Critique of Practical Reason

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Core Ideas

Freedom and Morality

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Core Ideas Freedom and Morality

Freedom and Morality

In the Analytic, Kant argues that freedom and morality are one and the same. The will that is free cannot be acting merely randomly, but must rather be acting on a law. Yet it cannot be dependent on the condition of the sensible world. The only law it can then be following is the law that consists solely of an injunction to follow a lawlike, e.g. universalizable maxim. And that law is just what Kant regards as the moral law. Reciprocally, when one is following the moral will, one is acting independently of one's contingent desires, that is, freely.

Kant presents his view of morality in contrast to what would today be called "compatibilist" theories of freedom, theories that strive to reconcile determinism and freedom. In his eyes, the theory that freedom is being determined by your inner nature, whether or not this is being done deterministically, is comparable to the theory that a clock is free as long as it is following its mechanism. We can see in Kant's view the influence of the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume argued that freedom was impossible, for the only two possibilities are that we are determined, in which case we are un-freely following our predetermined sequence of actions, or that we are not determined, in which case we are acting randomly, following chance, which is out of our control. Kant can be seen as proposing a third possibility, a law we can follow which is neither chance nor dependence on the contingent.

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