Freedom, Responsibility and Desire in Kantian Ethics

FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND DESIRE IN KANTIAN ETHICS A student of Philosophy who is particularly interested in moral questions need not be terrified by the ethical philosophy of Kant, as he may so easily be by his Critique of Pure Reason. It is indisputable that the latter work as well as the other non-ethical writings of Kant are difficult to follow especially by a student who has been trained in the Scholastic tradition. However, I do not think that he will come to the same conclusion when he has analyzed the first two chapters of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. The third chapter will cause difficulty because it concerns the metaphysical problem of freedom and can only be fully understood by someone who is acquainted with the general philosophy Qf Kant. Work on the subject-matter of this article-the problem of freedom-has compelled me to exercise myself on the broad philosophical principles of this German philosopher of whom it has been said: " You can philosophize with Kant or against Kant, but you cannot philosophize without him." Kant lived in the Age of Reason, the age of Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire and during the revolutionary period in America and France. In opposition to those who placed the roots of morality exclusively in theology Kant believed firmly in the rationality of man and sought to elaborate a rational morality. Just as he upheld a rational science that would manifest a knowledge valid and binding for all rational minds, so he championed a rational.morality, a science of rational moral principles that would present a moral code valid and binding for all rational minds. From the very beginning of the Preface to the Fundamental Principles he seems to presume that it is in the very experience of moral obligation that an adequate testimony is given of the a priori source of morality. He denies 820 FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY AND DESIRE 321 that the force of moral obligation is due in any way to empirical elements and asserts that it cannot be explained in terms of psychology, sociology or anthropology. Unless this conception of Kant is presumed, namely, that morality is binding on all men and is comparable in this respect to science, the elaboration of his reasoning is not understood. He clearly states at the very outset: Everyone must admit that if a law is to have moral force, i.e., to be the basis of obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity ; that, for example, the precept, ' thou shalt not lie,' is not valid for men alone, as if other rational beings had no need to observe it; that, therefore, the basis of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in which he is placed, but a priori, simply in the conceptions of pure reason; and although any other precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may in certain respects be universal, yet insofar as it rests even in the least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to motive, such a precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be a moral law. . . . For in order that an action should be called morally good, it is not enough that it should conform to the moral law, but it must be done for the sake of the law, otherwise that conformity is only contingent and uncertain; since a principle which is not moral, although now and then it may produce actions conformable to the law, will also often produce actions which contradict it-1 Therefore a moral principle is true necessarily and always, without any reference to the reason why it is true, without any reference to the conviction or denialof some one with regard to the proposition, without any reference to the effects or consequences that might follow from the acceptance or rejection of this moral principle. Kant therefore speaks of the categorical nature of moral propositions and he seeks the radical truth in them not from any command that God may have promulgated, not from any correspondence between the propositions and rational human nature, not from the consent of mankind, not from any...