In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

11 Reason, Freedom, and Determinism in the Third Antinomy In Kant’s view, genuine practical reasoning cannot be causally determined . Practical reasoning is open-ended in the sense that there is never a fixed stock of reasons that are definitive or conclusive as to how to live, and so as to what to do. For such open-ended reasoning to be efficacious , its concrete realization cannot be fixed or determined. Rather, only free, undetermined choice can close off practical reason without violating its open-ended nature. The dependence of practical reasoning on free choice leads Kant to the view that practical reasoning cannot be identical to any natural (and hence, for him, determined) occurrence . This leaves open the possibility of genuine reasoning outside of time or the natural order, that is, where such reasoning is efficacious by our free choices being part of God’s determination of that order. Although this leaves freedom outside of time, taking responsibility for one’s actions remains in time. I argue that Kant’s resolution of the apparent conflict between undetermined free reasoning and natural determinism is successful, but that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics can model the genuine open-endedness of practical reasoning in a theoretically more satisfying way. 1. preliminary discussion of undetermined choice The issue of freedom in the Third Antinomy is the issue of causally undetermined choice, not the issue of what Kant calls autonomy. As such it pertains to practical deliberation generally, not to moral legislation specifically. Kant says, “Whether what is willed be an object of mere sensibility (the pleasant) or of pure reason (the good) reason will not give way to any ground which is empirically given” (A548, B576, p. 473).1 Thus even apart from specifically moral considerations, when 205 1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (Boston: Bedford , 1965). All references are to this edition. the object of the will is the pleasant, there is a freedom (spontaneity) of practical reason, and it is this aspect of freedom that is at issue in the Third Antinomy.2 Irwin calls this aspect of freedom “metaphysical freedom ” and distinguishes it from autonomy.3 Allison and Beck identify it as Kant’s conception of Willkur, which they distinguish from the autonomy of Wille.4 Kant believes that the decision to act based on practical reasoning involves free or undetermined choice. This isn’t the whole of freedom, however, since limitation of one’s options when one chooses can limit freedom. Thus, even if I have a “free” choice based on deliberation as to whether to give someone who is holding a gun to my head my money or my life, the limitation on my options restricts my freedom. The options, we may say, are “heteronomous” despite whatever uncaused choice I still may have. I believe that, for Kant, options that conflict with morality are heteronomous or limiting to a rational being. My own various desires or goals, if they conflict with morality, are like a gun to my head, since I am not, by Kant’s lights, the rational author of these options. Allowing options only in accord with morality is what gives me any rational authority over my options and therefore my autonomy (viz., not only free choice among options, but authority over the options ). Because there is free choice even with heteronomous options, it is possible in Kant’s view to use one’s “metaphysical” freedom (Willkur) to choose what is morally wrong. In this essay I shall be concerned exclusively with the issue of free (causally undetermined) practical deliberation, whether heteronomous or autonomous. The first large question is why Kant holds that freedom requires causally undetermined choice. Given that Kant identifies freedom in the Third Antinomy with the causality of reason,5 or 206 freedom and morality 2. This agrees with Allison, who holds that freedom in the Third Antinomy pertains to practical reason in general, not just morality. See Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 33. 3. See Terrence Irwin, “Morality and Personality: Kant and Green,” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. Allen W. Wood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 33. Frederick Rauscher distinguishes it as “the power of decision” vs. (autonomous) moral legislation . See Rauscher, “Kant’s Conflation of Pure Practical Reason and Will,” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, ed. Hoke Robinson (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995), 2:581. 4. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 131...

Share