In Defense of Kant's Religion

5. Book One of Religion

125 ∑ Book One of Religion With the parameters of interpretation of the previous chapter before us, we now move into Book One of Religion. We approach Book One under the presumption that Kant’s arguments constitute not a translation of Christian concepts or imagery, or a merely symbolic or poetic theology, but the development of Kant’s philosophical anthropology. Our goal in this chapter will be to understand Kant’s arguments concerning radical evil from the perspective of practical reason. As discussed in the previous chapter, we will look at Kant’s arguments as part of the first experiment, discussed in the Second Preface of Religion. Therefore, we read Kant’s arguments as arguments with an underlying practical rationale. As Allen Wood puts it, ‘‘In the Religion, Kant reopens the whole question of man’s moral perfectability, and attempts to give a more complete answer to this question than he did in any of his earlier works.’’1 We will approach Kant’s examination of human nature as linguistically and epistemologically representative of insights of pure cognition at the outer bounds of human understanding in answer to the question of hope. In addition, we recognize Kant’s focus on humanity’s moral disposition (Gesinnung) in Religion, and, as discussed in the previous chapter, we see this focus as indicating a movement in Kant’s thought away from the purely ethical question of what it would mean to do good, to the teleological question of what it would mean to be good. Because the disposition represents our ‘‘moral selfidentity ,’’ to use Silber’s phrase, and is that which establishes ‘‘a moral . . . relation between our actions,’’ we see Kant’s arguments, specifically in Book One, as addressing the question of our moral nature and its teleological perfec- The Defense of Kant’s Religion 126 tability.2 That is, as Kant shifts focus toward the issue of moral ontology, he must examine what it means for a human to bear a moral nature that endures throughout time and can become truly good. In Book One of Religion, Kant offers an account of humanity’s moral nature that seeks to remain true to both the concept of nature and the transcendental implications of the predicate moral. As we will see, this drives Kant to cognize the disposition as innate (per the concept of nature) and freely chosen (per the predicate moral). Moreover, insofar as the question of a moral nature concerns our overall posture toward the moral law, Kant is driven to cognize our moral nature as having a maxim or rule that establishes our posture toward the moral law as supreme incentive. Hence, the disposition must constitute a deed of freedom that chooses a moral maxim, which serves as a rule for the entire exercise of freedom in time. This supreme maxim constitutes our moral being, which Kant distinguishes from our particular moral acts in time. In short, we take Book One to be principally an examination of humanity ’s moral nature meant to offer a philosophical anthropology of the human’s moral makeup and to serve as groundwork for Kant’s treatment in Book Two of the perfectability of this nature. We understand Kant’s examination of our moral nature to consist chiefly of three parts: (1) the nature and commitments of the moral disposition, (2) the role and nature of humanity’s natural predispositions , and (3) the cognizing of the moral disposition itself. Each of these features plays a role in developing Kant’s philosophical anthropology and his well-known case for radical evil. Our treatment of Book One is divided into three sections, which correspond to these three main concerns. The first section regards Kant’s case for moral rigorism, where moral reason ineluctably drives Kant to conclude that our moral nature must be either good or evil. This disjunctive makes way for Kant’s analysis of the human species via ‘‘anthropological research’’ and his conclusion that we are evil by nature. We will focus on this aspect of Kant’s argument in section two. Throughout both phases of his argument, Kant provides details regarding how we must cognize the disposition , details that make up the bulk of the anomalies in Book One (e.g., the innateness of the freely chosen disposition, its universality, and its distinctiveness from other maxims generated by Willkür). This material is brought together in the third and final section, where we provide a comprehensive account of how Kant thinks we must cognize...