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Three: The Incentives (Triebfeder) of Pure Practical Reason: Incentive Creating Imagination and Moral Feeling
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t h r e e The Incentives (Triebfeder) of Pure Practical Reason Incentive-Creating Imagination and Moral Feeling An incentive1 is a subjective ground of the determination of the will. Clearly, only the moral law itself can qualify as a moral incentive in any sense, for it is the sole incentive that is also an objective determining ground of the will. The latter must be “the exclusive and subjectively suf¤cient determining ground of action if [the will] is to ful¤ll not only the letter of the law but its spirit” (V, 72, emphasis in original ). This chapter yields a rich harvest from the synthesis of imagination . First of all, imagination extends the moral law from its status as a pure form of a law in general and an “intellectual cause” to an actual incentive (Triebfeder), a drive at play with other drives. Secondly and quite strikingly, imagination brings this incentive into opposed play with the inclinations, all of which are thwarted by this clash. The result is pain. Kant notes that this is quite remarkable: an a priori concept capable of determining the feeling of pleasure and displeasure .2 From the standpoint, however, of the alreadiness of the synthesis of imagination in every determination of the will, it is clear that the moral realm is always a realm of ¤nite beings, and that competing images are at play. Here, the images are at play in the guise of incentives. However play does not exclude seriousness at all. The play of incentives , by which I mean those incentives fashioned by a ¤nite being in accord with this ¤nite nature, is at once a battle¤eld. Enemies that can do various degrees of harm are found on this battle¤eld. Just as in the case of the “hypotheses at war,” the principal battle¤eld is not external, but in us. Self-love or sel¤shness is one such enemy. This enemy is in us and cannot be totally extirpated. In a sense it is not simply an enemy; self-love causes us to direct ourselves toward our own happiness that can, after a fashion (as the Dialectic will demonstrate ), conform to morality. Kant says that pure practical reason merely gives an interruption (Abbruch tut) to sel¤shness. Arrogance (Selbstsucht) is a more serious enemy, an enemy that pure practical reason beats down (schlägt nieder), for its propensity is “false and opposed to the law” (V, 73). In this light, the notion that Kant is in any way oblivious to the pull of competing in®uences upon the human being, and that his moral philosophy fails to account for it, could not be more preposterous . The many dispositions that fall under the titles “sel¤shness” and “arrogance” populate the territory of human transgression in a thoroughgoing way. After explaining how the moral law is itself an incentive, that the interest attaching to it must be non-sensuous, and that genuine moral maxims must rest upon this interest, he writes that “[a]ll three concepts—of incentive, interest, and maxim—can, however, be applied only to ¤nite beings” (V, 79). A divine will, good by its very nature, requires no incentives at all. Just as the divine intellect was said to have no need of thought since thought always involves limitations, the presence of incentives in the divine will would suggest limitation as well. In terms of the structure of the Critique of Practical Reason, sel¤shness and arrogance make the intertwining of imagination and reason in their pure synthesis impossible. In actual deed, however, these motives commonly occur together. If this were the critique of theoretical reason, an experience that was not subject to the natural law of causality would be impossible both in thought and in deed. But in this critique of practical reason, while it is impossible to universalize one’s maxims under either the more benign incentive of self-love or 85 The Incentives (Triebfeder) of Pure Practical Reason [54.227.136.157] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 12:08 GMT) under the more malevolent incentive of arrogance, it is quite possible to form maxims in accord with these incentives, and to perform actions in accord with these maxims. Our freedom assures us of this ever-present, ever-dangerous possibility. There is, however, one sense in which there really is no escaping the moral law for anyone. Just as the synthesis of imagination begets an incentive peculiar to morality, it also begets a feeling that attaches to...