Why kant is important

In the Monty Python sketch where philosophers play soccer, the big match is Greece vs. Germany, and Kant is No. Kant essentially invented philosophy as a modern, academic discipline.

He distinguished the practice of empirical science from the philosophical question of why empirical science is the paradigm case of knowledge, and what this means for us. The book where he makes the case for this, the Critique of Pure Reason , is one of the great achievements of human culture.

For Kant, the basic principle of morals is freedom. Moral law is the principle by which free persons govern themselves, by equally respecting the freedom of all other persons.

Freedom plays no role in natural science; nonetheless, the scientific perspective cannot invalidate the idea of freedom. Those were the negative conclusions Kant took pages to establish in the Critique. It seeks to unify and subsume all particular experiences under higher and higher principles of knowledge. But sensibility cannot by its nature provide the intuitions that would make knowledge of the highest principles and of things as they are in themselves possible. Nevertheless, reason, in its function as the faculty of inference, inevitably draws conclusions about what lies beyond the boundaries of sensibility.

Corresponding to the three basic kinds of syllogism are three dialectic mistakes or illusions of transcendent knowledge that cannot be real. The Dialectic explains the illusions of reason in these sections. But since the illusions arise from the structure of our faculties, they will not cease to have their influence on our minds any more than we can prevent the moon from seeming larger when it is on the horizon than when it is overhead.

In the Paralogisms , Kant argues that a failure to recognize the difference between appearances and things in themselves, particularly in the case of the introspected self, leads us into transcendent error. That is, the rational psychologists claimed to have knowledge of the self as transcendentally real. But to take the self as an object of knowledge here is to pretend to have knowledge of the self as it is in itself, not as it appears to us. It is subject to the condition of inner sense, time, but not the condition of outer sense, space, so it cannot be a proper object of knowledge.

It can be thought through concepts, but without the commensurate spatial and temporal intuitions, it cannot be known. Each of the four paralogisms explains the categorical structure of reason that led the rational psychologists to mistake the self as it appears to us for the self as it is in itself.

We have already mentioned the Antinomies, in which Kant analyzes the methodological problems of the Rationalist project. Kant sees the Antinomies as the unresolved dialogue between skepticism and dogmatism about knowledge of the world. Each antinomy has a thesis and an antithesis, both of which can be validly proven, and since each makes a claim that is beyond the grasp of spatiotemporal sensation, neither can be confirmed or denied by experience.

The First Antinomy argues both that the world has a beginning in time and space, and no beginning in time and space. The Fourth Antinomy contains arguments both for and against the existence of a necessary being in the world. The seemingly irreconcilable claims of the Antinomies can only be resolved by seeing them as the product of the conflict of the faculties and by recognizing the proper sphere of our knowledge in each case. In the first Antinomy, the world as it appears to us is neither finite since we can always inquire about its beginning or end, nor is it infinite because finite beings like ourselves cannot cognize an infinite whole.

As an empirical object, Kant argues, it is indefinitely constructable for our minds. As it is in itself, independent of the conditions of our thought, it should not be identified as finite or infinite since both are categorical conditions of our thought. He considers the two competing hypotheses of speculative metaphysics that there are different types of causality in the world: 1 there are natural causes which are themselves governed by the laws of nature as well as uncaused causes like ourselves that can act freely, or 2 the causal laws of nature entirely govern the world including our actions.

The conflict between these contrary claims can be resolved, Kant argues, by taking his critical turn and recognizing that it is impossible for any cause to be thought of as uncaused itself in the realm of space and time. But reason, in trying to understand the ground of all things, strives to unify its knowledge beyond the empirical realm.

The empirical world, considered by itself, cannot provide us with ultimate reasons. So if we do not assume a first or free cause we cannot completely explain causal series in the world. So for the Third Antinomy, as for all of the Antinomies, the domain of the Thesis is the intellectual, rational, noumenal world. The domain of the Antithesis is the spatiotemporal world. The faculty of reason has two employments. For the most part, we have engaged in an analysis of theoretical reason which has determined the limits and requirements of the employment of the faculty of reason to obtain knowledge.

Theoretical reason, Kant says, makes it possible to cognize what is. But reason has its practical employment in determining what ought to be as well. That is, reason thinks of all cognitions as belonging to a unified and organized system.

Reason is our faculty of making inferences and of identifying the grounds behind every truth. It allows us to move from the particular and contingent to the global and universal.

The entire empirical world, Kant argues, must be conceived of by reason as causally necessitated as we saw in the Analogies. Reason generates this hierarchy that combines to provide the mind with a conception of a whole system of nature. Kant believes that it is part of the function of reason to strive for a complete, determinate understanding of the natural world.

But our analysis of theoretical reason has made it clear that we can never have knowledge of the totality of things because we cannot have the requisite sensations of the totality, hence one of the necessary conditions of knowledge is not met. We must assume the ideas of God, freedom , and immortality , Kant says, not as objects of knowledge, but as practical necessities for the employment of reason in the realm where we can have knowledge.

It is rare for a philosopher in any era to make a significant impact on any single topic in philosophy. For a philosopher to impact as many different areas as Kant did is extraordinary. His ethical theory has been as influential as, if not more influential than, his work in epistemology and metaphysics. Kant is the primary proponent in history of what is called deontological ethics.

Deontology is the study of duty. For Kant, as we have seen, the drive for total, systematic knowledge in reason can only be fulfilled with assumptions that empirical observation cannot support. The metaphysical facts about the ultimate nature of things in themselves must remain a mystery to us because of the spatiotemporal constraints on sensibility. When we think about the nature of things in themselves or the ultimate ground of the empirical world, Kant has argued that we are still constrained to think through the categories, we cannot think otherwise, but we can have no knowledge because sensation provides our concepts with no content.

So, reason is put at odds with itself because it is constrained by the limits of its transcendental structure, but it seeks to have complete knowledge that would take it beyond those limits. Freedom is an idea of reason that serves an indispensable practical function.

Without the assumption of freedom, reason cannot act. If we think of ourselves as completely causally determined, and not as uncaused causes ourselves, then any attempt to conceive of a rule that prescribes the means by which some end can be achieved is pointless. I cannot both think of myself as entirely subject to causal law and as being able to act according to the conception of a principle that gives guidance to my will. We cannot help but think of our actions as the result of an uncaused cause if we are to act at all and employ reason to accomplish ends and understand the world.

So reason has an unavoidable interest in thinking of itself as free. That is, theoretical reason cannot demonstrate freedom, but practical reason must assume it for the purpose of action. Having the ability to make judgments and apply reason puts us outside that system of causally necessitated events. It is dissatisfying that he cannot demonstrate freedom; nevertheless, it comes as no surprise that we must think of ourselves as free. In a sense, Kant is agreeing with the common sense view that how I choose to act makes a difference in how I actually act.

Even if it were possible to give a predictive empirical account of why I act as I do, say on the grounds of a functionalist psychological theory, those considerations would mean nothing to me in my deliberations. When I make a decision about what to do, about which car to buy, for instance, the mechanism at work in my nervous system makes no difference to me.

I still have to peruse Consumer Reports , consider my options, reflect on my needs, and decide on the basis of the application of general principles. My first person perspective is unavoidable, hence the deliberative, intellectual process of choice is unavoidable. The question of moral action is not an issue for two classes of beings, according to Kant. The animal consciousness, the purely sensuous being, is entirely subject to causal determination.

It is part of the causal chains of the empirical world, but not an originator of causes the way humans are. Hence, rightness or wrongness, as concepts that apply to situations one has control over, do not apply. We do not morally fault the lion for killing the gazelle, or even for killing its own young.

The actions of a purely rational being, by contrast, are in perfect accord with moral principles, Kant says. Its will always conforms with the dictates of reason. Humans are between the two worlds.

We are both sensible and intellectual, as was pointed out in the discussion of the first Critique. We are neither wholly determined to act by natural impulse, nor are we free of non-rational impulse. Hence we need rules of conduct. We need, and reason is compelled to provide, a principle that declares how we ought to act when it is in our power to choose. Since we find ourselves in the situation of possessing reason, being able to act according to our own conception of rules, there is a special burden on us.

Other creatures are acted upon by the world. But having the ability to choose the principle to guide our actions makes us actors. We must exercise our will and our reason to act. Will is the capacity to act according to the principles provided by reason. Reason assumes freedom and conceives of principles of action in order to function. Two problems face us however. First, we are not wholly rational beings, so we are liable to succumb to our non-rational impulses.

Second, even when we exercise our reason fully, we often cannot know which action is the best. The fact that we can choose between alternate courses of actions we are not determined to act by instinct or reason introduces the possibility that there can be better or worse ways of achieving our ends and better or worse ends, depending upon the criteria we adopt.

The presence of two different kinds of object in the world adds another dimension, a moral dimension, to our deliberations. Roughly speaking, we can divide the world into beings with reason and will like ourselves and things that lack those faculties. We can think of these classes of things as ends-in-themselves and mere means-to-ends, respectively.

Ends-in-themselves are autonomous beings with their own agendas; failing to recognize their capacity to determine their own actions would be to thwart their freedom and undermine reason itself.

When we reflect on alternative courses of action, means-to-ends, things like buildings, rocks, and trees, deserve no special status in our deliberations about what goals we should have and what means we use to achieve them. The class of ends-in-themselves, reasoning agents like ourselves, however, do have a special status in our considerations about what goals we should have and the means we employ to accomplish them.

Kant believed we experience terror in the face of nature when it reminds us of our own small and fleeting place on earth. Kant believed that certain differences between people are innate. These ideas helped to establish a pseudo-scientific basis for racism , which was used to justify colonial oppression and genocide. Kant was a public intellectual who wrote for a broad audience. As more people became educated and literate, a public sphere emerged in which people engaged in reasoned debate: the age of Enlightenment.

Although Kant believed in free speech, he was not a democrat. In the Enlightenment essay, he praised the institution of monarchy, and was quick to condemn the violence of revolutions.

Kant believed that political freedom would increase through gradual historical progress rather than through revolution.

That is, you would not think that other people seeing the house for the first time would be mistaken if they denied that it is connected with nostalgia, because you recognize that this house is connected with nostalgia for you but not necessarily for everyone. The point here is not that we must successfully identify which representations necessarily belong together and which are merely associated contingently, but rather that to be self-conscious we must at least make this general distinction between objective and merely subjective connections of representations.

That is the aim of the copula is in them: to distinguish the objective unity of given representations from the subjective. Kant is speaking here about the mental act of judging that results in the formation of a judgment. We must represent an objective world in order to distinguish ourselves from it, and we represent an objective world by judging that some representations necessarily belong together. Moreover, recall from 4. It follows that objective connections in the world cannot simply imprint themselves on our mind.

The understanding constructs experience by providing the a priori rules, or the framework of necessary laws, in accordance with which we judge representations to be objective. These rules are the pure concepts of the understanding or categories, which are therefore conditions of self-consciousness, since they are rules for judging about an objective world, and self-consciousness requires that we distinguish ourselves from an objective world.

Kant identifies the categories in what he calls the metaphysical deduction, which precedes the transcendental deduction. But since categories are not mere logical functions but instead are rules for making judgments about objects or an objective world, Kant arrives at his table of categories by considering how each logical function would structure judgments about objects within our spatio-temporal forms of intuition.

For example, he claims that categorical judgments express a logical relation between subject and predicate that corresponds to the ontological relation between substance and accident; and the logical form of a hypothetical judgment expresses a relation that corresponds to cause and effect. Taken together with this argument, then, the transcendental deduction argues that we become self-conscious by representing an objective world of substances that interact according to causal laws.

The final condition of self-consciousness that Kant adds to the preceding conditions is that our understanding must cooperate with sensibility to construct one, unbounded, and unified space-time to which all of our representations may be related. To see why this further condition is required, consider that so far we have seen why Kant holds that we must represent an objective world in order to be self-conscious, but we could represent an objective world even if it were not possible to relate all of our representations to this objective world.

For all that has been said so far, we might still have unruly representations that we cannot relate in any way to the objective framework of our experience. So I must be able to relate any given representation to an objective world in order for it to count as mine. On the other hand, self-consciousness would also be impossible if I represented multiple objective worlds, even if I could relate all of my representations to some objective world or other. In that case, I could not become conscious of an identical self that has, say, representation 1 in space-time A and representation 2 in space-time B.

It may be possible to imagine disjointed spaces and times, but it is not possible to represent them as objectively real. So self-consciousness requires that I can relate all of my representations to a single objective world.

The reason why I must represent this one objective world by means of a unified and unbounded space-time is that, as Kant argued in the Transcendental Aesthetic, space and time are the pure forms of human intuition. If we had different forms of intuition, then our experience would still have to constitute a unified whole in order for us to be self-conscious, but this would not be a spatio-temporal whole.

So Kant distinguishes between space and time as pure forms of intuition, which belong solely to sensibility; and the formal intuitions of space and time or space-time , which are unified by the understanding B— These formal intuitions are the spatio-temporal whole within which our understanding constructs experience in accordance with the categories.

So Kant concludes on this basis that the understanding is the true law-giver of nature. Our understanding does not provide the matter or content of our experience, but it does provide the basic formal structure within which we experience any matter received through our senses.

He holds that there is a single fundamental principle of morality, on which all specific moral duties are based. He calls this moral law as it is manifested to us the categorical imperative see 5. The moral law is a product of reason, for Kant, while the basic laws of nature are products of our understanding. There are important differences between the senses in which we are autonomous in constructing our experience and in morality. The moral law does not depend on any qualities that are peculiar to human nature but only on the nature of reason as such, although its manifestation to us as a categorical imperative as a law of duty reflects the fact that the human will is not necessarily determined by pure reason but is also influenced by other incentives rooted in our needs and inclinations; and our specific duties deriving from the categorical imperative do reflect human nature and the contingencies of human life.

Despite these differences, however, Kant holds that we give the moral law to ourselves, as we also give the general laws of nature to ourselves, though in a different sense. Moreover, we each necessarily give the same moral law to ourselves, just as we each construct our experience in accordance with the same categories. To summarize:. In theoretical philosophy, we use our categories and forms of intuition to construct a world of experience or nature.

In practical philosophy, we use the moral law to construct the idea of a moral world or a realm of ends that guides our conduct , and ultimately to transform the natural world into the highest good.

Theoretical philosophy deals with appearances, to which our knowledge is strictly limited; and practical philosophy deals with things in themselves, although it does not give us knowledge about things in themselves but only provides rational justification for certain beliefs about them for practical purposes.

The three traditional topics of Leibniz-Wolffian special metaphysics were rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology, which dealt, respectively, with the human soul, the world-whole, and God.

In the part of the Critique of Pure Reason called the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant argues against the Leibniz-Wolffian view that human beings are capable of a priori knowledge in each of these domains, and he claims that the errors of Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics are due to an illusion that has its seat in the nature of human reason itself.

According to Kant, human reason necessarily produces ideas of the soul, the world-whole, and God; and these ideas unavoidably produce the illusion that we have a priori knowledge about transcendent objects corresponding to them.

This is an illusion, however, because in fact we are not capable of a priori knowledge about any such transcendent objects. Nevertheless, Kant attempts to show that these illusory ideas have a positive, practical use.

He thus reframes Leibniz-Wolffian special metaphysics as a practical science that he calls the metaphysics of morals. The most important belief about things in themselves that Kant thinks only practical philosophy can justify concerns human freedom.

If this was not within his control at the time, then, while it may be useful to punish him in order to shape his behavior or to influence others, it nevertheless would not be correct to say that his action was morally wrong.

Moral rightness and wrongness apply only to free agents who control their actions and have it in their power, at the time of their actions, either to act rightly or not. According to Kant, this is just common sense. On the compatibilist view, as Kant understands it, I am free whenever the cause of my action is within me.

If we distinguish between involuntary convulsions and voluntary bodily movements, then on this view free actions are just voluntary bodily movements. The proximate causes of these movements are internal to the turnspit, the projectile, and the clock at the time of the movement. This cannot be sufficient for moral responsibility.

Why not? The reason, Kant says, is ultimately that the causes of these movements occur in time. Return to the theft example. The thief decided to commit the theft, and his action flowed from this decision. If that cause too was an event occurring in time, then it must also have a cause beginning in a still earlier time, etc. All natural events occur in time and are thoroughly determined by causal chains that stretch backwards into the distant past.

So there is no room for freedom in nature, which is deterministic in a strong sense. The root of the problem, for Kant, is time. But the past is out of his control now, in the present. Even if he could control those past events in the past, he cannot control them now. But in fact past events were not in his control in the past either if they too were determined by events in the more distant past, because eventually the causal antecedents of his action stretch back before his birth, and obviously events that occurred before his birth were never in his control.

In that case, it would be a mistake to hold him morally responsible for it. Compatibilism, as Kant understands it, therefore locates the issue in the wrong place. Even if the cause of my action is internal to me, if it is in the past — for example, if my action today is determined by a decision I made yesterday, or from the character I developed in childhood — then it is not within my control now.

The real issue is not whether the cause of my action is internal or external to me, but whether it is in my control now. For Kant, however, the cause of my action can be within my control now only if it is not in time.

This is why Kant thinks that transcendental idealism is the only way to make sense of the kind of freedom that morality requires. Transcendental idealism allows that the cause of my action may be a thing in itself outside of time: namely, my noumenal self, which is free because it is not part of nature.

My noumenal self is an uncaused cause outside of time, which therefore is not subject to the deterministic laws of nature in accordance with which our understanding constructs experience.

Many puzzles arise on this picture that Kant does not resolve. For example, if my understanding constructs all appearances in my experience of nature, not only appearances of my own actions, then why am I responsible only for my own actions but not for everything that happens in the natural world? Moreover, if I am not alone in the world but there are many noumenal selves acting freely and incorporating their free actions into the experience they construct, then how do multiple transcendentally free agents interact?

How do you integrate my free actions into the experience that your understanding constructs? Finally, since Kant invokes transcendental idealism to make sense of freedom, interpreting his thinking about freedom leads us back to disputes between the two-objects and two-aspects interpretations of transcendental idealism. But applying the two-objects interpretation to freedom raises problems of its own, since it involves making a distinction between noumenal and phenomenal selves that does not arise on the two-aspects view.

If only my noumenal self is free, and freedom is required for moral responsibility, then my phenomenal self is not morally responsible. But how are my noumenal and phenomenal selves related, and why is punishment inflicted on phenomenal selves? Can we know that we are free in this transcendental sense? We do not have theoretical knowledge that we are free or about anything beyond the limits of possible experience, but we are morally justified in believing that we are free in this sense.

On the other hand, Kant also uses stronger language than this when discussing freedom. Our practical knowledge of freedom is based instead on the moral law. So, on his view, the fact of reason is the practical basis for our belief or practical knowledge that we are free. Every human being has a conscience, a common sense grasp of morality, and a firm conviction that he or she is morally accountable. We may arrive at different conclusions about what morality requires in specific situations.

And we may violate our own sense of duty. But we all have a conscience, and an unshakeable belief that morality applies to us. It is just a ground-level fact about human beings that we hold ourselves morally accountable.

But Kant is making a normative claim here as well: it is also a fact, which cannot and does not need to be justified, that we are morally accountable, that morality does have authority over us. Kant holds that philosophy should be in the business of defending this common sense moral belief, and that in any case we could never prove or disprove it Kant may hold that the fact of reason, or our consciousness of moral obligation, implies that we are free on the grounds that ought implies can.

In other words, Kant may believe that it follows from the fact that we ought morally to do something that we can or are able to do it. This is a hypothetical example of an action not yet carried out. In both the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason , Kant also gives a more detailed argument for the conclusion that morality and freedom reciprocally imply one another, which is sometimes called the reciprocity thesis Allison On this view, to act morally is to exercise freedom, and the only way to fully exercise freedom is to act morally.

First, it follows from the basic idea of having a will that to act at all is to act on some principle, or what Kant calls a maxim. A maxim is a subjective rule or policy of action: it says what you are doing and why.

We may be unaware of our maxims, we may not act consistently on the same maxims, and our maxims may not be consistent with one another. But Kant holds that since we are rational beings our actions always aim at some sort of end or goal, which our maxim expresses.

The goal of an action may be something as basic as gratifying a desire, or it may be something more complex such as becoming a doctor or a lawyer. If I act to gratify some desire, then I choose to act on a maxim that specifies the gratification of that desire as the goal of my action.

For example, if I desire some coffee, then I may act on the maxim to go to a cafe and buy some coffee in order to gratify that desire.

Second, Kant distinguishes between two basic kinds of principles or rules that we can act on: what he calls material and formal principles. To act in order to satisfy some desire, as when I act on the maxim to go for coffee at a cafe, is to act on a material principle ff. Here the desire for coffee fixes the goal, which Kant calls the object or matter of the action, and the principle says how to achieve that goal go to a cafe. A hypothetical imperative is a principle of rationality that says I should act in a certain way if I choose to satisfy some desire.

If maxims in general are rules that describe how one does act, then imperatives in general prescribe how one should act. An imperative is hypothetical if it says how I should act only if I choose to pursue some goal in order to gratify a desire This, for example, is a hypothetical imperative: if you want coffee, then go to the cafe. This hypothetical imperative applies to you only if you desire coffee and choose to gratify that desire.

In contrast to material principles, formal principles describe how one acts without making reference to any desires. This is easiest to understand through the corresponding kind of imperative, which Kant calls a categorical imperative. A categorical imperative commands unconditionally that I should act in some way. So while hypothetical imperatives apply to me only on the condition that I have and set the goal of satisfying the desires that they tell me how to satisfy, categorical imperatives apply to me no matter what my goals and desires may be.

Kant regards moral laws as categorical imperatives, which apply to everyone unconditionally. For example, the moral requirement to help others in need does not apply to me only if I desire to help others in need, and the duty not to steal is not suspended if I have some desire that I could satisfy by stealing. Moral laws do not have such conditions but rather apply unconditionally. That is why they apply to everyone in the same way.

Third, insofar as I act only on material principles or hypothetical imperatives, I do not act freely, but rather I act only to satisfy some desire s that I have, and what I desire is not ultimately within my control. To some limited extent we are capable of rationally shaping our desires, but insofar as we choose to act in order to satisfy desires we are choosing to let nature govern us rather than governing ourselves We are always free in the sense that we always have the capacity to govern ourselves rationally instead of letting our desires set our ends for us.

But we may freely fail to exercise that capacity. Moreover, since Kant holds that desires never cause us to act, but rather we always choose to act on a maxim even when that maxim specifies the satisfaction of a desire as the goal of our action, it also follows that we are always free in the sense that we freely choose our maxims.

Nevertheless, our actions are not free in the sense of being autonomous if we choose to act only on material principles, because in that case we do not give the law to ourselves, but instead we choose to allow nature in us our desires to determine the law for our actions. Finally, the only way to act freely in the full sense of exercising autonomy is therefore to act on formal principles or categorical imperatives, which is also to act morally. Kant does not mean that acting autonomously requires that we take no account of our desires, which would be impossible , This immediate consciousness of the moral law takes the following form:.

In other words, to assess the moral permissibility of my maxim, I ask whether everyone could act on it, or whether it could be willed as a universal law. The issue is not whether it would be good if everyone acted on my maxim, or whether I would like it, but only whether it would be possible for my maxim to be willed as a universal law.

This gets at the form, not the matter or content, of the maxim. A maxim has morally permissible form, for Kant, only if it could be willed as a universal law. If my maxim fails this test, as this one does, then it is morally impermissible for me to act on it. If my maxim passes the universal law test, then it is morally permissible for me to act on it, but I fully exercise my autonomy only if my fundamental reason for acting on this maxim is that it is morally permissible or required that I do so.

Imagine that I am moved by a feeling of sympathy to formulate the maxim to help someone in need.