND (2.120–121); Kant takes the Stoic conception of life for granted, e.g. at [KpV, 5: 9n (144)]. 20 Diogenes Laertius (1925: 194–195). 21 For some discussion of the point, and sources, see Merritt 2021a. 22 Diogenes Laertius (1925: 196–197). 23 Hence διαστρέφεσθαι ... τὸ λογικὸν ζῷον (DL 7.89 [1925: 196–197]): Taking the verb in the middle voice, the sense is that the rational animal diverts itself from its telos – perverts or corrupts itself.

206  Melissa Merritt 24 This is not to say that Stoics are not deeply concerned with the sources and nature of human badness; the point is just that the account of human development from natural principles brackets that problem. 25 This point is related to Kant’s remarks about the “second and higher” human Bestimmung, which consists in the perfection of the rational will [KpV, 5: 87 (210)]; for discussion see Merritt (2018: 149–150). 26 For a similar observation, see Kleingeld (2009: 172). 27 See especially the “Fourth Proposition” of IaG [8: 20–22 (111–112)], which we’ll examine in Section 11.4. 28 Mendelssohn’s general sympathy for Stoicism is on display in Jerusalem (1783 1: 95–96/1983: 75). We should, however, particularly notice the close similarity between the providential teleology endorsed in Phaedon (Mendelssohn 1972: 106–107) – in remarks cited by Guyer (2020: 326) – to that flagged as the premise of Kant’s Idea, as noted above. 29 Posidonius was a contemporary, and something of a teacher, of Cicero; Seneca often cites him as an authority on Stoic doctrine, and thus is unusually critical in Letter 90. 30 On the social context of corruption, see e.g., Seneca Ep. 7.2 and 41.8 (2015: 35 and 125), as well as De Vita Beata (especially 1.4) and De Tranquilitate Animi (both in Seneca 1935). Seneca’s call for withdrawal from “the crowd” (Vita Beata 1.4 [1935: 100–103]) is, at the same time, a call to find refuge in friendship with other progressives, i.e., individuals aiming to develop toward virtue (a theme stressed particularly in De Tranquilitate Animi). For discussion of the Stoic conception of friendship between progressives, see Long 2013. 31 See e.g. also RGV [6: 33–34 (80–81)], right before he gathers himself to assert his commitment to human progress or “chiliasm” [6: 34 (81)]. 32 We need instead rational grounds for hope, which empirical observation cannot provide [TP, 8: 309–310 (306–307)]. 33 Regarding Mendelssohn on this sort of point, consider Altmann (1973: 540). See also n30. 34 For more elaboration on this point than I can provide here, see Merritt (2021a: 13–15). 35 The third is the predisposition to personality – the readiness to find appropriate action motivated by respect for the moral law. Unlike the first two, this third element admits no vicious graft [RGV, 6: 27.37 (76)]. But radical evil is nevertheless conceived as a comprehensive corruption; for discussion, see Merritt (2021a: 16–17). 36 See the references in n30. 37 E.g. Wood 2000 and Ebels-Duggan 2009. 38 On this conception of friendship, see Long 2013. 39 Ancient sources are cited in conventional ways, by abbreviated title and divisions internal to the text – e.g., DF 3.21 for Book 3, section 21 of Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum – in addition to author-date citation. Title abbreviations used in the main text are noted thus – e.g. [DF] – in the relevant entries on this list.

Bibliography39 Allison, H. (2018 [1966]): Lessing and the Enlightenment: His Philosophy of Religion and Its Relation to Eighteenth-Century Thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press).

Mendelssohn and Kant on Human Progress 207 Altmann, A. (1973): Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization). Bayle, P. (1820 [1697]): Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Paris: Desoer). Bittner, R. (2009): Philosophy Helps History. In Kant’s Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide, ed. by A. O. Rorty, J. Schmidt (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 231–249. Brandt, R. (2007): Die Bestimmung des Menschen bei Kant (Hamburg: Meiner). Cicero (1927): Tusculan Disputations, transl. by J. King (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).    . (1933): On the Nature of the Gods [De Natura Deorum], transl. by H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). [ND]    . (1998): De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, ed. by L. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press). [DF] (1999): Letters to Atticus (4 vols.), ed. and transl. by D. R. Schackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).    . (2001): On Moral Ends, ed. by J. Annas, transl. by R. Woolf (Cambridge: CUP). [DF] Diogenes Laertius (1925): Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Books 6–10, transl. by R. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). [DL] Ebels-Duggan, K. (2009): Moral Community: Escaping the Ethical State of Nature, «Philosophers’ Imprint» 9/8, pp. 1–19. Guyer, P. (2020): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP). Juvenal (2004): Satires. In Juvenal and Persius, ed. and transl. by S. M. Braund (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 128–512. Kleingeld, P. (2009): Kant’s Changing Cosmopolitanism. In Kant’s Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide, ed. by A. O. Rorty, J. Schmidt (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 171–186.    . (2012): Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship (Cambridge: CUP). Kuehn, M. (2009): Reason as a Species Characteristic. In Kant’s Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide, ed. by A. O. Rorty, J. Schmidt (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 68–93. Lessing, G. (2005): Philosophical and Theological Writings, transl. by H. Nisbet (Cambridge: CUP). Long, A. A. (2013): Friendship and Friends in the Stoic Theory of the Good Life. In Thinking About Friendship: Historical and Contemporary Philosophical Perspecties, ed. by D. Caluori (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 218–239. Martial (1993): Epigrams (3 vols.), ed. and transl. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Mendelssohn, M. (1783): Jerusalem: oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum (Berlin: Friedrich Maurer).    . (1972): Phaedon. In Vol. 3.1 of Gesammelte Schriften Jubiläumausgabe, ed. by F. Bamberger, L. Strauss, (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog), pp. 5–128.    . (1983): Jerusalem: or on Religious Power and Judaism, transl. by A. Arkush (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press). Merritt, M. (2018): Kant on Reflection and Virtue (Cambridge: CUP).

208  Melissa Merritt    . (2021a): Nature, Corruption, and Freedom: Stoic Ethics in Kant’s Religion, «European Journal of Philosophy» 29/1, pp. 3–24.    . (2021b): Kant and Stoic Affections, «Canadian Journal of Philosophy» 51/5, pp. 329–350. Seneca (1935): Moral Essays, Volume II, transl. by J. Basore (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).    . (2015): Letters on Ethics, transl. by M. Graver, A. Long (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). [Ep] Vogt, K. (2008): Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City: Political Philosophy in the Early Stoa (Oxford: OUP). Wieland, C. (1930): Das Geheimniß des Kosmopoliten-Ordens. In Vol. 15 of Wielands Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Deutsche Kommission der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Weidmann), pp. 207–229.    . (1993): History of the Abderites, ed. by M. Dufner (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press). Wood, A. (2000): Religion, Ethical Community and the Struggle Against Evil, «Faith and Philosophy» 17/4, pp. 498–511.

12 Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters A Comparison Between Kant and Mendelssohn Anne Pollok Paul Guyer’s Reason and Experience is as great a book as any Mendelssohn scholar could wish for. It covers all aspects possible for a thorough comparison between Mendelssohn and Kant, and it particularly strengthens Mendelssohn’s standing. Guyer sustains an argument throughout the book that in fact Mendelssohn’s findings are often more complex and powerful than one might have previously thought (and it’s likely many had thought exactly this). I do not disagree with Guyer’s overall stance. But there are aspects which I now want to revisit and reconsider. One of these aspects is Kant’s and Mendelssohn’s aesthetics. As Guyer argues, Mendelssohn’s insistence on the role of subjective perfectionism is not such a far cry from Kant’s subjective purposiveness as one might think. But can this be the case without playing down the new role aesthetics gained as an endeavor independent of moral and epistemological concerns? Do we take Mendelssohn’s strong background metaphysics seriously enough if we assume a similarity to Kant’s systematic aspirations? In this chapter, my objective cannot be a complete comparison of Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s aesthetics; but I seek to test the limits of this comparison for the case of the ugly. I am interested in such a borderline case because these tend to show the more or less hidden boundaries of a respective theory: How far a thinker is willing to go and which aspects they are not willing to give up. In the case of the ugly, the border that it most obviously touches on is a) the body – this is the case of the loathsome – and b) morality, which is most severely violated in (depictions of) the depraved. For both Mendelssohn and Kant, most examples stem from the latter area. It seems that in these cases, the proximity to morality might indicate a higher need for a distinction between these two thinkers, as Mendelssohn’s demand for an overall perfectionism that mirrors divine – and that is, after all: objective – perfection appears to be far removed from Kant’s novel attempt at a moral philosophy of autonomy. Funnily enough, it seems to be the stronger reliance on Leibnizian metaphysics that might enable Mendelssohn to tolerate more extreme cases than Kant. DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-16

210  Anne Pollok As Guyer (2020: 225) remarks, there are very few explicit references to Mendelssohn in Kant’s works, even less so in his aesthetics – but then, as he also points out, there are no references to Baumgarten either, who is presumably the main target of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. So overall, I do agree with him that Kant’s mature aesthetics contains quite a few indirect references to a Mendelssohnian understanding. But I am convinced that ultimately these two approaches rest on vastly different fundamental assumptions about the value of our aesthetic appreciation. Whereas Mendelssohn locates this value in the beneficial influence that aesthetic appreciation has on our mental apparatus as a function of human perfection, Kant rather sees the systematic benefit of a function that balances the powers of reason – regardless of their relation to a human “nature”. To put it differently, and simplistically, both of them take the beautiful out of the object. But whereas Mendelssohn puts beauty into human feeling and thinking – another form of objectivity, seen anthropologically – Kant puts it into the transcendental subject, and that ultimately means, into the form of our judgment, not the content of our feelings. The ugly doesn’t play a key role in Kant’s aesthetics, and thus it is no surprise that he barely mentions it. Ugliness is also decisively reigned into an overarching concept of “indirect” perfection in Mendelssohn’s work. But the failure to function (whether as a means for happiness, or a means for a free judgment) can show us more about the familiarities and differences between Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s overall conception of the aesthetic. While Guyer’s previous (2005) interpretation of Kant’s theory of the impure judgment on ugliness still offers a bridge of sorts between both philosophers in that it envisages the ugly as caught up in morally informed – i.e., impure – aesthetic judgments, this will prove to be insufficient to put them on the same tier concerning the value of aesthetic appreciation. I will spend the first half of the chapter spelling out Mendelssohn’s theory of aesthetic appreciation and its many facets. I will pay particular attention to quasi-Kantian aspects of his theory, such as the relation between aesthetic judgment and concepts, and the notion of aesthetic play. I will then turn to Kant, discuss the messiness of his conception of the ugly, in particular the loathsome and the depraved, and concentrate ultimately on the respective relation to perfection Kant and Mendelssohn draw out, the main point of divergence between these two. 12.1 Mendelssohn’s Differentiation between Objective and Subjective Perfection Let me start on a positive note. Both Guyer and I are on the same side when assessing the worth of Mendelssohn’s aesthetic theory.1 One decisive mark of Mendelssohn’s theory of aesthetic appreciation is its complexity.

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 211 His version of aesthetic perfectionism is richer than the common rationalist assumption that in our enjoyment of art we appreciate an obscure representation of perfection. In clear Baumgartian fashion, Mendelssohn ultimately stresses that we do not only enjoy the representation of the beautiful, but the beautiful presentation of something, may it be beautiful in itself, or ugly (and this is exactly what Kant references in the closing paragraphs of the first section of the KU, see here Section 12.5). In short, we do not just enjoy what we deem to be beautiful, but we also appreciate the power of the artist that artistic presentation makes visible (offers to our senses, respectively). We also enjoy the beneficial effects this has on our mental apparatus and our body. This gives aesthetic judgments a decidedly subjectivized and anthropological air. Mainly, this allows Mendelssohn a more refined notion of perfection.2 (1) Perfection in aesthetic appreciation references the inner harmony of what is represented: Something is beautiful because it is harmonious, balanced, offers an appropriate amount of detail, but is all bound to one “idea”, “shape”, or concept; I call this the “objective perfectionist position”. (2) In explicit reference to Baumgarten, Mendelssohn includes the “beautiful presentation” of something in his concept of beauty. We are thus not merely concerned with the content, but with the way in which said content is presented – a battlefield might be cruel, mean, and brutal, but if it is presented in a formally pleasing way, we can admire it for said formal features. Today, it is particularly hard to imagine a depiction of war to be beautiful – but just picture Albrecht Altdorfer’s Alexanderschlacht (1529, Alte Pinakothek München) with its undulating lines of marching soldiers, the heavens in an uproar of blue hues, its majestic clouds forming the eye of God. We can indeed find this depiction beautiful, at least formally speaking. I call this appreciation of artistic beauty the “formal perfectionist position”. (3) In reference to contemporaneous theories of the body and its influence on our perception, Mendelssohn also strongly holds that aesthetic representation as harmonious (may it be content or form) puts our body in a more perfect position, as Mendelssohn imagines mind and body to be in harmony, paying tribute to the main tenants of Leibnizian metaphysics. I call this the “bodily improvement position”.3 (4) A very interesting further aspect is the call on our faculties to be the judge in aesthetic experience. Perfection in aesthetic appreciation references not only the object, but also the audience as the ones who are capable of forming an aesthetic judgment. By judging we become aware of the fact that we are beings with a well-functioning mental apparatus. This explicitly includes our intellectual and moral capacities, as our aesthetic judgment allows us to also show our moral and/or rational astuteness. Thus, the beneficial effect even of evil, bad, disturbing but aesthetically sound representations, which lend the activity of rejection a positive overtone: We reject the bad

212  Anne Pollok because we are good.4 I call this the “subject-as-judge position”, as it turns on the capability of rejection as an inner form of perfection of the person performing the judgment. And finally, (5) aesthetic appreciation references the artist’s perfection. We admire the powers of mind and craft of this person who was capable of presenting the aesthetic object to us; I call this the “subjectivized perfection position”, as it references a form of perfection that is expressed by the artwork5 referencing the subject that created it. The motion through these positions clearly moves the focus away from the object towards the subject: The subject as creator (5) and the subject as judge (4). In the Main Principles, Mendelssohn’s stance is clearest in this regard, especially when he considers objects that seem beautiful in themselves. We enjoy “the rose of a Huysum” (JA 1: 433) more than its mere reflection in water, as it offers us the consideration of human (in this case: Huysum’s) formative powers. Mendelssohn even establishes this as a parallel case to our appreciation of a real rose as a beautiful aspect of divine creation; at times the artistic presentation of a rose is superior to the simple, real rose, as we imagine everything in the artwork as centered around this one object (whereas a real rose is barely to be seen as the center of the universe, all aspirations be damned). All of these enjoyments are ultimately based on “the perfection of the powers of the soul, and their conformity under one final aim” (JA 1: 434). This, of course, is indeed an objectivist notion of perfection – just that it is housed in different entities and enjoys a different ontological status: it is indeed contained in the judgment, not in the object. Concerning representations of ugly things get a bit more complicated. First of all, we definitely move away from aspect (1), as the ugly per definition is not perfect in itself. What about aspect (2)? A representation of something ugly could still be pleasing if it is done in a beautiful way, so that all aspects of the thing still coincide in one instance, are held together by a uniting idea. This would uplift body and soul, and it might even be a bit more exciting, since it contains a short moment of revulsion as well (3). Aspects (4) and (5) would also still be applicable. Then, the judgment is not quite: “This is ugly,” but rather “This is a great, very fitting, strikingly accurate depiction of x [which we would consider ugly in reality]”. The representation itself is then formally beautiful – and, in Mendelssohn’s books, aesthetically pleasing. Strictly speaking, such a representation might not be considered ugly, but just beautifully referencing some ugly content. (We will see that Kant might run into a similar issue.) If the representation of it lacks unity (or a manifold), that is, if position (2) is not met, then no aesthetic judgment would be made. The judgment would sound rather like this: “This could have been an interesting drama, alas, it turned out to be rather dull, artificial, contrived, boring”. Neither mind nor body (3) would be in a harmonious or in any way agitated state. Ultimately, only aspect (4) could still be counted towards a success: As

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 213 least, we establish ourselves as sound aesthetic judges and thus prove our capacity to judge correctly.6 But this is a rather impoverished moment, measured against the full aesthetic experience of a successful aesthetic representation (may the content be good or bad) that, in Mendelssohn’s books, contains far more aspects of perfection. However, Mendelssohn does not measure the quality of an aesthetic representation by merely adding up the aforementioned aspects of perfection. Were this the case, then Mendelssohn would have to stick to the objective perfectionist position: The strongest aesthetic judgment would be of a beautifully presented object that is beautiful in itself (content and form), done by a great artist. This would perfectly fulfill conditions (1), (2), and (5). Concerning condition (4), our enjoyment would at the very least establish us as connoisseurs of perfection, which is also not bad. But Mendelssohn prefers another mixture of (4) and (5): We show our own perfection stronger by a rejection of something bad, maybe also because (3) plays a more prominent role here: First our resentment is activated, which sets our bodily functions in motion – and then it is appeased again when we break through the illusion and re-frame the artwork as an artwork and not something that attacks either our morality or our cognition. That is when we become aware that our rejection of the bad is good, and when we realize the strength of the creator: in short, when we realize conditions (4) and (5), but on a more complex level. Whereas in his comparison between Mendelssohn and Kant, Guyer holds that “Mendelssohn does not claim that the mind must have any concept of its own activity in order to enjoy it” (Guyer 2020: 244), I would claim that the judging subject indeed needs to have a rather clear notion of its own (rejecting) activity, of the perfection in the presentation (and hence the creative perfection of the artist), as well as of the ugly or bad nature of the object as judged. But maybe the difference between Mendelssohn and Kant goes even deeper. Let’s go back to Guyer’s stance regarding this issue: The subjective perfection of the mind thus consists in its own activity, one in which multiple faculties of the mind are brought into play together, but Mendelssohn does not claim that the mind must have any concept of its own activity in order to enjoy it. Kant, meanwhile, characterizes the condition of the mind in aesthetic response as subjective ‘purposiveness’ rather than ‘perfection,’ but he similarly places great emphasis on the activity of the mind as the source of our pleasure. (Guyer 2020: 244) So, for one, it seems that the subject does have some determinate concepts at hand that support their judgment. Whereas reference to the overall perfection of the universe is too broad, reference to my specific reaction

214  Anne Pollok toward and resulting rejection of an ugly or bad content is more concrete and could count as a determinate concept. Same goes for my appreciation of the perfection of the creator. The perfected state of my body (position 3) would in Mendelssohn’s books be too confused a representation to count as a determinate concept, but it might count for Kant. But in what way now does Mendelssohn specifically figure the connection between a balanced mind and aesthetic appreciation? Ultimately, this brings us back to the difference between Mendelssohn’s subjectivized notion of perfection and Kant’s claim of the transcendental, formal nature of an aesthetic judgment – which, as I claim, leaves the notion of perfection (as aimed at a perfection of human nature) behind. 12.2 Does Mendelssohn’s Aesthetics Rely on Some Form of Play? As Guyer claims, both Mendelssohn and Kant consider the aesthetic judgment as based on a harmony of our human faculties in absence of determinate concepts. We already discussed the “lack” of concepts in Mendelssohn’s theory. Let us now turn to the notion of play. It seems to me that Mendelssohn does not quite use this notion in the Kantian sense. He references a mode of harmonious activity and engagement that overall contributes to human perfection, in that human faculties are engaged and active, thus perfecting themselves. This he spells out in the Letters on Sentiments (1755) and the Rhapsody (1761/1771), but with the most Kantian vibe in his penultimate work, the Morning Hours: Every concept, in so far as it is merely thinkable, has something that pleases the soul, that occupies its activity, and is thus cognized by it with satisfaction and approval. Nothing is in the highest degree evil; nothing in the highest degree ugly. But where the soul finds more satisfaction in one concept than in another, more agreeable occupation, then can it prefer the former to the latter. In this comparison and in the preference that we give to an object consists the essence of the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the perfect and the imperfect. What we cognize as the best in this comparison works on our faculty of desire and stimulates it, where it finds no resistance, to activity. This is the side on which the faculty of approval touches demand or desire. (Vorerkenntnis, lesson VII, JA 3.2: 63) There are some problematic aspects to be considered, though. First of all, this is not a reference to an aesthetics of the ugly. Rather, Mendelssohn considers as to why we have grounds of preferring one state of mind (and one object instantiating said state of mind) over the other. Ultimately, he

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 215 holds that whatever gives least resistance to the activity of the mind is what we experience as pleasant. That which really stimulates the faculty of desire is what we find beautiful or good – and this is what the faculty of approval selects our sentiments for. In this sense, it is not quite true that the faculty of approval would “not lead to specific desires and actions” (Guyer 2014: 354) – it does, in that it sorts impressions and acts as a guiding force. It is only in some cases where we would simply approve of a representation without it being categorized as either true or good. But for Mendelssohn, this intermediate state is essentially transitory; he hence calls the faculty of approval a “transition [Übergang] between cognition and desire” (JA 3.2: 62) It is also quite obvious that Mendelssohn increasingly aligns approval and desire. Both of these he counts toward the “formal [aspect] of cognition”, in contrast to truth as the material aspect. Both are concerned with the effect of a representation, whether it arouses pleasure or displeasure, approval, or disapproval. The essence of this formal aspect is its gradual nature: Whereas the material aspect of a representation (and with that the question whether it is true or false) cannot be gradual, the formal aspect consists in a “more or less” (JA 3.2: 63). In this sense, approval and desire only differ gradually: The more positive aspects we come to realize in a representation, the more we desire it. Mendelssohn does not notice that this runs against his previous conviction that we do not need to desire a beautiful object – because if our recognition of more positive aspects (perfections) and a representation leads us to preferring it to something else, then the faculty of desire is already at play and, according to the function of these faculties, we ought to desire the object. Here, we might still evoke the previously mentioned positions 1–5, and state that we rather want to have and enjoy the presentation as such, but not the object (as the “cause” for our representation) itself (evoking position 2), and hence, our desire does not call for acquisition, but just for a continuation of the presentation as such. So, we want the presentation of the object, but we don’t need the object itself. Note that a form of desire is still very present in this conception of “play”. It is worth mentioning that here the concept of a mixed sentiment is largely absent. In earlier writings Mendelssohn had applauded all representations that are not merely enjoyable but offer a more refined, mixed approach in that they elicit both positive and negative responses and thus call onto our ability to reject the bad (position 4, but also 5). Now he seems to favor a straightforwardly positive account. The faculty of approval that is engaged in said judgments does not aim at truth (as the faculty of cognition), nor action (that is the job of the faculty of desire, even though, see my reading of the previous section, Mendelssohn falls onto a slippery slope here). Within mere approval, we are concerned with appreciation, and this Mendelssohn equates with self-improvement. Self-improvement is

216  Anne Pollok reached by a play – not of the faculties as such, but a play between “pleasure and displeasure” (JA 3.2: 65) that we seek in “Erdichtungen”, which nicely engages our sentiments without calling for our theoretical judgment nor an active realization of the good. In the passage just quoted from the Morning Hours (JA 3.2: 63), Mendelssohn even seems to say that we enjoy it most when our faculties are engaged in a smooth and seamless pleasure without unnecessary hindrances. If there were room for any displeasure at all in the arts, it would be in the form of a non-threatening, fleeting emotion that is ultimately dissolved in an overall pleasing impression. Or, as Mendelssohn would have said a few years earlier7: Once the displeasure got too strong, we would have turned toward all the signs that assure us of the fictional character of the representation, and therefore assured us that nothing was actually wrong: That it is not Othello himself killing Desdemona, but an actor showing what such a crime would look like (see Pollok 2010: 186–187). Forgotten now, in the Morning Hours, seems his own account on the human vocation (as presented in the essays surrounding his Phädon, 1767).8 There, he stressed the necessity of Widerstand, some form of hindrance or displeasure, that would motivate us to find the strength for (self-)improvement. In the Morning Hours, Mendelssohn rather holds that the human being “forms things in accord with his inclination, so as to set his satisfaction and dissatisfaction in an agreeable play” (JA 3.2: 65). This play, however, is, one, not a play of all faculties, but takes place within the imagination itself, and, second, it is still united under “one common final goal” – the perfection of the (judging) human being.9 This seems to be a clear case of a determinate, if very complex, concept. And it seems hardly in accordance with Kant’s requirements for aesthetic play. So, Mendelssohn does indeed not reference a specific concept that counts for one specific instance – but he always references the necessary connection between a sentiment and our perfection, or the perfection of the human being. This perfection is instantiated either as an active and creative force (the artist), or as the instance of rejection (the audience) that is conceptualized in these judgments – in particular in the case of judgments that pertain to objects that are either ugly or sublime. In this sense, judgments concerning the aesthetic value of an object rest most heavily on positions 4 and 5. When it pertains to the artist, position 5 assumes that we value the artwork because it was created by a genius who represents the creative power of the human mind.10 Position 4 references the value of the audience: Our judgment instantiates us as the arbiter of perfection by its manifestation in a rejection of the object (if not the presentation per se). Hence, there is a determinate concept in the background that is by far richer or more concrete than any formal conception of goodness that we can find in Kant’s critical philosophy.11 For Mendelssohn, in good rationalist tradition, the activity of sentiments and reasons elevates them to a higher level

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 217 of clarity, and hence of conceptual cohesiveness. Thus, judgments concerning the perfection of the state of the person making the judgment are based on an ever more clear and concise concept of human perfection.12 After discussing the issue of determinate concepts and aesthetic play, we also need to take the aspect of aesthetic distance into consideration, as it plays into the Kantian notion of “disinterestedness”. Here, we need to turn to a special case of the ugly: Loathing and the depraved. 12.3  The Subjectivized Notion of Perfection in Case of the Ugly In his piece On the highest and most common principle of poetry (1751) Johann Adolf Schlegel (father of the more famous romantics August Wilhelm and Friedrich) argues that the impression of loathing is “too excessive” (zu gewaltsam) to allow it within the arts. Mendelssohn aims to further differentiate this case in light of his own theory of mixed sentiments (see the respective letters no. 82/84 in the Letters concerning the newest literature nos. 82–84, JA 5.1). From the objective side, an object perceived as ugly sets into motion a feeling of deep imperfection, but also a disruption within the imagination and any feeling of pleasure in the subject. Hence, we do not enjoy the representation of the ugly object for its “objective” side (again referencing the objective perfectionist position 1). For Mendelssohn, this becomes particularly clear in the case of sensuously ugly objects that mainly incite our sense of taste or smell.13 These are the ones that he calls truly loathsome: They do not leave room for any internal differentiation of the perceiving subject from this object – having a representation of them is as bad as encountering them in reality. The object, so to say, invades our imagination, our sentiments and our senses and makes positions 2 to 5 impossible, at least aesthetically speaking. Such an ugly object thus leaves no room for anything else but the loathsome impression. For something ugly to offer any enjoyment at all, Mendelssohn engages the idea of aesthetic distance. To offer a somewhat pleasurable experience, an ugly object must give us a bit of room to reject it (position 4). Hence, when we are reminded by the whole setting (“This is a stage, after all” or “There is a frame around the image”) that this is an illusion, the immediate revulsion can be diluted into merely agitating sentiments, ultimately leading to an overarching feeling of pleasure (see JA 5.1: 131). We gain a sense of our own activity as a sensible and reasonable subject when we feel ourselves rejecting what is “bad” as felt by the senses. In those cases, we feel our rejection as a positive power of our soul, which reminds us of what is poignantly absent: “Objective goodness” in the object. This is the sort of pleasure that Mendelssohn locates in the ugly of sight.14 Note that this is no longer a case of the loathsome, but its weaker sister, the ugly.

218  Anne Pollok But again, as Mendelssohn cautions, this is different regarding the loathsome (of smell and taste): The adverse sensation of loathing impacts, according to the laws of the imagination, the mere representation of the soul, regardless of whether we think the object is real or not. What does it help the offended mind if the art of imitation announces itself clearly? Displeasure did not follow from the supposition that the object be real, but from its mere representation – and this is unquestionably there. The sentiment of loathing is thus always nature, never imitation. (JA 5.1: 131, first italics mine) But even the ugly of sight cannot quite interest the subject for too long. As Mendelssohn argues concerning the dead on a battlefield,15 we seek out these experiences because we want to know what went wrong, to discern what happened. This presumably widens our horizon, enables us to understand a more complex backstory, etc. All these are no aesthetic categories, but the pleasure derived from these cases (which, considering Mendelssohn’s examples, are referencing the depraved rather than the loathsome) ultimately belongs to the realm of the understanding: Our activity of rejecting the ugly confirms the positive power of the soul to recognize (in absentia) what is good. This, of course, makes a glaring problem in Mendelssohn’s argumentation obvious: What about our sustained interest in awful things? Once we figured out those circumstances on the battlefield, we should stop being interested in the evidence. If we really only endure the depraved in order to gain insight, backstory, or explanatory circumstance, then we would stop paying attention to it once our curiosity is satisfied. But obviously, we keep coming back to such experiences that have no other value for us than stirring us up. When Mendelssohn tries to argue for our continued return to tragedy, drama, and misfortune by our desire for certainty – and also by our sustained enjoyment in the process of figuring out “stuff like this”, his argument loses its edge. In a sense, our evening at the theater, witnessing just another account of poor judgment and unhealthy circumstance, is an imaginary reiteration of the process of understanding the ugly in this world – but also a stirring of our body that we do not want to live without. Mendelssohn never goes so far as Kant to call out the fundamental depravity of human nature, but here he comes pretty close to it. 12.4  Kant’s Notion of Purposiveness and Its Relation to Perfection While Mendelssohn has some issues reigning in our interest in the ugly, Kant is less concerned with the psychological-physiological effects of such judgments. He rather “characterizes the condition of the mind in aesthetic

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 219 response as subjective ‘purposiveness’ rather than ‘perfection,’ but he similarly places great emphasis on the activity of the mind as the source of our pleasure”. (Guyer 2020: 244) Purposiveness in Kant does not have the same status as perfection. This, of course, Guyer knows much better than I do. So, what does he aim at when he states that at least both Kant and Mendelssohn put an emphasis on the activity of the mind? If something can be understood as purposive, that is: Showcasing an internal connection to a particular end, and being structured in such a way to best achieve said end, we would in rationalist tradition call this “perfection”, since this means nothing other than that the parts of a thing are organized in a way that they contribute to its final aim. Concerning the aesthetic judgement of ugliness, this organization is not to be understood materially or objectively, but pertaining to our representation of said object. What is purposive is the way in which the work engages my faculties and enhances my being. Both Mendelssohn and Kant16 dynamize this notion of perfection. For Mendelssohn, as we have seen, perfection need not show itself in an object, but it has to be taken out of the object by the process of aesthetic appreciation in its five dimensions as discussed in the previous sections. Perfection is thus not something that can be stated as a depiction of an object, but it is rather encompassing or signifying a process within the appreciating and judging subject and its relation to the artwork, to its own sentiments, and to the artist. Due to our individual fit into the cosmos, such a process symbolizes the dynamics of an unfolding Leibnizian universe in which ultimately nothing is at odds, nothing goes astray, and, all things considered, everything turns out to be functional for the whole – even something that, at first glance, seems imperfect. For Mendelssohn, said perfection is proven, due to the validity of the Leibnizian system, and hence, aesthetic judgments of type (1) may not be the most important ones, but are indeed sustainable. Furthermore, the combination of types (2) to (5) ultimately also lead to an objective notion of perfection, just seen from the perspective of the subject. Kant, in contrast, explicitly states that such systems cannot be proven, but that purposiveness and teleological thinking in general engage ideas of reason which reference objects, but “can nevertheless never become a cognition of that object” [KU, Remark I, Dialectic, 5: 342 (217)]. Hence, perfection can come along as a mere phenomenon, or a presupposition, but it cannot be taken as rational insight into the state of things in themselves. It is ideally real in that we must presuppose it as a rational order of nature, which we must envisage in order to think and understand anything at all. Thus, the assumption of perfection, and with this the possibility to realize what is good, is subjectively and practically necessary but not metaphysically provable. The judgment concerning beauty is hence connected to the feeling of purposiveness (without knowledge of an actual, fixed purpose) and its subjective phenomenon: Pleasure, without offering us any objective proof. This is a

220  Anne Pollok concept-less, pleasant working of the intelligible faculties, neither offering the grounds for logical nor practical judgments, but offering the possibility of our reflection being in tune with nature.17 Or, in Guyer’s words: The point of Kant’s mature teleology is to unify the system of nature that Kant established in the first Critique with the system of freedom that he developed in his writings on moral philosophy by showing that we must and how we can conceive of nature as a realm fit for the realization of the objectives set for us by morality. (Guyer 2005: 165) Very clearly and obviously, Kant rejects a mere objective perfectionist position (position 1), as such an aesthetic judgment required a concept of perfection, or goodness, regardless of how confused it is [see KU 5: 226 (111), Guyer 2020: 243]. So, instead of wasting time on Kant’s rejection of material perfection as a basis for an aesthetic judgment, I shall consider the formal cases, which then pertain to Mendelssohn’s positions (2) to (5) that I described in Section 12.1. When we thus consider the beautiful (or ugly) formally, the central points of agreement and contrast between Mendelssohn and Kant become most apparent. For a second, let us overlook the intense discussion of what “ugly” for Kant even means.18 On the one hand, we might say that many supposed cases of the ugly would boil down to something disagreeable or imperfect – all negative aspects that are negative indeed, but not aesthetically relevant, as they clearly rest on conceptual negativity. Kant also, on the other hand, seems to consider the possibility of a neutral aesthetic judgment19: Some objects just do not excite us, but also do not displease us. However, such judgments are of no interest for our present purposes, as such a judgment would not in any way express an engagement with the object that would warrant the conclusion of ugliness – it would indeed be just neutral. This is not to say that such judgments are impossible; it strikes me as odd to suppose that there might not be cases that simply leave us cold. What we are concerned with here, however, are those instances where we clearly engage with an object and come to a resoundingly negative conclusion: “This is ugly!” The aesthetic judgment concerning ugliness must of course work according to the four moments of judgment Kant identifies in the KU. Hence, it is (i) disinterested and concerned with how we are affected, not with an objective nor practical judgment concerning the object. (ii) In such a judgment, we “ascribe the satisfaction in an object to everyone” [5: 214 (99)] without relying on concepts. The harmonious interplay gives us the impression of purposiveness, but only formally, not materially (iii), and it is this that leads us to assume (iv) the subjective, but still universal necessity of our judgment: Everyone should come to the same conclusion. However,

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 221 the KU lacks such an explicit exposition for the ugly (das Hässliche).20 Instead, Kant mentions the ugly only once, and that is in KU §48, AA 5: 312 (190), within his discussion of beauty in nature and in art and its relation to genius. There, he seems to reflect on it in a very Mendelssohnian way. To appreciate Kant’s argument, we need to take a step back and survey the context in which he thematizes the ugly within the KU.21 Whereas the ability to judge art necessitates taste, the condition for the possibility of art is genius, he states at the onset of §48 [5: 311 (189)]. Hence, whenever we exercise taste, we are also indirectly engaging the notion of genius. What does he mean by that? First, genius is responsible for the presentation of the artistically beautiful: “beauty in art is the beautiful representation of a thing” [5: 311 (189) translation amended]. The genius creating such beautifully formed objects (with maybe ugly content) does not have to have any explicit knowledge, but rather some sort of “working knowledge”22 from which others can learn by mimesis23; stressing again that even genius does not work according to fixed conceptual principles, but always on the borderline between reason and imagination. But also, and Kant’s discussion of ugliness makes this clearer, our aesthetic appreciation rests on the four moments. Of particular importance for our comparison are disinterestedness, conceptlessness, and the harmonious play. The question concerning the fourth moment of necessary universality that we assume of our judgment24 has to be left out, as Mendelssohn does not really consider this aspect at all.25 Which might serve as just another hint that, ultimately, he relies on a form of uniformity that is grounded in the notion of perfection, not understood as a Kantian idea of reason. But even for just the other three, ugliness is quite a complicated case. To be aesthetically relevant, it still must be disinterested, without determinate concept, and elicit some purposive motion among the relevant faculties. To be relevant in art, a formally apt presentation of the object would be important. Now, something that is objectively ugly, such as a battlefield, decay, heinous acts, etc., can be depicted in a formally pleasing way. We could argue here, see Section 12.1, that such a kind of ugly might not even be considered ugly in an aesthetic (i.e., formal) regard, but only in terms of content. Hence, the judgment “this is ugly” might very often be a judgment about the content of the representation. Such a judgment is not formal, and it turns on a specific concept – in Kant’s books, this is not an aesthetic judgment at all. The ugly content, in this formulation, is in fact not ugly per se, and definitely not ugly formally. This case, as the beautiful depiction of an ugly scene, would fall under Mendelssohn’s position (2), but, in Kant’s formulation, might end up being a positive aesthetic judgment. A judgment concerning the ugly definitely comes with the feeling of displeasure. Can such an impression be disinterested? When we consider this for the extreme case of the loathsome, the resounding answer would

222  Anne Pollok be “No!”, whereas for other ugly content, the feeling of displeasure should not be strong enough to give sufficient grounds for the rejection of the possibility of a negative aesthetic judgment. In this regard, Kant also brings Mendelssohn’s positions (4) and (5) to the table, which both involve the relation of aesthetic experience and concepts, and the possibility of a feeling of purposiveness through a play of the faculties involved. In his most explicit treatment of the ugly, Kant stresses that aesthetically relevant objects (or impressions) must not arouse loathing (Ekel):26 [F]or since in this strange sensation, resting on sheer imagination, the object is represented as if it were imposing the enjoyment which we are nevertheless forcibly resisting, the artistic representation of the object is no longer distinguished in our sensation itself from the nature of the object itself, and it then becomes impossible for the former to be taken as beautiful. [5: 312 (190)] He does not say so explicitly, but the second half of his argument is very similar to Mendelssohn’s position27: “The artistic representation of the object is no longer distinguished in our sensation itself from the nature of the object itself” – or, with Mendelssohn, in the case of loathing, we cannot discern between the representation and the object itself anymore (see Section 12.3), and hence any impression cannot be appreciated formally, but jumps on us materially – and with this, positions 2 to 5 are all off the table.28 Or, in Kant’s conception, we are too directly involved to be disinterested – and we are also too restricted in the direction of our appreciation (which might come close to a conceptual determinacy), so that we cannot develop any sense of a free play. The only way to deal with ugly ideas is to turn them into an allegory – and with that, to distance them from us by turning them into a somewhat pleasant or at least interesting riddle. For instance, death cannot quite be depicted in some genres such as sculpture and painting (as the ugly impression would be arrested and would have to be confronted over a prolonged period of time, I assume). It rather must be hinted at, so that it can be interpreted by reason, not recognized by taste [see 5: 312 (191)]. This play with concepts Kant takes one step further concerning cases in which ugliness borders on the sublime (and these examples pertain less to the loathsome, but the depraved): The representation of the “kingdom of hell” [5: 314 (192)] goes beyond “the bounds of experience” and also represents something that cannot be captured by a simple concept (ibid.). However, the appreciation of these cases turns on the imaginative treatment of concepts in their fundamental openness and the impossibility to pin them down exactly. Here, imagination seems to do the job of reason in that it

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 223 allows for an indeterminate concept to impress and entertain our intellect. This effect only breaks down if said concepts become too narrow and thus become (or border onto the) determinate: The play of the imagination cuts off, and we are back to a “realistic” assessment of the situation. Despite the possibility of a Mendelssohnian reading of the loathsome, we also have to consider a Kantian reading of it, i.e., following the four moments of the aesthetic judgment. In the present case concerning the first moment of an aesthetic judgment (i), it is indeed the lack of distance that makes an aesthetic judgment impossible. But this might weigh a tad less than a breach of the second moment, conceptlessness (ii): In the experience of the loathsome, there is the all too concrete necessity of a concrete concept (which is at the same time the ground of the reality of the object itself) that renders aesthetics judgments either impure or impossible. This we can already sense by Kant’s peculiar formulation that it is the supposed “insistence” of the object to be enjoyed (it is, he says, “imposing the enjoyment”), whereas it seems clear that “joy” should be far out of reach here. As such, the loathsome understood this way approaches us with a concrete intent that we cannot overlook nor evade, even though we “ ­ forcibly resist” it. Note that this intent is not conceptual, but it renders the condition of disinterestedness and indeterminacy inapplicable. Ultimately this destroys the third moment as well, in that it arrests the impression on only one possible outcome, thus making a free play impossible (iii).29 Let us now turn to the ugly as depraved, i.e., its moral dimension. In an earlier discussion of the ugly in aesthetic judgment, Guyer states that Kant’s construction of such judgments necessarily renders them impure (see Guyer 2005).30 In his argumentation, Guyer concentrates on examples from the moral sphere, as these, he claims, make up the majority of cases that Kant comes up with. In these cases, again, the concrete concept that grounds our aversion comes into view far too dominantly to allow the free play between understanding and imagination. This reliance on such a concept of the contemptible leaves no room for the aesthetic feeling of displeasure, but is morally motivated. Guyer’s argumentation starts off from an even more fundamental aspect. For any judgment, the faculties must be in harmony, or they are not functioning correctly at all and no judgment can be made. Some judgments of the ugly, in particular those pertaining to the loathsome, are “merely sensory”, in that they pertain the revulsion of the senses, but not our taste. Second, if a harmonious play is initiated, this in turn initiates pleasure, not displeasure. This does not bode well with the phenomenon of the ugly. It would rather fit, again, with those objects that are in themselves morally questionable, but presented in an aesthetically pleasing way. We ­already discussed that such objects cannot quite be called ugly at all (see Section 12.1 for Mendelssohn, and this section for Kant). Thus, judgments

224  Anne Pollok concerning the ugly cannot be pure, as the ground for the aspect of ugliness in the respective judgment is indeed not owing to the free play, but to the connection to our moral judgments (Guyer 2005: 143 and 151), which becomes most apparent in cases of the depraved, i.e., the presentation of something that is morally wrong to the extreme: [J]udgements of ugliness are not purely reflective aesthetic judgements at all, but are merely sensory or else practical judgements – that is, they involve expressions of our feelings of displeasure at things that are disagreeable in some physiological or psychological way [disgust] or bad or evil in the light of our prudential or moral practical reason. (Guyer 2005: 151) Even if we, with Allison (2001: 116–117), distinguish between the free play of the faculties and their harmony31, Guyer convincingly shows that Kantian epistemology as presented in the KrV hinders any idea of a merely disharmonious play of the faculties, as it will always be brought at least under the concept of the “I think” to count as some form of cognition at all. This […] is to say that for Kant there are really only two possible relations between imagination and understanding in the experience of any object: a state of free play between them that results in harmony without dependence upon any of the determinate empirical concepts that apply to the object of this state, although surely there are such concepts; or a harmony between them that does depend on such concepts. A state of sheer disharmony between them is not consistent with the transcendental unity of apperception. (Guyer 2005: 146–147) McConnell approaches the issue from the angle of empirical versus transcendental and argues that Guyer’s reading is flawed in that it confuses the transcendental status of the “I think” with the empirical status of the “free play” (see McConnell 2008: 211). However, I fail to see how the aesthetic judgment is necessarily empirical, as the conditions that Kant deals with quite explicitly pertain only to the necessary conditions for the possibility of an aesthetic judgement, but not an actual aesthetic judgment. Hence, it remains problematic to think about a judgment without unity, and a judgment about the ugly, in Kant’s books, is indeed not unified – at least as far as Guyer’s reconstruction of it goes.32 We might want to follow Cohen here and call the interplay of imagination and understanding not a harmonious, but a “foul play” (Cohen 2013: 207). Such a play, however, still has to come up with some sort of a unifying function that allows us to come to a judgment, which, after all, is due to the unifying function of our mind. The

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 225 utterance “This is ugly!” is supposedly still a judgment and not a momentary confusion. This means: Imagination and reason – or, maybe, imagination and understanding (here is where the moral affiliation of a judgment concerning the ugly comes in) – need to be in a kind of harmony that we experience as unifying, if not satisfying or pleasing. It remains unclear to me, however, how an impression of unity can come without any pleasure whatsoever. In case the interaction between reason and imagination does not come to any kind of form (i.e., play) at all, it simply cannot be registered as anything. And, as Guyer argues, in case it is unified, it is limited either by our sensible needs (loathsome), or by our practical interests (depraved). And this brings me to one more hint that contributes to my impression of Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s fundamental difference. The real source of difference between these two must lie in Kant’s insistence that his whole system is a necessary alternative to Leibnizian metaphysics. Under the latter, we could have allowed for aesthetic judgments of the ugly – in Kant’s system, they must be impure and are therefore mixed with practical (or sensuous) aspects. They are thus not impossible, but they firmly belong to another area of consideration. This is also supported by Kant’s at times very strong claims regarding the interference of feelings in practical matters; and, thus, I return to a Kant that Mendelssohn actually knew: The Kant of the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764).33 Here, Kant indicated his systematic interest and his very own recourse to practical judgments at quite an early stage. The argument pertains to the old discussion of whether an act should be performed out of duty, or because of a good (and pleasing) sentiment. Kant, of course, argues that a maxim toward beneficence should not be grounded on the latter, but must be due to the former: A stricter sense of duty. He welcomes the person with a “certain t­ enderheartedness” [2: 215 (30)] who graciously stoops down to help another human being in need – but he also stresses that if this help is indeed based on the sentiment of pity, it may very well happen that this person might miss another, higher duty (such as the “strict duty of justice”, 2: 216). A beautiful, but aesthetically grounded sentiment is ultimately “blind” (ibid.) and hence only superficially beneficent for moral behavior, Kant holds.34 If, by contrast, general affection towards humankind has become your principle, to which you always subject your actions, then your love towards the one in need remains, but it is now, from a higher standpoint, placed in its proper relationship to your duty as a whole. [2: 216 (30)] “True virtue”, which for Kant is the only inner disposition that can be truly sublime, is also “colder” than any beneficent sentiment. Hence, the

226  Anne Pollok truly moral character is not as affected as the pitiful theater-goer, but they are better than the latter. Sentiments have ultimately no place in morality; no path leads directly from the theater to morality. Quite the opposite, these beneficent sentiments could rather lure people into overestimating their moral capacities. In the Obeservations, Kant ultimately calls the true senses for virtue a “feeling of the beauty and [a feeling of the] dignity of human nature” [2: 217 (31)]. These are indeed called a “sentiment” (Gefühl), or better: “The consciousness of a sentiment” that lives in every human being, even if not all human beings are capable of actually listening to it. Kant also mentions that we might lack the ability to extend this feeling truly to all of humanity, ourselves included, and hence be stymied by some obscure sentiment we have no proper direction for. This, for Kant, is mostly due to either our inability to include ourselves in these sentiments (which is a rather interesting but still very correct thought), or, more simply, because of the general “weakness of human nature” [2: 217 (31)]. In the same vein, he upholds in the KU that our sensitivity for ideas of the sublime does not stem from being cultured, but from our human nature [5: 265 (149)]. Aesthetic judgments ultimately have nothing to do with empirical psychology (ibid.), but have a priori principles. To give too much weight to our experience at the theatre would, for Kant, rather cloud our actual judgment than enable it. 12.5 Conclusion I agree with Guyer’s general judgment that Mendelssohn, despite being the supposed rationalist, is “more responsive to the full range of human experience, particularly to the weight of sentiments or emotions in the human experience of art and of morality itself” (Guyer 2020: 254). That this leads to a more problematic stance concerning moral autonomy is ultimately another matter that I won’t be able to fully discuss here. Ultimately, Mendelssohn’s aesthetics does not say that much about the perfection of the world – it rather stresses the perfection of us as the persons perceiving and appreciating perfection, both of the world and in its representation. Both Mendelssohn and Kant could argue that what comes to the fore in aesthetics is admiration for the humanity in us. However, Mendelssohn’s notion of humanity is strictly tied back to a strong concept of divine perfection. But, and here I side with Guyer (see 2020: 252), Mendelssohn also acknowledges that emotions are an integral part of this notion of perfection, and hence, he has no qualms to place the arousal of certain emotions front and center in his aesthetics, whereas Kant insists on the “purity” of the aesthetic (and any true moral action, respectively, see Section 12.4). It is ultimately a different stress on the formal feature of the principles of aesthetic judgment, rather than the perfection, subjective or otherwise, of

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 227 the perceiving subject (or even the creating subject, the genius) that is decisive for Kant. Hence, aesthetic judgments concerning the ugly showcase, all similarities in other issues notwithstanding, the different grounds of the respective theories of judgment in Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s theory. Mendelssohn’s aesthetic does not seem to fulfill the same systematic function as it does in Kant’s system. This is mostly because Mendelssohn’s philosophy is not systematic from the start. He is most satisfied with Leibnizian metaphysics insofar as it offers him solace and security (see most prominently in his Phaedon and the Morning Hours). Solace, as it seems to prove the immortality of the soul; security, insofar as it proves the validity of the principle of non-contradiction and sufficient reason, and thus allows for the reign of perfection in morality, metaphysics, and epistemology. Mendelssohn’s philosophy, as I have shown in my book (Pollok 2010), spells out what Leibnizian metaphysics means for the human being. He is far more sophisticated when it comes to the requirements of religion and Enlightenment, where he masterfully shows what it means to be human among humans. From the other side, Kant still does his best to meet Mendelssohn halfway. As long as we strictly stay within the aesthetic realm, we might go with Zuckert’s result: […] Kant retains his sharp anti-rationalist distinctions, whether between the nature of the moral will or moral satisfaction, and all other types of willing and sources of pleasure, or between the human realm of ends and the nature of nature. Still Kant here reflectively recuperates the rationalists’ claims that the soul’s sensible perfection (in appreciating beauty) is consonant with and preparatory for its moral perfection, and, more strongly, the rationalist conception of the natural world as intentionally, teleologically ordered by a beneficent God. Thus, despite Kant’s continuing differences from the rationalists and his qualifications of these claims (as merely reflective, subjective, or symbolic), Kant’s transition arguments may be read as partial vindications of Leibnizean rationalism as the most coherent, rational, and morally approvable systematic world view. (Zuckert 2007: 383) In sum, both master the art of appearing in perfect harmony, and we have to dig a bit deeper to unearth the hidden differences.35 Notes 1 Meeting Paul Guyer at the First International Wolff Congress in Halle, Germany, in 2004 is one of my most cherished philosophical memories. I was not even done with my Magister at that point, but Paul supported my work wholeheartedly, and he even listened attentively to my very first talk. See our

228  Anne Pollok references to Mendelssohn’s complex theory (Guyer 1996: 138–141, Guyer 2005, Pollok 2006, Pollok 2010, Guyer 2014, and 2020). 2 This is my extension of Guyer (1993: 141), see also Wellbery (1984: 43–47) and then, still not sophisticated enough, Pollok (2006), and Pollok (2010: Chapter II. 2). 3 See on this, for instance, JA 6.1: 14, Pollok (2010: 173–189). 4 See, for instance, JA 1: 571, and (Pollok 2010: 185). 5 In this sense, it also evokes position (2), the perfect presentation. 6 Maybe a combination of aspects (3) and (4) is here responsible as to why we can “like” a bad horror movie. At least we got somewhat excited in the short run, and can establish ourselves as apt judges on bad movies later. We should just note that in most cases such a judgment is barely exciting. 7 This references Mendelssohn’s stance in Hauptgrundsätze, in its version from 1771, see JA 1: 231 (Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage der Philosophischen Schriften), 432, and Pollok (2010: 196–203). 8 Mensch oder Nation. Zu Mendelssohns anthropozentrischer Theorie des Fortschritts und Kants Einreden (TP, 8: 307.01–310.29), Immanuel Kant: Über den Gemeinspruch, Reihe Klassiker Auslegen, ed. by S. Klingner, D. Hüning, Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter (under review), and Pollok (2010, Ch. IV.2). This aspect plays most obviously into condition (3) and could also be found in Augustine, for instance. 9 Note that Mendelssohn differentiates between the direction of intent of the understanding (Erkenntnisvermögen) and the faculty of approval (which he curiously blends into the faculty of desire, see JA 3.2: 63–65). Whereas when we seek to understand, we try to make our representation match with the (external) state of affairs, when it comes to our approval and desire, we seek to align the external world with our wishes, not the other way around. Understanding reaches outward, sentiment and moral judgment inward. The faculty of approval centers on our inclinations and sentiments (Neigungen), not our desire for truth. 10 However, there are cases where Mendelssohn explicitly leaves aside our admiration for the artist in cases of the sublime, see On the Sublime and Naïve in the Fine Sciences: “We wish, hope, and fear for the object of our love or our sympathy and admire his or her great soul that is beyond hope and fear […]. These, then, are the most distinguished sorts of awe which can spring from the object itself without its being necessary to draw the perfections of the artist into consideration as well” (PW: 198–199, JA 1: 462). See Guyer 2020: 249. 11 This does not mean that Kant never considers anthropological issues. But per his position defended in his critical philosophy, as an anthropologist he is just not allowed to rest his reasoning on metaphysical claims, but on empirical data. 12 And this concept is less the perfect state of the world as such, but the perfection of a person situated within this world, see Pollok (2010: 219 and later 342–343). 13 Luckily, so Mendelssohn, olfactory and tactile aspects have “not the least part in the works of the fine arts” (JA 5.1: 131). 14 The case is quite wobbly in case of the ugly of sound – as you cannot quite escape a really bad concert either, even though it is a bit easier to cover your ears than it is getting rid of a nasty taste. 15 Mendelssohn references this person in the Rhapsodie of 1761 (JA 1: 571) and 1771 (JA 1: 383–4), as well as in Morning Hours (JA 3.2: 66), see also Pollok 2010: 187, and also, referencing Kant, 351.

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 229 16 This is not to say that nobody else did; rather, I here claim that this is the decisive feature in both Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s theory. 17 This argument Kant offers, for instance, in the introduction from 1790, XXVII–VIII, 5: 180 (67–68). 18 See McConnell 2008 as a summary, but also Guyer (2012), Cohen (2013), and Berger (2022). 19 See Allison (2001: 72). 20 I am also quite convinced that the aesthetically ugly does not simply necessitate a reversal of all positive aesthetic aspects, i.e. disinterested displeasure, counter-purposiveness, and a necessary disliking. Cohen (2013: 204) does not include as a fourth moment universal invalidity, which would be the opposite of universal validity, but would lack sense altogether. What about the other three moments? Whereas we might want to agree that the ugly necessitates displeasure and an assumption of a shared such judgment across others, the notion of counter-purposiveness is more tricky. In the end, we might agree that a sort of purposiveness is retained, in that the object in question seems to fit into the weave of nature, but just that its purpose seems to be one of hindering. In a sense, we are then locked between two contrary impressions – the artistic object seems successful in being disruptive, while being not purposive in the overall sense. But be it as it may, the overriding aspect for a judgment concerning ugliness seems to be a supposedly shareable displeasure. All other moments need to be considered in a different way. 21 This also means that I ignore here cases that Kant deemed to belong to anthropology, not aesthetics proper, see 7: 241 (139, CUP Louden/Kuehn), where he defines disgust as a reason “to push away a representation that is offered for enjoyment.” Note that, again, the push to enjoy where there is nothing to enjoy is expressed here as well. 22 In §47 Kant references the act, rather than the concept, from which we can glean the beauty of an object, 5: 309 (188). 23 It is important that mimesis is not mere copying. Kant seems to mean that other artists should rather understand the principle than just mimicking the object. 24 wir sinnen es anderen an stresses that we do not strictly hold them to our judgment conceptually – as there is no determinate concept involved – but that we assume a uniformity in our experience, at least as far as the motion of our faculties is concerned. 25 Again, Guyer and I are in agreement, see Guyer (2020: 252). 26 It is interesting that Kant could have avoided many divergent interpretations if he had added a clear relation to practical judgments here – as Guyer (2005: 151) holds, either a sensory judgment (of which loathing is a definite case), or a practical judgment necessarily gets into the way of an aesthetic judgment concerning ugliness and thus renders it impure. I still agree with Guyer’s interpretation, but it is disturbing that Kant does not spell this out here. 27 And here I would argue against Guyer’s interpretation in Guyer (2005: 153), which rather turns on the fact that what we find repulsive is our impression of the artist’s attempt at manipulating and “impos[ing] pleasure on us.” This doesn’t make sense in Kant’s discussion, as the repulsive overwhelms us not in any positive regard, but rather, that it does not allow us to form any kind of aesthetic distance and hence must necessarily evoke some form of interest. 28 We might want to note that Mendelssohn’s position (3) regarding the role of the body in aesthetic appreciation can only be an anthropological position for Kant, anyways.

230  Anne Pollok 29 It might be interesting to consider whether this would also align with judgments such as voiced by Zuckert (2007: 189): “If anything, aesthetic experience seems to be a rapt absorption in (perceiving) the object.” A view that Zuckert deems at odds with Guyer (1996: 206, 225), but also Allison’s (2001) view in Theory of Taste as subjectivism, pp. 133–135. 30 I cannot here discuss Cohen’s view, which actually names four different types of the ugly that affect us conceptually, emotionally, sensuously, or morally (see Cohen 2013: 203). 31 In Guyer’s words, “so that it is not analytically true that all free play must result in harmony”, Guyer (2005: 146, Fn10). 32 It seems to me that Phillips (2011: 391–392) would agree with this, as he also stresses the cognitive subtone in Kant’s notion of the aesthetic judgment. However, he also has a point when he stresses the problem that in case of the ugly we might not talk about any harmony at all (p. 395). 33 Nevertheless, this is a position that Kant reprised often, may it be in the KpV or the Anthropology. 34 A similar and no less negative assessment we see in Anth 7: 236 in “sentimentality”. 35 I thank Elizabeth Stuart (Howard University) for her helpful comments and corrections of my manuscript. All remaining mistakes are, of course, my own. My thanks also to the editors of this volume, for including me in it and, thus, giving me the opportunity to express my gratitude to one of my most important philosophical teachers.

Bibliography Allison, H. E. (2001): Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Cambridge: CUP). Berger, L. (2022): Kants Philosophie des Schönen: Eine kommentarische Interpretation zu den §§ 1–22 der Kritik der Urteilskraft (Freiburg: Alber). Cohen, A. (2013): Kant on the Possibility of Ugliness, «British Journal of Aesthetics» 53/2, pp. 199–209. Ginsborg, H. (2015): The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Oxford: OUP). Guyer, P. (1996): Kant and the Experience of Freedom. Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge: CUP). Guyer, P. (1997): Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2005): Kant on the Purity of the Ugly. In Values of Beauty: Historical Essays in Aesthetics, ed. by P. Guyer (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 141–162.    . (2014): A History of Modern Aesthetics. Vol. 1: The Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: CUP).     (2020): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP). McConnell, S. (2008): How Kant Might Explain Ugliness, «British Journal of Aesthetics» 48/2, pp. 205–228. Mendelssohn, M. (1929–1932, 1971–): Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, ed. by I. Elbogen, J. Guttmann, E. Mittwoch, A. Altmann, E. J. Engel, D. Krochmalnik (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog).    . (1997): Philosophical Writings, ed. by D. O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2006): Ästhetische Schriften, ed. by A. Pollok (Hamburg: Meiner).

Aesthetic Subjectivity in Ugly Matters 231 Phillips, J. (2011): Placing Ugliness in Kant’s Third Critique: A Reply to Paul Guyer, «Kant Studien» 102, pp. 385–395. Pollok, A. (2006): Introduction. In Moses Mendelssohn, Ästhetische Schriften. With an Introduction and Commentary, ed. by A. Pollok (Hamburg: Meiner), pp. vii–li.    . (2010): Facetten des Menschen: Zur Anthropologie Moses Mendelssohns (Hamburg: Meiner).    . (2018): Beautiful Perception and Its Object. Mendelssohn’s Theory of Mixed Sentiments Reconsidered, «Kant Studien» Sonderheft 109/2, pp. 270–285.    . (2020): Is There a Middle Way? Mendelssohn on the Faculty of Approbation. In Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics, ed. by M. Pirholt, K. Axelsson, C. Flodin (London: Routledge), pp. 180–200. Wellbery, D. E. (1984): Lessing’s Laokoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason (Cambridge: CUP). Zuckert, R. (2007): Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment (Cambridge: CUP).

Postscript Kant on Freedom and Human Nature: Responses Paul Guyer

1. Thanks I am deeply gratified by this collection of essays by this distinguished group of philosophers whom I honored to count as students and/or collaborators and in all cases friends for many years, in the case of Rolf-Peter Horstmann almost 50. Reed Winegar completed his PhD under my supervision at Penn before I moved to Brown and he began his own career at Fordham; the editors of this volume, Luigi Filieri and Sofie Møller, who also contribute one of the chapters, were both visiting graduate students (“Visiting Research Fellows”) under my supervision at Brown while completing their own PhDs; Allen Wood first refereed and edited my article on the Refutation of Idealism for the «Philosophical Review» 40 years ago, and then invited me to collaborate with him on the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, a project that took 30 years from start to finish, and on the translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, which took more like a dozen; Marcus Willaschek, Heiner Klemme, Rachel Zuckert, Anne and Konstantin Pollok, Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Melissa Merritt, and Gabriele Gava, are all professional acquaintances of from five to thirty years who have become dear friends over those times; and Rolf, whom I first met at Margaret Wilson’s NEH Summer Institute on Early Modern Philosophy in 1974, has been since then a friend, a colleague, and most recently, a collaborator on our recent book Idealism in Modern Philosophy.1 Friendship with students and colleagues like these has been one of the great joys of my life in philosophy. The format of the volume invites me to say something in response to their contributions. The chapters fall into three groups: The first five, by Wood, Willaschek, Møller, Klemme, and Pauer-Studer, all concern Kant’s moral philosophy, including my approach to it; the next three, by Horstmann, Konstantin Pollok, and Gava, concern topics in Kant’s theoretical philosophy; and the final four, by Winegar, Zuckert, Merritt, and Anne Pollok, all concern in one way or another, Kant’s efforts to “bridge the DOI: 10.4324/9781003259985-17

Postscript 233 gulf” between theoretical and practical philosophy through aesthetics, teleology, and his views about progress in history and morality. I will make my comments on the three groups of chapters in that order, although in the case of the first group I will not discuss the chapters in the order in which they appear, but will start with the chapters that build upon my approach to Kant’s moral philosophy, those of Willaschek, Møller, and Pauer-Studer, and then turn to those that argue with it, namely that of Wood, who implies that my approach is not naturalistic enough, and that of Klemme, who explicitly argues that my approach is too naturalistic. Then, I will turn to the second and third groups of chapters. I will hardly be able to respond to every point raised by these stimulating chapters, but will try to use my comments to clarify what I take to be important results from my lifelong study and critique of Kant. 2.  The Legislation of the Realm of Freedom In my three decades of work on Kant’s moral philosophy beginning with my 1993 paper Kant’s Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom,2 I have tried to defend and develop the view that Kant’s approach is not based on the value or necessity of conforming to universality or any other criterion of rationality for its own sake, but rather requires conformity to reason as the means to realizing the greatest possible freedom of all of humankind, the only rational agents with whom we can actually interact, to set and pursue their own ends, the goal that Kant calls the “essential end” of humankind.3 I will say right up front that my maximizing language may seem objectionable, for it is certainly hard to quantify the exercise of freedom (make more choices? make more free agents? neither seems quite right), but, first, Kant’s conception of the maximization of freedom does have a distributive constraint built in – the equal freedom of all agents – that other maximizing approaches, e.g., aggregate utilitarianism do not, and Kant does use maximizing language himself: In the Collins lectures, he speaks of the “greatest use of freedom” three times in a single paragraph. Beginning with my 2002 paper Kant’s Deductions of the Principles of Right,4 I have also defended the view that it is their common foundation in the value of such freedom that ties together what Kant calls right (Recht) and ethics as the two parts of morality as a whole, distinguished from each other not by separate foundations but above all by the criterion whether the obligations engendered from this foundation may be coercively enforced through the external incentives of the civil condition or the state, in the case of right, or motivated only by the internal incentive of the agent’s own respect for the moral law, in the case of ethics.5 While I have developed my interpretation over the years, what has remained constant is my critical claim that we can understand the freedom to set and pursue our own ends that plays

234  Paul Guyer this normative role in Kant’s moral philosophy without being committed to Kant’s metaphysics of freedom of the will. Kant himself clearly thought that a radically libertarian conception of freedom of the will is necessary to ensure that human beings are always free to live up to the demands of the moral law no matter what their prior history and experience has been and that room for this possibility can be opened up only by the liberation of the real locus of human agency from the thoroughgoing determinism of the world as we experience it through transcendental idealism’s distinction between spatio-temporal phenomena and non-spatio-temporal noumena. But, I have argued, we can accept the foundational normative role of freedom in Kant’s moral philosophy without buying into transcendental idealism (against which I raised independent objections in my work on Kant’s theoretical philosophy),6 and, further, Kant himself understood freedom in empirical rather than transcendental idealist terms in his accounts of imputations of responsibility in the lectures on ethics and in his expositions of our juridical rights and ethical obligations in the Metaphysics of Morals, a work devoted to developing the implications of the fundamental principle of morality for human beings in the actual, empirical conditions of our existence. As a matter of interpretation, I have never claimed that Kant himself was a whole-hearted naturalist, but it is in this way that I propose that, as a matter of philosophy, we can think of the useful part of his moral philosophy as at least to some extent compatible with naturalism, itself understood, as Allen Wood has often suggested, as involving no commitment to “spooky” entities, that is, entities unrecognized by and incompatible with our sciences, ranging from physics and chemistry to psychology and anthropology.7 It is on this point that Wood gently suggests that I do not go far enough while Klemme forcibly argues that I go much too far. But let me come back to Wood and Klemme, and begin with some comments on the chapters by Willaschek, Møller, and Pauer-Studer. All three authors are sympathetic to my view that the maximal yet equal freedom of all rational beings, but in our experience all human beings, to set their own ends is the supreme goal of morality and the foundation of all forms of the categorical imperative and the specific juridical and ethical obligations of human beings. Willaschek explores what Kant’s answer to his question “What is the human being?” might be. In the spirit of Porphyrean definition, the obvious answer seems to be that the human being is an, or to the best of our knowledge, the only animale rationabilie, more fully the animal capable of using its reason in the exercise of its freedom. This may seem paradoxical, because this means precisely that human beings “are not given a fixed nature but must create one for themselves”, so they cannot be defined by any fixed nature or character after all. This is not really paradoxical, though, Willaschek continues, because we can take “Kant to

Postscript 235 be saying that the essence of the human species is to be free, which quality distinguishes it from all other animals”. To put it in other terms, we can say that the human species cannot be defined by the first-order characters particular human beings have chosen for themselves, because they will differ among themselves, but by the second-order characteristic of being able to choose different first-order characters for themselves. This would be no more problematic than defining bodies as impenetrable occupants of three-dimensional space in spite of the fact that the particular shapes, sizes, and locations in three-dimensional space will differ among different bodies (not that I am recommending this definition of body). According to Willaschek, however, the problem with this resolution of the paradox is that freedom is not “a measurable quality; it is not a quality at all but a task”. In the Preface to my 2016 collection Virtues of Freedom, I used the expression “normative essentialism” to summarize my interpretation of Kant’s approach to moral philosophy, or if you like his meta-ethics; Willaschek is accepting my interpretation of freedom as the fundamental norm for human beings, although the freedom of all as the norm for each, thus the exercise of freedom to create one’s own character but within the confines of the moral law, but querying my characterization of this freedom as our “essence” because it is a task or a goal, not a quality or characteristic. My term was something of a trial balloon, and I do not feel deeply wedded to it. Nevertheless, I would make these two points in response to Willaschek. First, of course equal maximal freedom is a goal, a task to be achieved, which we humans fail to achieve every time we are unfair to another, or for that matter to ourselves, use another or even ourselves merely as a means, not as an end, and so on; but it is, in Kant’s view at least, a goal that we all have, a fact that can thus be counted as essential to us. This is reflected in Kant’s way of explicating (not explaining) wrong-doing in the Groundwork or evil in the Religion: No one is ever simply ignorant of the moral law or deaf to its claim upon us, thus no one is ignorant of the task of preserving and promoting equal maximal freedom, although people do attempt to carve out exceptions for themselves to the law that they recognize as generally valid (Groundwork, 4:405), or do subordinate the moral law to self-love (RGV, 6: 35–36). Kant does regard being aware of and answerable to the moral law as characteristic of every human being and of no other animal, thus as suitable for a definition of the human essence, and if the moral law is interpreted as setting freedom as our most fundamental task, then that task is essential to human beings. Second, in Kant’s view every human being is also free to act in accordance with the moral law, to tackle that task or take on that goal, thus freedom is also a quality of human beings, and once again, since we know of no other animal of which this is true, a quality that is essential to human beings. We may have to distinguish two senses of freedom in order to make sense of this,

236  Paul Guyer on the one hand the freedom of each of us to set and pursue our own ends in a maximal but intra- and interpersonally consistent way that is the essential end of mankind, as Kant puts it in the lectures (e.g., V-Mo/Collins, 27: 344), on the other hand the freedom of each of to choose whether or not to accept the task and constraint set by the moral law. In Kant’s later terminology, this is the difference between the freedom that is the object of pure practical reason or Wille and the freedom of Willkür or the power of choice. To be sure, Kant thinks of the latter freedom as complete and absolute, in a way that can be secured only by the possibility of noumenal freedom, and we may not want to follow him there, instead preferring the empirical account of freedom of choice as varying in degree among different human beings and at different moments in any particular human life that underlies Kant’s account of degrees of imputation in the lectures (e.g., V-Mo/Collins, 27: 291–298). I will come back to it in my comments on Allen Wood’s and Heiner Klemme’s chapters. For now, the bottom line is that we can successfully combine Kant’s conception of the normative force of freedom, about which Willaschek and I are in agreement, with a kind of essentialism, about which Willaschek is worried. Sofie Møller also asks “What is Humanity?” and accepts my conception of it as the ability of human beings to set their own ends but also to do so in a way compatible with the freedom of all to do the same (which I always stress includes compatibility with the future use of one’s own capacity to set one’s ends); what she wants to make clear that this is an abstract or “transcendental” goal or telos that must be realized by actual human beings in the empirically known circumstances of their temporal existence, which means developed and perfected so far as we can over our life spans from infancy and childhood to maturity and beyond, in the varied circumstances and with the varied resources and potential talents in and with which we find ourselves. In her words, my “teleological interpretation helps us understand how Kant reconciles empirical with transcendental human nature by understanding humanity as an ideal toward which agents ought to move”. Because this goal must be sought by each in their different actual circumstances, Møller emphasizes, “The duty remains the same although its empirical application takes different forms”, even “treating different people differently” can be “the result of applying the same concept of duty rather than an expression of different duties”. This is an important point. Obviously, infants, toddlers, pre-teens, and adolescents have different capacities than adults, and the same respect for their humanity, or for their potential for humanity, or for their ­humanity as a characteristic that develops and changes over a normal human life span, requires, for example, that children be treated differently than adults. For instance, in Kant’s view, parents have a pretty strict duty to nurture and educate the children whom they have brought into the world,

Postscript 237 but children, who certainly did not choose to be brought into the world, do not have any strict debt to their parents, and may have only a wide duty to assist them in old age if they can. Kant may have held benighted views about differences between the races and the sexes (even by the standards of his own time), but even if he thought that men had a natural right to head households he also thought that the only way to moralize the otherwise animal act of sex was for the couple (to be sure, a heterosexual couple in a monogamous marriage) to treat each other as ends not merely as means, thus, to engage only in consensual sex even within marriage. Thus, there are all sorts of empirical differences among human beings, but there is a common core of duty, treating the humanity in each always as an end and never merely as a means, in spite of those empirical differences and the different expressions of duty that may follow from them. Møller’s chapter focuses on normative implications of my approach to Kant’s moral philosophy; Herlinde Pauer-Studer is ostensibly more focused on the meta-ethical status of my approach, although, in fact, she also clarifies the normative structure of Kant’s system of categorical imperatives (to use Allen Wood’s phrase) in a way that complements my own most recent efforts in a paper she could not have seen yet while writing hers, my 2022 De Gruyter Kant Lecture on The Empire of Ends (as I now prefer to translate Reich der Zwecke).8 By the latter remark, I mean that Pauer-Studer emphasizes that “when we focus on morality as a social practice for the preservation of our autonomy”, then it seems that “Kant’s Formula of a Realm of Ends (FRE) and the corresponding requirement” to act in accordance with maxims that could lead to such a realm “becomes pivotal”, and that the Formula of the Realm of Ends “is fundamental and the other formulas of the categorical imperative such as ‘the Formula of Universal Law and that of Humanity as an End in Itself’ are particular ways of spelling out the normative elements embraced by FRE in terms of criteria for evaluating our maxims.” This is close to what I argue, although I suggest that we understand the requirement always to treat humanity as an end and never merely as a means as the normative foundation of Kant’s system, that the Realm of the Ends is the goal to be achieved through the sum total of all of our maxims, and that the Formula of Universal Law is only a test to be applied to individual maxims considered in isolation from each other to see if they could be freely chosen by any and all. But there is not very much daylight between us on the importance of the idea of an empire of ends. Where there might be more is in meta-ethics. PauerStuder treats my position as a form of moral realism insofar as it begins from the “simple fact” that each human being has her own will combined with an application of the principle of non-contradiction that leads to the result that we cannot both accept this fact and yet deny it in treating other persons, or even ourselves, as if they (and we) did not have wills of our

238  Paul Guyer own. (Since Pauer-Studer clearly recognizes that this is the starting point of my interpretation in Kant on the Rationality of Morality,9 I am actually somewhat puzzled why she then says that “Guyer’s discussion of the principle of noncontradiction refers primarily to the role it plays in Kant’s testing procedures”: I see the requirement to avoid contradicting our recognition that each has his or her own will, i.e., humanity, as underlying or expressed in the Formula of Humanity as the requirement that we do not treat anyone as a mere means, i.e., as if they did not have their own will, and the further use of the Formula of Universal Law as a way of testing maxims for compatibility with the humanity, i.e., freedom of others to set their own ends and therefore adopt their maxims freely.) PauerStuder wants to oppose a form of constructivism to what she regards as my realism. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the dichotomy here: I would say that my starting point has elements of both realism and constructivism, since on the one hand it does start from an alleged fact, that each has her own will, but also requires the application of the principle of non-contradiction to that fact, which can be considered a norm if ever there were one. Thus, I do not “defend a form of plain realism by relying” solely “on a concept of person for which the ability to set one’s own end is ­central”; the norm of the principle of non-contradiction has to be applied to that fact. After that point, I am comfortable enough with the characterization of my interpretation as constructivist in the original sense in which Rawls used it, namely that the specific duties of human beings are derived or constructed through the application of the fundamental principle of morality to some basic, empirically given facts about the conditions of human existence, rather than themselves being some kind of “facts” just hanging out there in moral space in the way that Platonic Forms hang out wherever it is that they are supposed to hang out. At this stage, there is no daylight between Pauer-Studer and me. But what I find most interesting in Pauer-Studer’s chapter is her account of what a deduction of the formulas of the categorical imperative might look like. She argues that as a transcendental argument, it should not be understood just as a regress from the concept of autonomy to the moral law, or an “analytical connection” between them, but must also display a “normative reason to endorse the ethical principles that grant me the normative status of an autonomous agent and obligate others to treat me accordingly”. Here is where the “pivotal” status of the Formula of the Realm of Ends comes in, for what Pauer-Studer argues is basically that Forming our [social] relations on the model of a realm of ends – an ideal that commits rational agents to agreement on shared laws – grants us the status of autonomous and self-legislating agents who relate to each other with respect. Our recognition of the value of

Postscript 239 humanity and autonomy provides us with a normative reason to consent to the ethical principles that are constitutive of humanity in the sphere of inner freedom. (Though, I would add, of outer freedom as well). In other words, the regressive phase of Kant’s argument shows that the moral law (in all the both simplicity and complexity of the system of categorical imperatives) is constitutive of autonomy, that is, states the rules that we need to follow if we are all to be autonomous (just as the rules of chess are constitutive of playing chess), but that these constitutive rules have normative force only because we value autonomy (just as the rules of chess have normative force only if we want to play chess, although valuing autonomy is more than just wanting to play a game). To this I would only add that it is much the same as the interpretation of Kant that I proposed in papers from Kant’s Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom and others collected in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness through my 2011 Eastern Division Presidential Address A Passion for Reason.10 Perhaps I should take my more “realist” approach in Kant on the Rationality of Morality as an experiment, and take Pauer-Studer to be telling me to stick to my original approach. Allen Wood has always considered Kant to be a moral realist, but that is not the issue in his present chapter. Rather, he aims to convince us not merely that Kant has a coherent and important empirical theory of freedom as the condition of moral responsibility and as the ultimate content of our duties and that we can set aside any concern with transcendental freedom in accepting this theory, but that Kant himself meant to set aside any metaphysical or speculative attempt to prove the reality of freedom of the will and to explain it, in fact even to prove its possibility. According to Wood’s Kant, we can simply presuppose the possibility of freedom in practice, that is, in making decisions to act; the “fact of reason” is our “awareness of an actual exercise of freedom,” that is, practical freedom in cases in which we are empirically free (not infantile, not incompetent, not drunk, etc.), and we can simply presuppose transcendental freedom – ­presumably, libertarian freedom, the ability to choose between alternatives regardless of what might seem to be necessitated by our prior history – as the condition of the possibility of practical freedom, without any metaphysical theory. For all that we can get out of metaphysics or speculative philosophy is the proof that there is no logical contradiction in this conception of our transcendental proof, not a proof or an explanation of its possibility let alone actuality, but that is all that we need from it. Further, Wood argues that the assertion of the “fact of reason” so understood is common to both the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason, so there is not the great reversal between them that so many commentators have supposed.

240  Paul Guyer I agree with Wood that “it is impossible for any interpretation to reconcile everything Kant says about this topic throughout his long career, or even during his critical period”, but I think that one has to set aside an awful lot of what Kant says to arrive at Wood’s irenic, naturalistic account of Kant’s position on freedom. For one, of course, for Kant, the absence of logical contradiction is a kind of possibility, namely logical possibility, so I think it is misleading to say that Kant makes no attempt at a metaphysical proof of the possibility of transcendental freedom. He does not think that we can prove the real possibility of transcendental freedom, because real possibility has to include a ratio cognitionis of the definiendum, and that is supposed to be unavailable to us in the case of anything noumenal; and he does not think we can explain transcendental freedom, although more importantly to him, what we cannot explain, what is “inscrutable”, is why anyone uses it one way rather than the other, pro or contra the superiority of morality to self-love. But Kant does think that transcendental idealism is necessary to prove even the logical possibility of transcendental freedom. More interestingly, perhaps, I agree with Wood that on the subject of the “fact of reason” there is a deep commonality between the Groundwork and the second Critique, although Kant does not use that phrase until the later work; but the commonality is that the fact of reason is the reality of transcendental freedom in both works. In Groundwork III, Kant worries that merely presupposing our freedom, which requires the validity of the moral law for us, is not enough, that it is circular or a petitio principii; and he then asserts that we in fact are cognizant of our rationality and spontaneity, i.e., transcendental freedom, as we really are rather than as we appear, i.e., at the noumenal rather than phenomenal level. This, in turn, entails that we really are subject to the moral law. Kant does reverse the direction of proof in the second Critique, arguing that we can infer our transcendental freedom from our awareness of our subjection to the moral law, but the “fact of reason” here is that the moral law does emanate from our pure practical reason, which Kant here takes to be inseparable from our pure, transcendentally free will. In Kant’s words, although with my emphases: We can become aware of pure practical laws just as we are aware of pure theoretical laws, by attending to the necessity with which reason prescribes them to us and to the setting aside of all empirical conditions to which reason directs us. The concept of a pure will arises from the first, as the consciousness of a pure understanding arises from the latter. (5: 30) In both cases, Kant claims that we have cognition of – it is a fact that we have – pure reason and a pure, spontaneous or transcendentally free, will

Postscript 241 to go along with it, although in the Groundwork we are supposed to be directly aware of our pure reason and spontaneity and then to infer the moral law from it whereas in the second Critique we are supposed to infer the reality of – the fact of – our pure reason and pure will from our consciousness of the moral law. And in the case of the second Critique, we must keep in mind that what might be an empirical argument that we know we can do the right thing when confronted with the threat of punishment for going into a brothel or refusing to bear false witness is only supposed to “confirm this order of concepts in us”, not to be the actual argument for or about the fact of reason (and as Catherine Wilson has pointed out, as an empirical argument Kant’s examples are pretty weak).11 In my view, then, Kant’s conception of the “fact of reason” is the linchpin of his argument in both of his foundational works in moral philosophy, but his doctrine is clearly transcendental, blurring the boundary between the speculative and the practical if you will, and hardly naturalistic. This is not to say that I think that Kant’s argument in either Groundwork III or the Critique of Practical Reason is compelling, but that is a matter of philosophical assessment, not historical interpretation.12 Much as I might like to find a strictly naturalistic account of moral normativity and imputability in Kant, such an account can never be regarded as more than one part or level of the view of the historical Kant. This brings me now to the chapter of Heiner Klemme, who thinks that my interpretation of Kant is overly naturalistic instead of not naturalistic enough. But I will come back to that in dealing with the last of the three points in Klemme’s challenging chapter that I will take up here. Overall, Klemme objects to my interpretation of the preservation and promotion of the freedom of all to set their own ends as the foundation of Kant’s moral philosophy and argues instead for the self-preservation of rationality itself as Kant’s lodestar. His argument begins with an objection to my account of freedom as the fundamental value according to Kant, a way in which I certainly have expressed my view; Klemme’s objection is that for Kant the only fundamental value – absolute and unconditional – is the good will, not freedom. The claim that a good will is the only thing of unconditional value is of course the starting point of Kant’s argument in Groundwork I. But it must be kept in mind that in that section, Kant is supposed to be deriving the (first formulation of the) categorical imperative from common rational cognition of morals only, while in Groundwork II, when he replaces “popular moral philosophy” (which is not the same thing as “common rational cognition of morals” at all) with a genuine “metaphysics of morals”,13 he asserts that the “ground of a possible categorical imperative” (4: 428) is the status of humanity as an end in itself, which, on the basis of his definition of humanity as nothing other than our ability to set our own ends in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue of the later Metaphysics of Morals (6: 387,

242  Paul Guyer 392), I take to be saying that it is precisely that freedom that must always be treated as an end and never merely as a means. But more on that in a moment; for now, let me add to these textual points the argument that even if we accept the claim about the unconditional value of the good will as an intuitive starting-point for Kant’s argument, we have to know something about what the good will wills to do anything with it. We might say that it is analytically, that is to say trivially true that the good will is good, but if we subtract from the concept , we’re still left with , i.e., we have to supply some content, some account of what it is that the good person wills. You might, as Klemme does, plug in rationality here, but what I argue is that the object of the good will is nothing other than the preservation and promotion of the freedom of each to set her own ends insofar as that is consistent with all being free to do so. As I already noted, it is the “conditions under which alone the greatest use of freedom is possible, and under which it can be self-consistent”, which in the Collins lectures Kant calls the “essential ends of mankind” (27: 346). My project has been to interpret Kant’s moral philosophy on the basis of this statement. Nevertheless, let me meet Klemme halfway on his second point, that “reason itself constitutes the norm to which the will must refer in order to be a good will”, that we “attach ‘an absolute worth’ to our existence as rational beings”, that it is the “principle of our rationality” that “grounds the significance of freedom as a value”, not vice versa, and so on. On the one hand, I want to argue that if we think of reason in formal terms, as the source of the demand for non-contradiction, for universalizability, etc., then it must be applied to some matter to yield any result at all, for instance, it is the freedom of each of us that must not be contradicted, that must be universalized, etc. Without that matter, formal rationality amounts to nothing more than the sound of one hand clapping. Yet if we start with a more material conception of rationality, namely as self-activity or spontaneity, as Klemme seems to do, then my point is already won: My formulation, freedom to set our own ends, might be more concrete than Klemme’s more abstract conception of self-activity or spontaneity, but the freedom to set our own ends is what practical reason’s self-­activity turns out to be in the phenomenal world. To come back to the other hand, though, I would concede that Kant’s formulation, “Treat humanity whether in your own person or that of any other always as an end and never merely as a means”, already includes the generalizing requirement of formal rationality (on my account in Kant on the Rationality of ­Morality in turn derived from the necessity of not denying that anyone who has their own will does have one). So perhaps Klemme and I could agree in the end that we need the combination of rationality with humanity, that everyone get to set their own ends as far as that is compatible with each being free to do so, to get Kant’s moral philosophy off the ground.

Postscript 243 This brings me to the last Klemme’s main objections, that my account of the value of freedom, even of rational and rationalized freedom, is too naturalistic, while “Kant’s a priori concepts of freedom and reason shield us” from the problems of naturalism and give our moral principles “a normative structure that lays claim to validity in the course of our changing empirical convictions”. Here I will just say that I would be comfortable enough to concede this point if only I really understood, all the way down, Kant’s conception of the synthetic a priori. To admit the obvious, I’ve always been an empiricist in Kantian clothing, so I understand the conception of the analytic a priori and the synthetic a posteriori – Hume’s “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact”, for example – but I do squirm a little when it comes to assertions of the synthetic a priori. In the Afterword to Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, I suggested that maybe we should think of the synthetic a priori cognitions that ground Kant’s theoretical philosophy – that space and time are the forms of human sensible intuition, that knowledge takes the form of judgment, and that all judgments have the four moments of quantity, quality, relation, and modality – as the forms of our thinking that we know empirically but still just cannot imagine to be otherwise, thus that we find to be immune to all our “changing empirical convictions”, as Klemme puts it, though we really cannot give any proof of them, anything that would count as thoroughly a priori.14 I am tempted to say something similar in the case of Kant’s moral philosophy: I really cannot imagine not valuing my freedom to set my own ends, even more than the realization of any particular end that I might set; I really cannot imagine anyone else thinking otherwise about their freedom; and I really cannot imagine anything other than that like cases should be treated alike. As Locke’s “judicious Hooker” put it: For seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure, if I cannot but wish to receive all good, even as much at every man’s hand as any man can wish to his own soul: how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men, well being of one and the same nature?15 Is any of this truly a priori? I am sorry to say that after more than 50 years of thinking about this, I cannot say anything more than that I cannot imagine that any of it is false. Perhaps we can agree to settle for that. 3.  The Legislation of the Realm of Nature In this section, I will comment on the contributions of Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Konstantin Pollok, and Gabriele Gava. These begin with issues raised in the Critique of Pure Reason but lead to issues further discussed

244  Paul Guyer in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, which comes to center stage in the third group of chapters in this volume and thus in the final section of my comments. Horstmann takes up an issue raised in a paper that I published in 2018, The Infinite Given Magnitude and Other Myths about Space and Time.16 Horstmann accepts my general claim that Kant really should not countenance the idea of anything as both infinite yet given, but makes the original claim that Kant does not become completely clear about this until the third Critique, where he makes a firmer distinction between intuitions and concepts than he had in the first Critique (and one could add, than he had in the inaugural dissertation of 1770 as well), which clearly implies that any conception of infinitude is always the product of some form of ­imagination that goes beyond what is ever immediately given in intuition. I will come back to this claim in a moment, but first I want to comment on an issue that is not central to Horstmann’s argument, but is of importance to me. In the introduction to his chapter he alludes to Kant’s “rather late discovery of an a priori principle of the power of judgment, a discovery that gave rise to the third Critique”, and he expresses no qualms about Kant’s proposal that an a priori principle of “purposiveness”, the a priori premise that nature is suitable to our own cognitive powers, underlies both parts of the third Critique, that is, Kant’s aesthetics and his teleology, although of course in the third Critique this principle is transposed into a regulative key and Kant’s teleology in particular is understood regulatively rather than constitutively, that is, as a piece of speculative metaphysics in  the indicative mood. Since my earliest work, first in my dissertation and then in Kant and the Claims of Taste, I have had trouble with Kant’s claim that his analysis and justification of judgments of taste, particularly judgments of beauty, actually depends on any such claim.17 My qualm, which further interpretations of the third Critique, such as those of Allison and Zuckert have never been able to allay,18 is that while the principle of purposiveness would lend some appearance of necessity to the existence of beautiful objects, in particular in nature, that are purposive for our cognitive powers of imagination and understanding, in stimulating “free play” between them, Kant’s explanation of the pleasure that we take in that condition seems to depend upon it seeming contingent and not rule-driven that any particular object does occasion it. And in spite of Kant’s introduction of this principle of purposiveness in the Introduction to the third Critique, especially the first version of it, the only allegedly a priori principle that actually appears in the body of the text is the a priori principle that our minds all work the same way, which is what justifies our claim to speak with a “universal voice” when we make judgments of taste on the basis entirely of our own feelings of pleasure in the experience of an object (see Critique of the Power of Judgment, §§ 21, 38). Further, the claim that our

Postscript 245 experience of purposiveness in nature is contingently experienced rather than given a priori seems crucial to Kant’s account of our “intellectual interest” in the beautiful, namely that we can take our experience of beauty in nature as some evidence, a “hint” (Wink) that nature is purposive for us in a moral regard, that is, receptive to our efforts to be moral (§42) – if it were really an a priori principle that nature is purposive for us, we would not need any empirical evidence of it. (I will make a further observation on this point in my comments on Reed Winegar’s chapter in the next section.) But to Horstmann’s main point, that while Kant’s distinction between intuition and concept is blurry enough in the first Critique to allow him to suggest that space and time are given as infinite magnitudes in the Transcendental Aesthetic, the third Critique requires him to draw a firmer boundary between intuition and concept, in order to make possible his conception of the experience of beauty as an experience of the free play of imagination without any determinate concept, and also his distinction between indefinitely extendable aesthetic apprehension and the impossible aesthetic comprehension of the infinite in his account of the mathematical sublime. I find Horstmann’s account of the implications of the third Critique for Kant’s suggestion that we can ever actually be given an infinite magnitude compelling, but I would argue that Kant’s resolution of the first two Antinomies of Pure Reason in the first Critique had already driven a spike into the heart of the suggestion that space and time are infinite given magnitudes, that is, infinite magnitudes given in intuition alone, even if Kant had let the assertion of the latter stand in the revision of the Transcendental Aesthetic in 1787 and thus did not fully acknowledge the implication of the Antinomy at that time. What I have in mind is Kant’s argument that reason’s idea of the “unconditioned” cannot be applied to things in themselves either in the form of the completely finite or the completely infinite, and that space and time can be considered only as indefinitely extendable forms of intuition or appearance. That is, for example in the case of the first Antinomy, Kant argues that both the thesis that “The world has a beginning in time, and in space it is also enclosed in boundaries” and the antithesis “The word has no beginning and no bounds in space, but is infinite with regard both space and time” (A 426 427 B 454–455) are false, while spatio-temporal appearances exist only in the “successive regress”, which can always be continued (A 506 B 634). On this basis, Kant should already have recognized that space and time are never actually given as infinite, although the forms of spatial and temporal intuition – that every space can always be represented as surrounded by a larger space, and every extent of time can always be represented as preceded and followed by more time (A 25 B 40, A 31–32 B 47) mean that any representation of space or time is always indefinitely extendable. In my 2018 paper, I connect this point with the claim that the forms of pure

246  Paul Guyer intuition never present any determinate objects to us at all, only the forms of possible objects. Just as, for example, the construction of a triangle in pure intuition, even one with determinately-sized angles such as an equilateral triangle, leaves the actual length of its sides indeterminate and thus is a representation only of possible triangular objects, not a representation of any particular actual triangular object, so space and time as the pure forms of intuition represent to us only possible spaces and times, not any actual space or time, and so have no determinate size at all. Only actual objects in space and time as thus far measured have determinate extension or duration, and, of course, by Kant’s lights that cannot be given as actually infinite. Thus, Kant’s suggestion in the Aesthetic that the pure intuitions of space and time present us with actually infinite given magnitudes is problematic from the point of the rest of the first Critique as well as from that of the third. Pollok’s and Gava’s chapters are closely connected, for they both argue that there are points at which Kant himself recognizes that his a priori principles of both theoretical and practical cognition do not merely allow for intersubjectivity but require actual intersubjective communication. Neither of them could have known that this is an issue that had interested me since college, when I wrote my senior thesis precisely on the question whether Kant’s philosophy allowed for the possibility of intersubjectively better than, for example, Berkeley’s, which seemed to reduce all external objects, thus including other embodied persons, to ideas either in one’s own mind or in God’s, but didn’t allow one person to believe in the reality of another. I think as far as I got at age 21 was to argue that Kant’s distinction between intuitions on the one hand and conceptual framework on the other allows us to at least impute the same conceptual framework to actual others without any contradiction. But Pollok has gone further, showing how taking account of the “understanding of others, instead of isolating ourselves with our own understanding”, as Kant argues in the Anthropology but also in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (§40) and the introduction to the Jäsche Logic, is a necessary step in moving from a priori principles to actual theoretical cognition and aesthetic and moral judgment. Gava’s persuasive argument that Kant’s distinction between conviction and persuasion should not be used to enlarge his distinction between knowledge, opinion, and belief to define yet another kind of Fürwahrhalten, but is rather a distinction in the quality of the grounds for one’s acceptance of the reasons for knowledge and belief, can be connected to Pollok’s point by the recognition that in real life one can use agreement with others as a basis for conviction rather than mere persuasion of the truth of one’s grounds for knowledge or practical belief. Here, I would just like to add to Pollok’s account a point about the reasons for concerning oneself with the actual views of others in the three cases of theoretical cognition, aesthetic judgment, and moral

Postscript 247 judgment. Namely, I would suggest that while in the first two cases actual agreement with others may be of heuristic significance, in the moral case it is more than that. That is, in both theoretical and aesthetic cases, while it is certainly possible that one might arrive at the correct result on some matter, some knowledge-claim or some judgment of taste, entirely based on one’s own observations and feelings, it is certainly also possible that one may need the assistance of others. That is self-evident in the case of ordinary empirical knowledge but especially in the case of scientific claims, where we need the input of others not just to correct our mistakes, but to make up for the limited range of observations and limited knowledge of theories possible for any one person. (Think how many authors it takes to produce the average published paper in medicine or particle physics!) In the aesthetic case, Kant points out that the young poet may not be willing to listen to the critical judgments of others, but the more mature poet may well recognize that others’ disinterested assessments of the merit of his work may be more reliable than his own highly interested judgments; and, even leaving the possibility of error or misjudgment aside, it may behoove us to listen to the judgments of refined and experienced critics because “Many a man is capable of relishing a fine stroke when it is pointed out to him” (Of the Standard of Taste) – others may direct us to pleasures we simply do not (yet) know about. Still, this is all heuristic and contingent. But the status of others in the moral case is more constitutive of our duties than merely heuristic. We have duties to ourselves that do not directly involve actual other persons at all, of course, and also duties not to harm others (or their freedom) in ways that we can easily extrapolate from our own case without much direct knowledge of their actual feelings, hopes, dreams, etc., – “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” But we have the huge, although “imperfect”, obligation to promote the happiness of others, although only on their own conception of their happiness (MS, Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, section V.B, 6: 388). Obviously, we cannot promote the happiness of others on their own conceptions of it unless we can know what their conceptions of their happiness are. Thus, in morality, knowledge of the actual mental states of others is not just useful for our own objectives, but indispensable. 4.  Bridging the Gulf between the Realms of Nature and Freedom Let me turn now to the final group of chapters, by Reed Winegar, Rachel Zuckert, Melissa Merritt, and Anne Pollok, which concern the Critique of the Power of Judgment and related writings even more centrally than those just discussed. Winegar’s chapter on The Final End of Creation places Kant’s argument in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment in the context

248  Paul Guyer of Kant’s most fundamental departure from the world-view of Leibniz and his followers Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. We know that Kant grew up in an intellectual world deeply influenced by Leibniz, and that profound affinities with Leibniz remained in his mature philosophy. Kant’s distinction between phaenomena and noumena was influenced by Leibniz, after all, and Kant’s ultimate moral concept of the “empire of ends” was no doubt influenced by Leibniz’s distinction between the “kingdom of nature” and the “kingdom of grace”. We are also familiar with obvious differences between Kant and Leibniz, such as Kant’s insistence that the distinction between sensibility and understanding is a difference in kind, not merely in degree, his consequent rejection of Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles, and so on. But Winegar shows that perhaps the greatest distinction between Leibniz and his followers on the one hand and Kant on the other is that the former thought that the fundamental purpose of human existence is to recognize the magnificence of God’s creation of nature and thereby celebrate the glory of God himself, while, for Kant, the purpose of human existence is the fullest possible development of human morality: The greatest possible realization of human freedom and the greatest possible human happiness that would follow from that. This difference should be evident from the opening moment of the Groundwork, when Kant asserts that the only thing that is unconditionally good is the good will, something that is possible for human beings to achieve on their own, without any divine assistance, as Kant will go on to stress in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (even though, as I argued against Heiner Klemme, Kant’s argument from the good will in Groundwork I is only preliminary to his formal exposition of the categorical imperative in Section II). It is in this context, Winegar argues, that Kant’s argument in the Critique of the Power of Judgment from the necessity, for our discursive understandings, of judging organic beings as purposive, to our further judgment that all of nature is purposive, that, therefore, we must think of it as if were the product of a designer, but also naturally think that such a designer must have had a purpose for its design, which would have to be something of unconditional value, and, finally, to the full development of our own morality, in the sensible world through discipline but in the supersensible world by the proper exercise of our freedom, as the only possible candidate for the unconditionally valuable point of the existence of all of creation – the good will, if you like, under another name – should be understood.19 Of course, all of this is to be taken in a regulative rather than a constitutive mode: Thinking of the world as if it were designed is supposed to be a valuable heuristic for our scientific investigation of nature, but even more so is it a valuable way of reminding us of our most fundamental moral obligation, the greatest possible use of freedom as the essential end of humankind.20 I could not agree

Postscript 249 with Winegar’s historical point more, and will only add the suggestion that once we have seen this, we can see Kant’s fundamental difference with the Leibnizians all over the place, for example in his doctrine of the primacy of practical reason. Leibniz’s attitude toward the world is fundamentally theoretical, Kant’s fundamentally practical. But let me return to the principle of purposiveness, as I said in my response to Horstmann that I would. I argued there that it does not seem to play a real role in Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment. It could certainly be argued that this supposedly a priori principle does play an indispensable role in the teleological argument to the final end of nature that Winegar has discussed. It does not seem to play a role in our initial stance toward organisms as purposive beings or “internal ends” – that stance seems not to be presupposed but to be forced upon us by the difficulty of conceiving of organisms by means of our ordinary conception of causality (although of course for us post-Kantians the great results of biological science from Darwin through Watson and Crick and on to the Human Genome Project should have alleviated much of that supposed difficulty.) Perhaps the principle is needed to take the second step from the internal purposiveness of organisms to the purposiveness of all of nature, which is what we can ultimately make sense of only in moral terms. But even there we could wonder how much an a priori principle this supposed principle really is: Perhaps we just have a natural predisposition to move in thought from the idea of some of nature as purposive to the idea of all of nature as purposive (as, good Humeans that we are, we always have a disposition to generalize), but can justify this presupposition only once we put it to moral use. This would confirm Kant’s own teleological presupposition that everything in our own nature has a proper use, if only we look in the right place – ultimately, to morality.21 This account of Kant’s argument might work as well or better than one that turns on an a priori principle of the faculty of judgment by itself. I believe that the moral teleology in a regulative mood that Winegar has so well described provides the framework for all the rest of Kant’s work in the 1790s, which, from the Religion and “Theory and Practice” to the Metaphysics of Morals concerns the implications of the a priori principle of morality not for all rational beings but for us human beings, embodied in the way and in the circumstances in which we are. This is a general point that should be kept in mind in thinking about the chapters by Zuckert, Merritt, and Anne Pollok. Zuckert argues that Kant’s philosophy of history should be seen as his response to Rousseau’s “existential” rather than strictly moral despair. Rousseau’s argument in the second Discourse is that civilization is the source of our discontents, our unhappiness, and that Kant’s argument for not merely the possibility but even the inevitability of progress in human

250  Paul Guyer history is a response to despair at the thought that civilization is a source of more unhappiness than happiness – although the character of civilization is, after all, due to us, so the conflict is not merely a “nature-culture” conflict but ultimately a “nature-nature” conflict, a conflict between two aspects of our own nature. Relying on Kant’s 1786 essay on The Conjectural Beginnings of Human History, Zuckert proposes in particular that Kant’s response to Rousseauian despair is “to provide an interpretation of human suffering – as arising from ourselves – and to prompt moral selfimprovement, or […] to portray moral striving as compensation for suffering”. I think that this interpretation of human moral self-improvement or perfection as merely “compensation” for the discontents, whether of culture or nature, drives an unnecessary wedge between Kantian morality and the possibility of happiness, at least eventually and at least for the human species. I say this because of Kant’s conception of the highest good as the complete object of morality, which must include happiness not as any part of the motive for happiness but in some way as its outcome – so morality should never be completely separated from happiness in Kant’s view. To be sure, the trajectory of Kant’s thought about the highest good is long and messy. He starts in the Critique of Pure Reason with the idea that in “a moral world […] a system of happiness proportionately combined with morality can […] be thought of as necessary, since freedom, partly moved, and partly restricted by moral laws, would itself be the cause of the general happiness” (A 809 B 837). This makes perfectly good sense if we think of morality, as Kant clearly does in the Metaphysics of Morals, as including the imperfect duty for each of us to make the happiness of others our own end, for if all of us actually did this, then everybody would become as happy as is humanly possible. But in the first Critique, Kant worries about the fact that not everyone will comply, that we are not in a moral world, and so instead postulates a reward for the virtuous, commensurate with their virtue, in “a world that is future for us” (A 811 B  839), or more precisely, in a world that is future for them, the virtuous. Kant does not clearly depart from this view in the second Critique, but by the time he gets to the essay on Theory and Practice, he decisively describes the “highest good possible in the world” as “universal happiness combined with and in conformity with the purest morality throughout the world” (8: 279), not happiness for an individual as a reward for the virtue of the individual – and he then postulates, or licenses our belief in, the existence of God as the condition of the rationality of our working toward that goal. (By this point Kant’s references to the postulate of immortality have become vestigial.) He, thus, does not regard our development of morality as mere compensation for the failure of our happiness, but rather supposes that universal happiness will be brought about through universal morality. To be sure, we cannot expect that to happen tomorrow, so there

Postscript 251 may still be so to speak intra-generational despair at the thought that our suffering now will be replaced only with the happiness of a later generation. Perhaps here is where Kant’s distinction between ordinary happiness and moral “contentment with oneself” needs to come in (KpV, 5: 117), the contentment that arises from knowing that one has tried one’s best to do the right thing, but which is not the same as happiness, which is having a coherent set of one’s desires satisfied over one’s lifetime. To that extent, for the generations unlucky to live too early, morality can be seen as a mere compensation for real happiness. But in the long run, morality and happiness should not be separated as two separate things for Kant. We must be able to think of them as conjointly realizable in actual nature, in a world that may be future for some of us now but is not so for all of us forever. Merritt is also concerned with the question of “whether humankind is continually progressing ‘toward improvement in its moral Bestimmung’ ” (determination? vocation? destiny?). She emphasizes the Stoic background to the Kantian idea that the fulfillment of this Bestimmung can only be realized, ultimately in the cosmopolitan community of all of humankind, in “the species, not just the individual”, and indeed only through the joined efforts of the species, not merely the efforts of the individual. She takes me to task for neglecting Kant’s emphasis on the necessity of  an “ethical community”, ultimately a universal “invisible church”, in my argument that Kant’s position is not as far from Moses Mendelssohn’s “abderitism” as Kant thought (in Part III of Theory and Practice), understanding “abderitism” not as it should historically be understood, as Merritt shows in a fascinating discussing of Christoph Martin Wieland’s novel The History of the Abderites, as widespread folly in a population, but, as Kant understood it, namely as Mendelssohn’s actual view that it makes sense to talk of moral progress in any individual but not in the human species as a whole just because, to put it in the simplest terms, the species is not in fact an individual and unitary agent, but an ever-changing population of individuals each of whom must undertake their own moral self-perfection and not all of whom can be expected to succeed at this at any particular time. My argument is essentially that whatever Kant says about the ethical community in Part III of the Religion, even when he hints at the inevitability of the realization of a universal religion of reason (e.g., 6: 121), his theory of individual freedom and responsibility for the moral “change of heart” in Part I of the Religion undercuts any claim that any institution, whether republican government (the juridical community) or the invisible church (the ethical community), can make moral progress inevitable, and leaves him at least logically open to the retort, as it were from the ­deceased Mendelssohn, that the moral progress of the species depends on the moral progress of individuals, and they are always free not to undertake the change of heart or even if they have apparently done so to

252  Paul Guyer backslide and revert to evil. I might comment here that if I have ever had a commitment to particular hermeneutic or methodology for doing the history of philosophy, it is to not to be swayed overmuch by a philosopher’s own rhetoric about his results, but to determine as best I can what actually follows from what seems to be the philosopher’s most fundamental concepts and principles. That is what I was trying to do in discussing Kant’s debate with Mendelssohn over “abderitism” and concluding that Kant should have accepted Mendelssohn’s position. But I will make one concession to Merritt here. She objects that I do not give sufficient weight to Kant’s idea of moral progress, and thus to his debt to “Stoic accounts of human development”. She quotes this passage from the Religion: If by a single and unalterable decision a human being reverses the supreme ground of his maxims by which he was an evil human being (and thereby puts on a ‘new man’), he is to this extent, by principle and attitude of mind, a subject receptive to the good; but he is a good human being only in incessant laboring and becoming. The thought that one can become “receptive” to the good but still need to work at actually being good, if that means deciding and acting correctly in all particular circumstances, certainly seems sensible. It is not so easy, however, to see how to reconcile it with Kant’s position in Religion I, again, that any degree of non-conformity to the moral law, even what we might otherwise be tempted to dismiss as mere “frailty”, demonstrates “a hidden hatred of the law”, or at least a commitment to it that is not yet complete (6: 24n, 6: 29–30); this suggests that the change of heart must be more than becoming receptive to the moral law; it must be becoming fully committed to it. However, there is room for moral progress even in Kant’s noumenal theory of will, for it is a mistake, on Kant’s part and that of any interpreter who follows him in this, to insist that the change of heart must be “single and irreversible” in the first place. Kant should not insist that the change of heart is anything like instantaneous or completed at one moment, because that would be to think of a noumenal event in phenomenal, temporal terms: All that Kant should be entitled to say here is that if moral development is phenomenally only progressive, then the noumenal ground for it must be in some way progressive, too, even though we cannot represent that possibility in our usual temporal way. And further, and perhaps more important for my position on “abderitism,” Kant should not say that the change of heart is irreversible. His whole argument in the Religion depends on the assumption that since we have, all, apparently, freely chosen evil, we can still freely choose good – in other words, at least one reversal must be possible at the level of the noumenal will, even if,

Postscript 253 again, we are not supposed to think of that in our usual temporal terms, suitable for the phenomenal world. But if one reversal is possible, why not more than one? Why not another reversal, from good back to evil, or backsliding, again, of course, not to be represented in our usual temporal terms, although we have no other way of talking? I do not see that Kant has any basis on which to reject this possibility, and therefore on which to think at any point that anything, individually or collectively, can make moral progress irreversible.22 Finally, let me turn to Anne Pollok’s chapter on my comparison between Mendelssohn’s and Kant’s aesthetics. No one has done more than Pollok to give Mendelssohn his due in the current historiography of aesthetics, so I read her chapter with great interest. In my book on Mendelssohn and Kant, I suggested that although Kant does not use the language of perfectionism to describe his own theory of judgments of taste, indeed he explicitly rejects it (KU, § 15), nevertheless both understand our pleasure in beauty as arising from the activity of our mental powers, Mendelssohn describing that as a form of self-perfection and Kant in terms of free play.23 I have argued in discussing Kant’s moral theory that Kant is not always averse to the classification of his own position as a form of perfectionism (see V-Mo/Collins, 27: 254), but it is always a form of self-perfection, perfection of the will or our exercise of freedom in the moral case – so why not perfection in the activity of our imagination and understanding in the aesthetic case? I completely agree with Pollok that Mendelssohn’s account of the multiple perfections that may please in the case of beauty in general and artistic beauty in particular (two cases that share some but not all features, the one being due in Mendelssohn’s view to divine artistry, the other to human artistry), which I have celebrated since my own first work on Mendelssohn,24 is richer than Kant’s more schematic account – but that both accounts locate pleasure in the exercise of mental powers in spite of differences in terminology remains true. Further, I think there is not so great a difference between Mendelssohn and Kant on the question of ugliness as might appear. On Pollok’s interpretation, a signal difference between Mendelssohn and Kant is that while the former’s perfectionism allows a role for a determinate concept of the object at what Pollok analyzes as level (1), the judgment of the perfection or imperfection of the objective content of a judgment of taste, Kant’s anti-perfectionism does not allow any role for determinate concepts at any level of the judgment of taste. However, on my view of Kant’s only glancing treatment of ugliness, judgments of ugliness are not pure aesthetic judgments, but impure judgments, which do presuppose some concept of what the object ought to be (and the judgment that the object at hand is in some way defective, i.e., fails to satisfy that concept). Thus, I do not see a great difference between Mendelssohn and Kant on the question of ugliness. Indeed, I think that is

254  Paul Guyer a point at which the hidden influence of Mendelssohn on Kant’s aesthetics is most evident. I would go further and remind us all that Kant does not equate judgments of fine art with judgments of taste simpliciter, but rather thinks that the “spirit” of all works of artistic genius lies in their “aesthetic ideas”, that is, in the fact that they do present content, namely intellectual, indeed moral ideas, although in an indeterminate yet aesthetically pleasing way. Kant’s view of art is far from pure formalism – this is a point I have emphasized since my first journal article! And Kant’s view that works of great art present moral ideas in an imaginative and aesthetically pleasing way can be viewed as his restatement of the perfectionism of Mendelssohn (and Baumgarten) in his own terms, namely, as a theory of our sensory perception of perfection – for if moral ideas are not ideas of perfections, then what is? This is to say that although Kant does not use perfectionist language, on his account of artistic rather than natural beauty, content, indeed morally significant content, is just as important as form. (And then, remarkably, once Kant has established this point about the beauty of art, he then reads it back into the beauty of nature, although without any explanation; see KU, §51, 5: 320.) Finally, to connect all of this back to Kant’s project, not just in the Critique of the Power of Judgment but throughout the 1790s, of bridging the gulf between the realms of nature and of freedom: One of the most characteristic but least discussed sections of the Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment is § 52. Kant blandly titles this section: On the Combination of the Beautiful Arts in One and the Same Product (5: 325). He starts by noting how “Rhetoric can be combined with a painterly presentation of its subjects as well as objects in a play; poetry with music in song”, and both of these results in “opera”, and it might seem as if his point is that different artistic media can be combined to form more complex media. But Kant’s real point is that it is by such combinations that moral content can be introduced into what might otherwise be arts of pure form, and that this is important to the value of art, because where art “is aimed merely at enjoyment” it “leaves behind it nothing in the  idea, and makes the spirit dull, the object by and by loathsome, and the mind, because it is aware that its disposition is contrapurposive in the judgment of reason” – that is, of course, pure practical reason – “dissatisfied with itself and moody. If the beautiful arts are not combined, closely or at a distance, with moral ideas, which alone carry with them a self-sufficient satisfaction, then the latter is their ultimate fate” (5: 326). In other words, our pleasure in beauty may be triggered by mere form, but the enduring value of great art lies in the aesthetic presentation of important moral content. Not beauty as such but art is one of the ways in which the abstract ideas of morality are connected to the realities of the

Postscript 255 human condition. I think that is a deeply Mendelssohnian idea stated in the language of Kant. There are so many more points in all of these stimulating chapters that I would have loved to discuss, but my responses are already longer than any one of the chapters. I hope that I have used my comments on these chapters only to clarify my views, and that together we have all taken some steps toward the truth about Kant, but about reality as well. Thank you all! Notes 1 Guyer and Horstmann (2023), expanded from our entry on that topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2 Guyer (1993a). 3 See Guyer (2013). 4 Guyer (2002). 5 See also Guyer (2016). 6 See Guyer (1987: Part V), and more recently Guyer (2017). 7 Guyer (2001b). 8 Guyer (2022). 9 Guyer (2019). 10 Guyer (2012). 11 Wilson (2022: Chapter 6, p. 143). 12 For my version of the standard criticism of Kant’s central argument in Groundwork III, see Guyer (2007a) and Guyer (2007b). 13 The relation between the “metaphysics of morals” in Section II of the Groundwork to the “critique of pure practical reason” in Section III can be understood by analogy to Kant’s distinction between the “metaphysical” and the “transcendental” deductions of the categories in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason: Just as the metaphysical deduction identifies the categories while the transcendental deduction argues that they necessarily apply to all our sensible representations, so Kant’s “metaphysics of morals” (in the sense of Groundwork II) identifies and properly formulates the moral law while the “critique of pure practical reason” shows that it necessarily applies to us, through our cognition of the metaphysical fact that we really are both rational and spontaneous (4:451–452). 14 See Guyer (1987: 417–428). 15 Hooker (1593: 64–65). 16 Guyer (2018). 17 I submitted my dissertation at Harvard in 1973. Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), revised edition (Cambridge: CUP, 1997) was a completely rewritten version of part of the dissertation in which the conclusions remained the same while little of the original prose was retained. (After accepting my 420-page dissertation, the Harvard Philosophy Department, or so I was told, put in a 250-page limit on dissertations. So, subsequent generations of Harvard philosophy graduate students have had at least that to be grateful to me for.) 18 Allison (2001) and Zuckert (2007). 19 For my exposition of this argument, see Guyer (2001a). 20 See Guyer (2020b).

256  Paul Guyer 1 See Guyer (2009). 2 22 Here, I might add the biographical note that in my first college course in philosophy, “Humanities 5” taught in 1965–1966 by Rogers Albritton and Stanley Cavell, Cavell chose Part One of the Religion as the text for our week on Kant, not the Groundwork as anyone else would have done. Perhaps that explains why this text – which as we know Kant did publish prior to an independently of the remaining three sections of the Religion – has always loomed large in my interpretation of Kant. 23 Guyer (2020a). 24 Guyer (1993b).

Bibliography Allison, H. E. (2001): Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Cambridge: CUP). Guyer, P. (1987): Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: CUP).    . (1993a): Kant’s Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom. In Kant and Critique: New Essays in Honor of W.H. Wermmeister, ed. by R. M. Dancy (Dordrecht: Kluwer), pp. 43–89. Reprinted in P. Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), pp. 129–171.    . (1993b): The Perfections of Art: Mendelssohn, Moritz, and Kant. In P. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 131–160.    . (2001a): From Nature to Morality: Kant’s New Argument in the Critique of Teleological Judgment. In Architektonik Und System in Der Philosophie Kants, ed. by H. F. Fulda, J. Stolzenberg (Hamburg: Meiner), pp. 375–404.    . (2001b): Naturalizing Kant. In Kant Verstehen/Understanding Kant. Über die Interpretation philosophischer Texten, ed. by D. Schönecker, T.  Zwenger (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), pp. 59–84.    . (2002): Kant’s Deductions of the Principles of Right. In Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, ed. by M. Timmons (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp 24–64. Reprinted in P. Guyer, Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom: Selected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), pp. 198–242.    . (2007a): Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant’s Moral Philosophy, «Inquiry» 50/5, pp. 444–464.    . (2007b): Response to Critics, «Inquiry» 50/5, pp. 497–510.    . (2009): Kant’s Teleological Conception of Philosophy and Its Development, «Kant Yearbook» 1, pp. 57–97.    . (2012): A Passion for Reason: Hume, Kant, and the Motivation for Morality, «Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association» 86, pp. 4–21.    . (2013): Freedom and the Essential Ends of Humankind. In Kant und die Philosophie in Weltbürgerlicher Ansicht: Akten des XI. Internationaler Kant Kongress, ed. by S. Bacin, A. Ferrarin, C. La Rocca, M. Ruffing (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter), vol. 1, pp. 229–244. Reprinted in P. Guyer, Virtues of Freedom: Selected Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 54–69.    . (2016): The Twofold Morality of Recht: Once More Unto the Breach, «Kant-Studien» 107/1, pp. 34–63.

Postscript 257    . (2017): Transcendental Idealism: What and Why? In The Palgrave Kant Handbook, ed. by in M. C. Altman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 71–90.    . (2018): Infinite Given Magnitude and Other Myths About Space and Time. In Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by O. Nachtomy, R. Winegar (Cham: Springer), pp. 181–204.    . (2019): Kant on the Rationality of Morality (Cambridge: CUP).    . (2020a): Reason and Experience in Mendelssohn and Kant (Oxford: OUP).    . (2020b): “The Revised Method of Physico-Theology”: Kant’s Reformed Teleology. In Teleology: A History, ed. by J. McDonough (Oxford: OUP), pp. 186–218.    . (2022): The Empire of Ends, «Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association» 96, pp. 204–237. Guyer, P., Horstmann, R.-P. (2023): Idealism in Modern Philosophy (Oxford: OUP). Hooker, R. (1593): Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, ed. by A. S. McGrade (Oxford: OUP, 2013). Wilson, C. (2022): Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy (Oxford: OUP). Zuckert, R. (2007): Kant on Beauty and Biology (Cambridge: CUP).

Index

abderitism 191–205, 251–2 aesthetics 100, 123, 132, 209–10, 214, 223, 226, 244, 253–4 Allison, H. 224, 244 autonomy 40, 52, 54, 56, 61–2, 66, 69, 73, 78, 80–6, 128–9, 165, 209, 226, 237–9 Baumgarten, A. G. 98, 155–6, 162–7, 210–11, 248, 254 beauty 109, 123, 126, 132, 156–157, 166, 210–11, 219, 221, 226–7, 244–5, 253–4 Brandt, R. 34, 36–8, 51 categorical imperative, the 46–52, 59, 65, 68, 75, 77–89, 128, 234, 237–8, 241, 248 Cicero, T. 192, 195, 204 common sense 24, 26–8, 124–6, 129 commonwealth, ethical 202–3 communication 74, 122, 124, 126, 196, 201, 246 Conflict of the Faculties 50–1, 56, 190, 197 consciousness 19, 40, 116, 118–20, 132, 226, 240–1 conviction 74, 121–2, 135–50, 146, 171, 215, 243, 246 creation 41, 109, 153–71, 212, 247–8 Critique of Practical Reason (or second Critique) 15–16, 20–1, 31–2, 42, 62, 75, 96, 165, 167, 173, 239, 240–1, 250 Critique of Pure Reason (or first Critique) 13, 15–16, 30–4, 40, 52, 56, 96–112, 121, 132, 154, 163, 220, 232, 243–6, 250

Critique of the Power of Judgment (or third Critique) 47, 54–6, 95–115, 123, 133, 153–5, 158, 160–3, 168–70, 210, 244–8, 254 deduction 20–1, 75, 83, 89, 120, 125, 130, 133, 238, 255 Democritus 192–4, 204 despair 173–86 dignity 47, 53, 71–2, 81, 226 end, final 30, 40–1, 153–70, 184, 247, 249 end in itself 47, 50, 52, 55, 62, 65–71, 159–61, 237, 241 essence 30, 38–9, 214–15, 235 ethics 24, 35, 46–53, 59–64, 72–4, 77–90, 165, 233–7 eudaimonism 191, 198, 203, 204 exhibition 95–115 exposition, metaphysical 102 fact of reason 20–1, 62, 239–41 faith (Glaube) 145, 154, 158, 167–8, 171, 204 Fichte, J. G. 116–17, 130 final end see end, final free play 124–6, 222–4, 244–5, 253 freedom: human 24, 26, 28, 166–7, 185, 248; practical 14–28, 39, 239; transcendental 17–22, 59–60, 68, 239–40 Ginsborg, H. 132 God, existence of 31, 121, 135, 145, 148, 154, 162, 173, 250 God’s creation 40, 156, 162, 170, 248

Index  259 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (or Groundwork) 19–21, 46, 52, 59, 61–75, 82–5, 89, 128, 167, 205, 235, 239–41, 248, 255–6 Guyer, P. 21, 35–6, 40–3, 47, 49–52, 57, 59–76, 77–90, 112, 116, 118–20, 124, 132, 133, 135, 148, 170, 185–6, 188, 191, 198–200, 203, 204, 209–10, 213–15, 219–20, 223–7, 229–30, 232–56 history, philosophy of 51, 56, 173–5, 185, 249 homo phaenomenon and homo noumenon 71, 129 human nature 24, 26, 39, 47–8, 53, 57, 74, 88, 173–4, 178–80, 185, 187, 200, 214, 218, 226, 236; see also nature, empirical human humanity 25, 35–6, 45–57, 61–2, 64–5, 77–8, 81–2, 84, 86, 89, 126, 128–9, 132–3, 161, 191, 193, 201–2, 226, 236–9, 241–2; formula of 78, 84, 89, 128, 238; perfected 161 idea, regulative 49, 126, 174, 185 Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim 49, 55, 194 imagination 97–115, 123, 125–6, 132, 216–8, 221–5, 244–5, 253 immortality 13, 31–3, 121, 135, 145, 173, 199, 227, 250 infinity, 97–115, 117 interest of reason 33, 67, 75 judgment (or judgement): Judgment, Critique of the Power of see critique; moral, 25, 90, 125, 224, 228, 246–247; power of 19, 95–102, 123, 125, 128, 169, 244, 254; reflecting 155, 158, 168; of taste, 124–7, 132, 247, 253 law: moral 20–1, 35, 40, 50, 52, 62–4, 67–8, 71, 78, 81, 83, 89, 128–9, 162–3, 166, 170, 233–41, 252, 255; of nature 71, 84, 89 Leibniz, G. W. 41, 71, 87, 153–70, 209, 211, 219, 225, 227, 248–9 Lessing, G. E. 190, 193, 204 logic, transcendental 118–21

maxim 60, 64, 66, 71, 75, 79–80, 86, 89, 126, 128, 195, 225 Mendelssohn, M. 190–208, 209–31, 251–5 Metaphysics of Morals 24, 53, 59, 62, 64, 170, 234, 241, 249–50, 255 nature 22–3, 114, 179, 195; empirical human 47, 53, 57; rational 45–8, 65–6, 72, 193–204 Naturrecht Feyerabend 35, 61–2, 69–71, 159 obligation 20, 31, 38, 46, 65, 78, 130, 145, 233–4, 247–8 perfection: God’s 153–6, 162, 166–9; human 51, 190, 193–6, 202, 206, 210–28, 250, 253; moral 57, 161, 200, 209 personality 53–4, 57, 206 persuasion 121–2, 135–50, 246 postulate 62, 174, 199, 250 practical reason see reason, practical predisposition 39–40, 200–2, 206, 249 providence 51–2, 179, 181, 183, 190, 193, 197, 201 purposiveness 70, 95, 115, 125–6, 174, 181–8, 209, 213, 218–22, 229, 244–5, 249; natural 174, 181–5; subjective 125–6, 209, 213, 218–26 race 32, 190, 237 racism 188 rational will 83–4, 129, 205 rationality, practical 52–4, 71, 87 reason: practical 14, 17–23, 27–8, 32, 35, 36, 52, 64, 69, 71, 74, 78, 128–9, 161, 173, 224, 236, 240, 249, 254–5; speculative 70–1 recognition 81, 86 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone (or Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason) 26, 63, 163, 165, 191, 235, 248–53, 256 right, human 176 Rousseau, J.-J. 174–82 self-consciousness 116, 129 self-legislation 80, 128 self-perfection 37–38, 251, 253 Seneca, L. A. 194–202

260 Index sensibility 96–114, 248 sexuality 182–3 Smith, A. 116, 130 Spalding, J. J. 30, 45 speculation 15, 31 speculative reason see reason, speculative Spinoza, B. 116 status, moral 42, 52, 54 stoicism 190–206 subjectivity 116, 126, 129–30, 209–31 taking-to-be-true 135–148 taste 109, 117–18, 123–3, 157, 188, 217–18, 221–3, 228, 230, 244, 247, 253–4 teleology 47–51, 55, 56, 157, 185, 194–7, 203, 220, 233, 244, 249; moral 170, 249; natural 49, 193–4

Theory and Practice 197, 249–51 transcendental freedom see freedom, transcendental ugliness 210, 219–24, 229, 253 unsocial sociability 51, 55–6 value: fundamental 61–2, 241; intrinsic, 59, 62, 73, 77; moral 52 vocation (Bestimmung) of human beings, 30, 34, 40–1, 43, 54, 63, 65, 168, 175, 180, 183, 190, 204, 216, 251 Wieland, C. 191–4, 251 will, good 62–5, 82, 88, 205, 241–2, 248 Wolf, C. 41, 67, 71–3, 87, 98, 157 worth 47, 61, 65, 71–2, 165–7, 210, 242