I find Kant’s writing next to impossible to parse sometimes. Section 3, especially, was a pain. Each page must have taken me half an hour. I’ll try to explain it in my words. I hope I didn’t get it wrong.
(a) Kant proves that free will is concerned only with the categorical imperative.
I had to go back and revise a few definitions before I could get to grips with this passage. Causality is the relationship between cause and effect. Heteronomy = subject to external laws.
- Freedom is a type of causality. It’s a type of causality that exists (“be efficient” in Kant’s words) independent of external influences.
- All causalities are ruled by laws. It would be absurd if they weren’t: how else is a cause supposed to translate into an effect?
- Since freedom cannot have exogenous laws affecting it, its law must come from itself.
- We know from earlier that the will has only one principle, the categorical imperative (“I ought never to act except in such a that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”)
- Therefore free will is ruled only by the categorical imperative. (i.e. “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.”)
(b) Rational beings must have free will.
- A rational being is so because he can initiate causality, i.e. be the source of an effect.
- It is only possible to do so with a self-generated reason that is independent of external influences.
- The only way for a being to generate a reason of his own is if he has free will.
- Therefore all rational beings have free will.
Hope this helps anyone who struggling with these passages.
I think this is right. Kant's categorical imperatives aim to create actions that do not necessarily have a further end but actions that "ought" to occur without any further clauses like "I will do this if..." Kant wants us to create our own imperatives as if we impose a law on ourselves, it is only rational that we adhere to it. This is why he doesn't support heteronomous laws, laws imposed by others, because you can always ask why you should do something. Rather, if you are the initiator of the law, then you should have no choice but to agree to it. Therefore, Kant believes our free will to make choices, as well as uphold others others ability to do the same, is necessary for morality. Here, I think Kant eliminates the line between free will, morality, and rationality.
ReplyDeleteNot bad! Notice that intuitively, you can't but take yourself do be a chooser (now what should I do?), so you can't but take it to be up to you how things go from here (that you are initiating causality), so you can't be take the conditions necessary for you to do so (the moral law) to obtain.
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