Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy: Connecting the Opus postumum and Metaphysics of Morals 9781350050303, 9781350050327, 9781350050297

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Systematic unity is that which first makes ordinary cognition into science
The connection between a priori foundation and empirical cases of application is a pervasive problem for Kant’s critical philosophy
Kant’s Transition Project in practical philosophy
Origins of the gap between a priori morality and embodied agency
Moral reflection
Moral schemata
1. What Philosophical Problem Does the Transition Project of the Opus postumum Address?
Introduction
Kant’s philosophia naturalis
The systematic function of the “General Remark to Dynamics”
Alternative accounts of the Transition Project
The schematism of the Transition Project
The “Octaventwurf” and the “Early Fascicles” of the Opus postumum : The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition
Conclusion
2. Why is a Transition Project in Practical Philosophy Required?
Introduction
Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis
A priori foundation and empirical open-endedness of ethics
Casuistry and ethical conflict
Kant’s alleged rigorism
Conclusion
3. Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals”
Introduction
The four mediating concepts in the “Aesthetics of Morals”
Implications
The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum
Conclusion
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

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Also available from Bloomsbury The Bloomsbury Companion to Kant, edited by Gary Banham, Dennis Schulting and Nigel Hems Nietzsche’s Engagements with Kant and the Kantian Legacy, edited by Marco Brusotti, Herman Siemens, João Constâncio and Tom Bailey Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism and the Third Critique, Michael Wayne

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy Connecting the Opus postumum and Metaphysics of Morals Oliver Thorndike

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 Paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Oliver Thorndike, 2018 Oliver Thorndike has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Thorndike, Oliver, 1973- author. Title: Kant’s transition project and late philosophy : connecting the Opus postumum and Metaphysics of morals / Oliver Thorndike. Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017027158 (print) | LCCN 2017056139 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350050310 (ePub) | ISBN 9781350050297 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781350050303 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Opus postumum. | Quantum theory–Philosophy. | Metaphysics. | Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Metaphysik der Sitten. | Ethics. Classification: LCC B2794.O63 (ebook) | LCC B2794.O63 T46 2018 (print) | DDC 193–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027158 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-5030-3 PB: 978-1-3501-2314-4 ePDF: 978-1-3500-5029-7 ePub: 978-1-3500-5031-0 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Abbreviations Preface Introduction Systematic unity is that which first makes ordinary cognition into science The connection between a priori foundation and empirical cases of application is a pervasive problem for Kant’s critical philosophy Kant’s Transition Project in practical philosophy Origins of the gap between a priori morality and embodied agency Moral reflection Moral schemata 1

2

What Philosophical Problem Does the Transition Project of the Opus postumum Address? Introduction Kant’s philosophia naturalis The systematic function of the “General Remark to Dynamics” Alternative accounts of the Transition Project The schematism of the Transition Project The “Octaventwurf ” and the “Early Fascicles” of the Opus postumum: The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition Conclusion Why is a Transition Project in Practical Philosophy Required? Introduction Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis A priori foundation and empirical open-endedness of ethics Casuistry and ethical conflict Kant’s alleged rigorism Conclusion

vii xi 1 2 6 9 14 19 25

31 31 32 51 65 85

92 106 113 113 116 125 146 167 177

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3

Contents

Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals” Introduction The four mediating concepts in the “Aesthetics of Morals” Implications The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum Conclusion

181 181 187 206 217 234

Conclusion

237

Bibliography Index

243 255

Abbreviations All references to Kant’s works are in accordance with the Akademie-Edition Vol. 1–29 of Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (formerly: Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (1902–). References indicate an abbreviation of Kant’s individual work, followed by volume and page number of the Akademie-Edition, for example, Op 21:373. References to the Critique of Pure Reason follow the customary pagination of the 1781 (A) and 1787 (B) edition, for example, KrV A692/B720. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1992–). The following abbreviations are used throughout the book: AA

Anth Br EaD EEKU FM

GMS GSK IaG JL

Immanuel Kants Schriften. Ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (formerly:  Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902–. Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht (Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View). In AA, Vol. 7. Briefe (Correspondence). In AA, Vol. 10–13, 23. Das Ende Aller Dinge (The End of all Things). In AA, Vol. 8. Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft (First Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment). In AA, Vol. 20. Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolffs Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff ?). In AA, Vol. 20. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals). In AA, Vol. 4. Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces). In AA, Vol. 1. Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim). In AA, Vol. 8 Immanuel Kants Logik: Ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen Logik (Logic). Ed. G. B. Jäsche. In AA, 9.

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KpV KrV

KU LK

MAN MpVT

MS MSI

MSTL MSRL NG

NL

Op Päd PG

Abbreviations

Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason). In AA, Vol. 5. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). Cited in accordance with standard practice of distinguishing the 1781/1787 editions as A/B. In AA, Vols. 3–4. Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the Power of Judgment). In AA, Vol. 5. Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und Beurtheilung der Beweise, deren sich Herr von Leibniz und andere Mechaniker in dieser Streitsache bedient haben, nebst einigen vorhergehenden Betrachtungen, welche die Kraft der Körper überhaupt betreffen (Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces). In AA, Vol. 1. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science). In AA, Vol. 4. Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee (On The Failure of All Philosophical Attempts in Theodicy). In AA, Vol. 8. Die Metaphysik der Sitten (incl. MSTL, MSRL) (The Metaphysics of Morals). In AA, Vol. 6. De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis ([Inaugural Dissertation] On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World). In AA, Vol. 2. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre (Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue). In AA, Vol. 6. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right). In AA, Vol. 6. Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy). In AA, Vol. 2. Neuer Lehrbegriff der Bewegung und Ruhe und der damit verknüpften Folgerungen in den ersten Gründen der Naturwissenschaft (New Theory of Motion and Rest, and the Connected Consequences in the First Principles of the Natural Sciences). In AA, Vol. 2. Opus postumum (Opus postumum). In AA, Vols. 21–22. Über Pädagogik (On Pedagogy). Ed. F. T. Rink. In AA, Vol. 9. Physische Geographie (Physical Geography). In AA, Vol. 9.

Abbreviations

PM

PND

Prol

Refl RGV SF TG

TP

UD

VARGV

VAMS VAnth VASF VE VL VM VP

ix

Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam (The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Geometry, of which Sample I Contains the Physical Monadology). In AA, Vol. 1. Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition). In AA, Vol. 1. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics). In AA, Vol. 4. Reflexion (Reflection). In AA, Vols. 14–19. Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason). In AA, Vol. 6. Der Streit der Fakultäten (The Conflict of the Faculties). In AA, Vol. 7. Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics). In AA, Vol. 2. Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (On the Common Saying:  That May Be Correct in Theory But It Is of No Use in Practice). In AA, Vol. 8. Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral (Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality). In AA, Vol. 2. Vorarbeiten zur Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (Preliminary Works for the Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason). In AA, Vol. 23. Vorarbeiten zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Preliminary Works for the Metaphysics of Morals). In AA, Vol. 23. Vorlesungen über Anthropologie (Lectures on Anthropology). In AA, Vol. 25. Vorarbeiten zum Streit der Fakultäten (Preliminary Works for the Conflict of the Faculties). In AA, Vol. 23. Vorlesungen über Ethik (Lectures on Ethics). In AA, Vols. 27, 29. Vorlesungen über Logik (Lectures on Logic). In AA, Vol. 24. Vorlesungen über Metaphysik (Lectures on Metaphysics). In AA, Vols. 28–29. Vorlesungen über Physik (Lectures on Physics). In AA, Vol. 29.

x

x

VPE VRML ZeF

Abbreviations

Vorlesung philosophische Enzyklopädie (Lectures on the Philosophical Encyclopaedia). In AA, Vol. 29. Über ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen (On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy). In AA, Vol. 8. Zum ewigen Frieden (Toward Perpetual Peace). In AA, Vol. 8.

Preface What originally motivated the writing of this book was sheer puzzlement about a remark Kant makes in §45 of the 1797–Doctrine of Virtue. In §45 Kant discusses the problem of how duties with respect to particular conditions can be seen as falling under the universal laws of obligation. The passage then continues as follows: Just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed—a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals:  a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use . . . —Even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.1

It became immediately clear to me that Kant is here referring to the Opus postumum. For example, consider the following passages written between 1796 and 1798: The Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics must not consist entirely of a priori concepts of matter in general, for it would then merely be metaphysics (e.g. where one talks merely of attraction and repulsion in general), and also must not consist entirely of empirical representations, for they would then belong to physics (e.g. observation of chemistry). Rather [the Transition] belongs to the a priori principles of . . . natural investigation[,] . . . that is, to the subjective principle of the schematism of the power of judgment to classify empirically given moving forces in accordance with a priori principles . . . and so to pass from an aggregate . . . to a system of physics.2 The doctrine of the laws of the moving forces of matter, insofar as they are known a priori, is called metaphysics; insofar as they can only be derived from experience, physics. That doctrine, however, which envisages only the a priori principles of application of the former, rational [doctrine] to [the latter] empirical

1 2

MSTL 6:468–9. Op 21:362–3, my emphasis and translation.

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Preface one, can form the transition of the philosophy of nature from the metaphysics of corporeal nature to physics.3

It surprised me that, as far as I could see, no one had pursued this historical parallel. What puzzled me philosophically was the question of what precisely the parallel Kant wants to make in §45 is about. How substantial is it? The thesis of this book is that Kant formulates a Transition Project not only in his theoretical philosophy—the Opus postumum—but also in his practical philosophy, though this side of Kant’s Transition Project is buried in various published passages of the time period 1796–8. This is a historical claim. This historical claim is intricately connected to the constructive thesis of this book: the Transition Project is not an afterthought. Rather, it stands at the center of Kant’s conception of critical philosophy, which attempts to provide the a priori foundation of empirical cognition and thus strictly separates formal from material aspects. The problem of a gap between the pure and empirical parts of Kant’s theoretical and practical philosophy, which Kant articulates in the Opus postumum and various writings on practical philosophy in the same time period of 1796–8, is not just a highly specialized project. It goes to the heart of understanding Kant’s critical philosophy and can be traced throughout Kant’s critical writings. For this reason, I think, understanding Kant’s Transition Project holds the key for making progress on various problems currently discussed by Kantians. Kant’s Opus postumum is still not very well known today. One goal of this book is to make the Opus postumum more accessible to those Kantians who are not primarily interested in the metaphysics–physics connection, and to show why this project also matters to them. For example, there are many scholars interested in Kant’s moral philosophy who do not sufficiently explain how empirical considerations (regardless of what degree of generality) can play a systematic role in a theory that is decidedly a priori. These authors put a lot of weight on the latitude of Kantian ethics, but fail to address how empirical considerations are supposed to be connected to the a priori foundation of morality, thereby making the connection between the a priori principle of autonomy and empirical agency contingent. However, for Kant, the normativity of particular laws cannot be contingent at the bottom. The only way to conceive of empirical laws as necessary is by tracing them to their a priori foundation. In order for an observed empirical regularity in nature to count as a law proper it must be brought under the a priori principles

3

Op 21:310–1.

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that are constitutive of the system of nature. Since a priori principles by themselves do not guarantee systematicity of the manifold of empirical laws, it is the task of reflective judgment to assume that empirical laws can be systematically organized, that is, to look for their arrangement under a priori principles. For, if we could not assume that it is possible to unify particular empirical laws into one system grounded in a priori principles, then we could only think of particular empirical laws as contingently lawful. In the theoretical context, this means that even though the systematic organization of empirical laws is a contingent matter, reflective judgment must approach the empirical regularities it observes in nature as if they were systematically organized in order to comprehend their necessity, that is, in order to comprehend them as truly law-governed. But precisely what principles guide reflective judgment in its necessary endeavor? How are constitutive principles connected to the regulative maxims that guide empirical inquiry? An answer to this question is quite essential to Kant’s critical philosophy, because the latter aims at a system of empirical cognitions founded on a priori principles. The Transition Project lies at the intersection of metaphysical laws and the empirical variety of specific laws, and it attempts to comprehend the latter as modifications of the former. This work is not completed with the Critique of the Power of Judgment. For, the general principle of reflective judgment by itself does not yet license the necessity of particular empirical laws. The a priori principle of the faculty of judgment does not guide empirical investigation in any determinate way. Thus, the Transition Project attempts to connect the regulative idea of the systematic unity of nature in its empirical laws with the determinate principles of understanding through a theory of mediating concepts that aims to make comprehensible how particular, experimentally obtained cognitions of empirical laws (physics) can be regressively linked to the laws constitutive of matter in general (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science). This foundationalist aspect of Kant’s critical philosophy is perhaps clearest in the metaphysics–ethics relation: particular moral laws can only be seen as necessary if we can assume that they can be united in one system. An agent cannot even conceive of herself as one person unless reflective judgment assumes that all rules that she takes to be normatively binding on her can be united in a system. The only way to see particular moral rules as necessary for human beings is to trace them to their a priori principle: autonomy. But precisely how does the idea of autonomy guide empirical agency in a noncontingent way? Understanding the problem of §45 and the solution Kant offers to it requires drawing an analogy between the Opus postumum and some of Kant’s late thoughts

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on practical philosophy. The assumption that divers empirical laws can be systematized is necessary for the Kantian foundation of empirical laws in a priori principles. So, in the Opus postumum, reflective judgment prescribes mediating concepts in order to search for systematic unity among empirical laws. These mediating concepts, or schemata of the Transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to empirical physics, are ordered in accordance with the table of the categories of the understanding, in order to assure a systematic and exhaustive classification of empirical physics. Once I used the problem of the Opus postumum as a lens for looking at Kant’s late moral philosophy, I discovered something quite fascinating, a rare archeological find, as it were: Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals,” that is, section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue (which was written at the same time as the so-called Octaventwurf of the Opus postumum) presents four moral feelings as affective responses to reflective judgment, and since these four feelings are structured in accordance with the table of the categories of freedom, it dawned on me that Kant might be pursuing part of a larger systematic project here. In other words, I found that looking at the metaphysics–physics connection from the standpoint of the metaphysics–ethics connection, and vice versa, reveals an underlying gap in Kant’s critical philosophy, which is common to both his theoretical and practical philosophy: since the necessity of particular laws is a feature of their a priori foundation, there has to be a Transition from the pure to the applied parts of a science. In the time period of 1796–8, Kant attempts to bring about this Transition through mediating concepts, which are the product of reflective judgment. This reading, I think, holds the key for making progress on various problems currently discussed by Kantians. Here is a list of some of these debates: the problems of how Kant’s pure morality can be applied to particular circumstances, that is, the relationship between pure principles and impure ethics (as Robert Louden has famously called it); problems regarding the indeterminacy of Kant’s ethics as a doctrine of wide duties (think of Thomas Hill’s famous discussion of the problem and the numerous responses it has evoked); the question of whether the systematicity of nature is merely a heuristic assumption of regulative reason or can actually be ascribed to nature as a transcendental principle (think of the debates regarding the “Appendix to the Dialectic” and the two introductions to the third Critique); the role of schemata in the Opus postumum (think of the dispute between Eckart Förster and Michael Friedman regarding the question of whether the Opus postumum completes the first Critique or whether it is directed toward the empirical sciences). This is a list of complex issues for Kant interpreters. I propose that because the transition problems in both theoretical

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and practical philosophy are fundamentally about the same issue of connecting the pure to the applied part of a science within the framework of Kant’s conception of critical philosophy, which separates formal from material aspects, it is worth looking at Kant’s solution to the moral problem in order to shed new light on his solution to the theoretical problem and vice versa. I think it will be helpful to the reader if I briefly comment on some of the criticisms that I have received from readers of this manuscript in order to clarify what I try to do and what I try not to do in this book. I begin with a methodological worry. On the one hand, I make a simple historical point, namely, that parallel to the more familiar Transition Project that takes place in Kant’s theoretical philosophy (Opus postumum), there is a Transition Project in practical philosophy that is hitherto unacknowledged in its systematic significance and analogous relationship to the Opus postumum. Kant uses the same terminology to address issues regarding the connection between metaphysics–physics and metaphysics-ethics in the time period of 1796–8. So I want to prove historically that this parallel exists. That Kant has a Transition Project in mind in his moral philosophy, which can be found in his writings of 1796–8, mainly in some passages of the Metaphysics of Morals, is a new historical insight. On the other hand, I deal with a lot of contemporary commentary on Kant’s theoretical and practical philosophy in order to motivate the philosophical importance of this historical point. So there is a constructive aspect woven into the historical story I want to tell. Much revolves around the fact that “transition” is something that Kant thought about a lot throughout his career—that it is not a new project but one that is noticeable at various stages of his writings. To establish this point, I rely on historical evidence (other texts from Kant’s writings, putting Kant into conversation with other authors who I think have not received sufficient attention) and have selected interpretations of Kant’s works that are taken from an incredible wealth of secondary sources that is truly awe-inspiring. For example, Chapter 1 presents a rather detailed discussion of the scholarly dispute regarding the Opus postumum and its connection to the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, in order to show how this relationship sets the stage for an understanding of §45, that is, the parallel Transition in practical philosophy. Both historical methodology (e.g., I show how a manuscript by Kant’s student Kiesewetter that has not received proper attention provides crucial historical evidence regarding the nature of the Transition) and constructive argumentation go hand in hand here. It may seem that the constructive point about Kant’s philosophy is by itself independent of the historical points I am trying to make, or that the detailed discussion of the scholarly debate regarding the Opus postumum in

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Chapter 1 is independent of the interpretative points I deal with in the context of Kant’s moral philosophy in Chapters 2 and 3. Such a view presupposes a divide I try to overcome: this is not a book on Kant’s moral philosophy, and it is not a book on Kant’s philosophy of nature. It is a book about two parallel Transition Projects. Because the overall narrative is one about the systematic need to make these Transitions within the systems of nature and morals, and because Kant works on these Transitions in the same time period of 1796–8, I use the singular: Kant’s Transition Project. The strength of the argument very much depends, in my view, on reading the theoretical and practical parts of this book together, because it is the analogy between the Transition from metaphysics to physics and that from pure morality to empirical ethics that provides the justification for framing the questions and problems in the way they are presented here. This is ultimately a historical perspective, because I aim to show how Kant means to frame these questions and problems. The historical argument presented here is thus pivotal to the constructive argument of the book, and this is why I treat Kant’s responses to some of his historical interlocutors, such as Cicero, Garve, Baumgarten, Kiesewetter, Michaelis, and other figures who deserve more attention in the literature, as philosophically important. For example, had we read Baumgarten more carefully, we would not need to discuss the role of moral feelings in the context of motivating moral agency today, because Kant explicitly rejects this view when he discusses his textbook author Baumgarten. Or, had we paid more attention to Kant’s parallel thoughts on theoretical and practical philosophy, then the historical fact that the problem of the Transition is not unique to Kant’s theoretical philosophy would have reshaped the philosophical debate around the problem of the systematicity of empirical laws. So, this is a book that uses the history of philosophy to sketch responses to some of the interpretative problems dealt with in contemporary Kant scholarship. I hope that both, those who focus on the history of philosophy and those who take a more analytic approach, will be engaged by this book. The interpretative problems I discuss are all highly selective; their discussion is motivated from the perspective of Kant’s parallel thoughts on theoretical and practical philosophy in 1796–8. Given the length of this book, I leave untouched many points that deserve much more attention and should be included here if this were just a book on Kant’s philosophy of nature or on his moral philosophy. There remains much work to be done on the path I am sketching here. In some sense then, this book is programmatic. For me, it was important to get the overarching idea out, because I think the historical claim about the Transition Project in Kant’s works, both in theoretical and practical philosophy, is innovative from

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various perspectives. How deep the analogy between Kant’s Transition Project in theoretical and practical philosophy really goes, how substantial it is, how helpful it is, or not, for solving various debates in Kant’s philosophy of nature and morals, deserves further discussion. Naturally, my hope is that Kantians will continue on the route outlined here, because interpreters have missed the parallel between Kant’s late writings on practical philosophy and the Opus postumum. I do not think that this book is of interest only to those who want to learn how two parts of Kant’s philosophy (the a priori/rational and empirical parts) come together. Rather, I will show that looking at the connection between the a priori part of Kant’s philosophy of nature and morals and its empirical counterparts, physics and ethics, will provide a new path in the evaluation of Kant’s critical philosophy overall. Kant tells us that his late thoughts on theoretical and practical philosophy are intended to bring his critical philosophy to completion. I think this deserves more scholarly attention than it has received, and I think it will force us to rethink some aspects of Kant’s philosophy. One reader remarked that a collection of essays on what Kant understood by transition as a problem of schematism would be desirable. I agree, and my book takes a first step in this direction. So, here is another book on Kant. Sauve qui peut! This book is certainly guilty of citing passages that have already been cited too often, but they are important for understanding the problems that I discuss. This is particularly true in Chapter 2, where I try to come to terms with the origins of Kant’s distinction between a formal principle of morality and material conditions of its application, which ultimately leads to the indeterminacy of Kant’s conception of ethics and to the question of what a system of ends could mean for Kant. In this context, I am thankful to my anonymous reviewers whose insightful written comments have helped me to make the thread of the book more coherent. Obviously, I am indebted to all scholars whom I cite and paraphrase in this study, but I would like to note that I feel especially indebted to the work of those with whom I disagree. I hope the book will speak to this for itself. I am also indebted to many scholars with whom I had conversations during various meetings or who have commented on my work. Specifically, I would like to thank the following for reading parts of this manuscript in a time where no one really has time: Mavis Biss, Robert Clewis, James Hebbeler, Tim Jankowiak, Colin McLear, Michael Bennett McNulty, John W. Peck, Krista Thomason, and Melissa Zinkin. Your time and support mean a lot to me. Each of the chapters of this book has been presented at one of the meetings of the North American Kant Society and/or the Baltimore/DC Kant Workshop.

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I would like to thank all participants of these meetings for their help, especially Anne Margaret Baxley, Courtney Fugate, Huaping Lu-Adler, Laura Papish, Michael Rohlf, Adam Shmidt, Marius Stan, Martin Sticker, Joseph Trullinger, and Donald Wilson. As member and chair of the Eastern Study Group of the North American Kant Society and as editor and coeditor of the book series Rethinking Kant, I had the opportunity to meet and learn from many Kant scholars, senior, up-and-coming, as well as graduate students. I feel very humbled to be part of the Kant community. I hope this book gives something back to those from whom I have learned. I owe thanks to Eckart Förster without whom this book would not exist. Thanks to John H. Zammito and Pablo Muchnik for their advice and enthusiastic encouragement. There were various meetings in Istanbul, where I taught for a year, and a workshop at St. Andrews, from which I have profited and which I remember with great pleasure. Many passages from the Opus postumum and other German sources are here translated for the first time into English. I want to thank Patrick Brugh for helping me with some of these translations. Thanks to Heidi Herr for being a great librarian. Thanks to my wife, Dörte Thorndike, for choosing the cover design of this book and much more. Special thanks to Colleen Coalter at Bloomsbury for her friendly assistance and support of this project. Finally, I would like to thank Loyola University Maryland for being a home to me. Baltimore, August 2017

Introduction

Kant’s self-image as a philosopher essentially hinges on the idea to keep philosophy proper pure, that is, detached from all contingent empirical matter. This book is about Kant’s attempt in his late philosophy to connect, in a philosophically robust sense, the a priori, noncontingent foundational principles with empirical cases of their application. I call this systematic attempt “Kant’s Transition Project.” In the existing literature, the term Transition Project refers to an unfinished manuscript that Kant calls the “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics,” which is today known as the Opus postumum. There is a heated debate among commentators about why Kant describes the Transition Project as filling a “gap” within his system of critical philosophy. In his letters to Garve and Kiesewetter, Kant reports that only “the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics” will fill a gap in the “system of critical philosophy.”1 With much pathos, Kant claims that seeing his critical philosophy unfinished produces pain like that of Tantalus.2 Putting pathos aside, Kant’s point, made repeatedly between 1796 and 1798, is that there remains a gap in the critical system of philosophy, which needs to be filled through mediating concepts so that the empirical studies of physics can be guided by Kant’s metaphysics of nature.3 What philosophical problem does the Transition Project of the Opus postumum address? Why does Kant describe it as necessary? How does it complete the critical system? While I will address these questions in Chapter 1 and suggest an alternative to the existing interpretations, the other main contribution of this book is to show that there is also a Transition Project in Kant’s practical philosophy, as I will show in Chapters 2 and 3. My thesis is that there is a hitherto unacknowledged parallel between Kant’s late writings on practical philosophy and the Opus postumum. Understanding the metaphysics–physics relation not only allows us to see how to resolve 1 2 3

Br 12:257. Cf. Br 12:258. Br 12:257. Op 21:476–7, 484, 486–7.

2

2

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

indeterminacy issues that are the topic of present Kant scholarship in ethics, but also vice versa—understanding the metaphysics–ethics connection helps understanding the sense in which Kant meant the Opus postumum to complete his critical theory of cognition. I propose that looking at the connection between the a priori part of Kant’s philosophy of nature and morals and its empirical counterparts, physics and ethics, by putting two texts into conversation that Kant wrote at the same time, that is, the Opus postumum and the Metaphysics of Morals, sheds new light on Kant’s critical philosophy as a whole. The current introduction provides a rough outline of the argumentative structure of the book.

Systematic unity is that which first makes ordinary cognition into science In order to see why the problem of the Transition Project goes to the heart of Kant’s systematic conception of critical philosophy, I suggest we begin by asking why there is no transition problem for those philosophers that Kant labels “mathematical scientists,” such as Descartes or Newton. For Descartes, the metaphysical essence of matter is to be extended, and empirical motion is a mode of extension. In Descartes’s philosophy of nature, we can in principle understand how empirical motion depends on the metaphysical essence of matter, because a body having a determinate motion is just a more determinate way of being extended.4 In other words, there is a continuous relationship between the metaphysical foundation of physics and the empirical science of physics, because determinate empirical laws of motion are modifications of mathematically describable geometrical features of space. In terms of Kant’s critical philosophy, however, such a conception collapses mathematics (geometrical laws) and philosophy (dynamical laws), because forces are causal (not mathematical) relations.5 Causal relations are subject to the principles of the Critique, and for this reason, any mathematical natural science, including Descartes’s and Newton’s, presupposes philosophical principles. Metaphysics must ground mathematical principles in physics.6 In the part of the philosophical science of nature (philosophia naturalis) entitled the metaphysical foundations thereof, there already lies a tendency toward 4

5

6

On this point, see Daniel Warren, “Kant on the Substance—Accident Relation and the Thinking Subject,” in Rethinking Kant, Vol. 4, ed. Pablo Muchnik et  al. (Newcastle upon Tyne:  Cambridge Scholars, 2015), 35–54. Cf. Op 21:352, 505; Op 22:515–6; Erich Adickes, Kants Opus postumum (Berlin:  Reuther and Reichard, 1920), 159. Op 22:514–6.

Introduction

3

physics as the goal to which it is directed—namely, to expound the empirical doctrine of material science in a system. What are called the mathematical foundations of science of nature (philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica), as expressed by Newton in his immortal work, are (as the expression itself indicates) no part of the philosophy of nature. They are only an instrument (albeit a most necessary one) for the calculation of the magnitude of motions and moving forces (which must be given by observation of nature) and for the determination of their laws for physics . . . The same can be said of empirical knowledge of nature insofar as this forms only a chance aggregate, not a system—for which a general classification according to concepts a priori is required.7

As I will show in more detail in chapter 1, for Kant, Newton and his followers merely provide an aggregate of cognition. Their method is experimental, and it (merely) provides a descriptive and mathematical comprehension of phenomena but not insight into their possibility. Thus, for the Newtonians there is no transition problem, because their experimental physics is not deductive but begins instead with empirical observations. At least this is what Kant claims when he calls Newton an “opponent”8 and charges that “his Principia philosophicae mathematica are not developed systematically, from a principle, but had to be compiled empirically and rhapsodically,” and thus could not amount to a “philosophical system.” 9 The same point holds with respect to the evolving science of chemistry: although Kant does not doubt it to be a rational science insofar as chemical action of matter is based on causal laws, the mere quantitative measurement of such phenomena is not sufficient to make chemistry properly scientific.10 As Friedman puts this point, for Kant, “any empirical regularity is to count as a genuine law” only if it can be brought “under the transcendental principles of the understanding.” 11 What would be needed is thus a demonstration of how empirical forces of whatever kind can be seen as modifications of the forces that Kant has shown to be constitutive of matter in general, that is, the metaphysical forces of repulsion and attraction: So long, therefore, as there is still for chemical actions of matters on one another . . . no law of the approach [attraction] or withdrawal [repulsion] of the parts of matter . . . chemistry can be nothing more than . . . [an] experimental 7 8 9 10

11

Op 21:481–2. Op 22:512. Op 22:518. On this point, see Michael Bennett McNulty, “Chemistry in Kant’s Opus postumum,” The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 6(1) (2016): 64–95. Michael Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 30 (S1) (1991): 73–102, 89–90. Despite a famous passage on chemistry in the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations (4:468), chemistry is not in a different spot than any other empirically observed law of physics. For further discussion of this point, see Chapter 1, “Kant’s philosophia naturalis.”

4

4

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy doctrine, but never a proper science, because its principles are merely empirical . . . Consequently, they do not in the least make the principles of chemical appearances conceivable with respect to their possibility.12

The debate between Wolffians and Newtonians among Kant’s contemporaries precisely revolves around this point: the former claim that true explanation of phenomena requires insight into their possibility, that is, they must be derived from the essential features of bodies in general. Kant shares this view. I will use various terms to describe this foundationalist relationship between metaphysical and empirical features: for example, the latter are modifications of the former; the latter are connected or linked to the necessity of the former; the latter stand under or are derived from the former; or the former make the latter understandable as necessary. What I try to bring out through these expressions is that, on Kant’s account, what makes a law necessary is that insight into its a priori foundation can be provided.13 When Kant says in the “General Remark to Dynamics” in the Metaphysical Foundations that all natural philosophy consists “in the reduction of given, apparently different forces to a smaller number of forces and powers that explain the actions of the former, although this reduction proceeds only up to fundamental forces,”14 I take him to be committed to the claim that the fundamental forces make comprehensible those that explain the specific variety of matter, not the much stronger claim that the derivative forces explaining the specific variety of matter must be reducible (in the sense of an eliminative reduction) to the fundamental attractive and repulsive forces. On Kant’s view, a theory of science that does not explain the metaphysical foundations of causal laws, but merely enumerates them and describes them mathematically, is not yet a philosophy of nature. According to Kant, Newtonians do not truly explain natural phenomena but merely provide an aggregate of empirical laws.15 The transition problem that Kant picks up in the “General Remark to Dynamics,” where he aims to show how empirical moving forces of nature can be seen to be modifications of the moving forces that are constitutive of matter

12

13

14 15

MAN 4:470–1. Cf. “Necessity . . . is thought in every law, namely objective necessity from a priori grounds . . . Even the rules of uniform appearances are called laws of nature (e.g., mechanical laws) only when they are either cognized really a priori or (as in the case of chemical laws) when it is assumed that they would be cognized a priori from objective grounds if our insight went deeper” (KpV 5:26). For similar views, see Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 89–92, and also James Hebbeler, “Kant on Reason in the Sciences,” in Rethinking Kant, Vol. 5, ed. Pablo Muchnik et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, forthcoming). MAN 4:534. On the debate between Wolffians and Newtonians, see Gunter Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch 1700– 1850: Zur Geschichte der Physik und ihrer Didaktik in Deutschland (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1992).

Introduction

5

in general, only occurs for those thinkers who attempt to tie in experience and its phenomena into a metaphysical system of knowledge. A  theory of science that begins with empirical observations does not have a transition problem. Even though Kant does not share the philosophical method of the Wolffians, he inherits their systematic endeavor. His theory of knowledge cannot proceed from empirical laws because the transcendental turn makes the subject of cognition the source of the lawfulness of nature: We must not seek the universal laws of nature from nature by means of experience, but, conversely, must seek nature, as regards its universal conformity to law, solely in the conditions of the possibility of experience that lie in our sensibility and understanding . . . [Since] nature is derived from the laws of the possibility of experience in general and is fully identical with the mere universal lawfulness of experience . . . the universal laws of nature can and must be cognized a priori (i.e., independently of all experience) and set at the foundation of all empirical use of the understanding.16

Far from being a marginal concern, what is at stake in Kant’s Transition Project is nothing less than a defense of Kant’s systematic way to approach the study of nature, that is, the possibility of a philosophy of nature (philosophia naturalis). Kant aims to demonstrate that, because the metaphysical first principles of material nature are grounded in the transcendental principles that make experience possible, there arises the prospect for the faculty of judgment to systematically investigate nature in such a way that physics, which is of course empirical and open-ended, can itself be justified as a rational doctrine of nature. What makes a law necessary, for Kant, is that it can be shown to be founded on a priori grounds. The necessity of a law is a feature of its metaphysical foundation. As Kant sees it, this prospect of showing the necessity of laws is unavailable to both the various Naturlehren Kant encountered in his textbooks and the mathematical scientists: since they proceed from empirical phenomena, they only provide an “aggregate of perceptions whose completeness as a system is the object of philosophy.”17 The Opus postumum thus formulates the problem: There must be a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics if the science of nature is to become a science of reason (philosophia naturalis).18 16 17 18

Prol 4:318f. Op 21:402. Op 21:474–5. Emphasis in the original.

6

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

For Kant, such a systematic approach to the study of nature is supposed to ground and guide physics as an experimental science. In the Kantian system, objects of experience are not things in themselves but appearances, and thus any object of experience must fall under the epistemic restrictions of transcendental philosophy.19 It is essentially pertaining to Kant’s system of critical philosophy to show how true natural science is possible, that is, to show how empirical laws “stand under” these transcendental restrictions. All proper natural science . . . requires a pure part lying at the basis of the empirical part, and resting on a priori cognition of natural things. Now to cognize something a priori means to cognize it from its mere possibility.20

Unlike the dominant interpretations, this stresses the continuity of Kant’s Transition Project. The Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations to physics in the Opus postumum is not a fundamentally new project. As I will show, the problem of a lawful progression from the metaphysical foundations of the cognition of nature to empirical physics originates in Kant’s very conception of critical philosophy and its strict separation of formal from material aspects of knowledge. The Transition Project is already explicitly present in the 1786 “General Remark to Dynamics” in the Metaphysical Foundations, where Kant sets himself the task of providing an a priori classification of the kinds of moving forces in their dependence on the two matter constituting forces of repulsion and attraction, that is, the metaphysical first principles of matter in general.

The connection between a priori foundation and empirical cases of application is a pervasive problem for Kant’s critical philosophy The Transition Project reaches to the beginnings of Kant’s critical project, that is, the separation of formal and material conditions of knowledge. I call that in the appearance which corresponds to sensation its matter, but that which allows the manifold of appearance to be intuited as ordered in certain relations I call the form of appearance. Since that within which the sensations can alone be ordered and placed in a certain form cannot itself be in turn sensation, the matter of all appearance is only given to us a posteriori, but its form

19 20

MAN 4:472; Prol 4:319. MAN 4:470.

Introduction

7

must all lie ready for it in the mind a priori, and can therefore be considered separately from all sensation.21

The separation of a priori from a posteriori aspects of cognition is hardly at the periphery of Kant’s notion of philosophy. Given that Kant’s a priori account of nature in general is established independently of the empirical study of objects, there is a gap between the formal and material study of nature. As Kant puts it in the Critique of the Power of Judgment: One need only consider the magnitude of the task of making an interconnected experience out of given perceptions of a nature that in the worst case contains an infinite multiplicity of empirical laws, a task that lies in the understanding a priori. The understanding is of course in possession a priori of universal laws of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience at all; but still it requires in addition a certain order of nature in its particular rules . . . These rules, without which there would be no progress [Fortgang] from the general analogy of a possible experience in general to the particular, it must think as laws (i.e., as necessary), because otherwise they would not constitute an order of nature.22

For Kant, knowledge of nature is not a heap of possibly unrelated empirical laws. Rather, it requires the systematic unity of cognitions. Such unity is possible because the metaphysical study of nature in general provides the foundation for the applied study of nature. Both the metaphysical foundation and the application to particulars are parts of physics as a rational cognition of nature. It is “important to the critical system that empirical laws somehow ‘stand under’ . . . a priori laws of nature in general.”23 I will argue that Kant’s project of explaining the necessity of empirical laws through a transcendental theory of the possibility of experience stands in the tradition of philosophia naturalis, which, generally speaking, means a description of nature’s order based on rational principles. Metaphysics is supposed to provide secure foundations for empirical knowledge. Kant’s claim, repeatedly made in the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations, that already the word “nature” carries with it the concept of a priori laws, and hence the possibility of systematic empirical knowledge, picks up this general idea of a philosophia naturalis.

21 22 23

KrV A20/B34. KU 5:184. Michael Friedman, Kant and the Exact Sciences (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 258. Cf. “But without exception all laws of nature stand under higher principles of the understanding, as they only apply the latter to particular cases of appearance” (KrV A158–9/B197–8).

8

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

The Transition Project is meant to guide natural sciences to a coherent rational explanation of natural phenomena by connecting the constitutive a priori principles of material nature to the empirical study of nature. The Transition Project thus lies at the intersection of metaphysical laws and the empirical variety of specific laws, and it attempts to comprehend the latter as modifications of the former. Kant’s student Kiesewetter, who knew of Kant’s Transition Project from personal conversations with him, unambiguously describes the Transition Project in terms of the necessary connection between the rational foundation and empirical manifestation of natural laws.24 The Transition Project is one of providing mediating concepts, that is, “an exhibition of the laws of the modification of matter based on the relation between the two foundational forces.”25 Here is how Kant puts it: The science of nature (philosophia naturalis) consists of two parts . . . The first . . . was composed under the title Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. The second part, which proceeds from empirical principles, would, if one wished to undertake it, be called physics . . . The transition from one science to the other must have certain intermediary concepts, which are given in the one and are applied to the other, and which thus belong to both territories alike.26 Thus a schema . . . must be brought about, which builds a bridge from the metaphysical foundations to physics.27

The term “schema” or “intermediary concept” is here not meant in its transcendental sense of determinate judgment outlined in the “Transcendental Analytic.” Rather, I  will argue that it picks up on the idea of the regulative principle of the systematic unity of nature, which Kant discusses in the “Appendix to the Dialectic.” Curiously enough, as we will see, Kant here suggests that the idea that it is “from a highest intelligence [God] that we derive the order of the world and its systematic unity,” functions as a “schema of the regulative principle for the systematic unity of all cognitions of nature.”28 Since a regulative idea is indeterminate, the unity of empirical laws of nature must of course be searched for empirically in terms of the “physical–mechanical connection according to universal laws,”29 that is, the constitutive principles of matter in general. Thus, the 24

25 26 27 28 29

Arthur Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit über Kants Naturphilosophie von seinem Schüler Kiesewetter,” Altpreußische Forschungen 5 (1928): 312–15. All translations from “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit” are mine. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 315. Op 21:524–5, last emphasis is mine. Op 21:168, my emphasis and translation. KrV A674/B702, my emphasis. KrV A692/B720.

Introduction

9

question arises how precisely the regulative principle of reason shall function as a useful guide for the empirical investigation of nature. Neither the “Appendix” nor the two introductions to the Critique of the Power of Judgment tell us how the regulative procedure of reflective judgment is connected to the constitutive a priori principles of material nature. The schemata of the Transition Project of the Opus postumum are meant to fill this lacuna, by providing mediating concepts that guide empirical investigation through “the subjective principle of the schematism of the power of judgment, [which classifies] the empirically given moving forces in accordance with a priori principles . . . and so [passes] from an aggregate . . . to a system of physics.”30 The schematism of the Opus postumum is thus meant to connect the regulative principle of reflective judgment to the constitutive principles of cognition. I will show how the problem of providing an a priori classification of the kinds of moving forces in their dependence on Kant’s metaphysics of nature is a continuous and pervasive problem, which is central to the critical conception of knowledge, and which can be traced throughout Kant’s critical work, including the “Appendix,” “General Remark to Dynamics,” the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and the Opus postumum: since the transition is brought about through a “schematism of the power of judgment,” all mediating concepts must be rooted in the forms of judgment, and thus we can understand why Kant attempts to exhaustively classify all mediating concepts through the table of the categories.

Kant’s Transition Project in practical philosophy Kant’s critical project is of course not limited to theoretical philosophy. The goal of the Critique is to set metaphysics on the secure path of a science. Central to this project is the standpoint of transcendental idealism and its distinction between formal and material conditions of knowledge. However, the issue of a transition between the pure and applied parts of a science, universal foundation and its application to contingent particular cases, is also present throughout Kant’s critical writings on moral philosophy. Just as Kant’s theoretical philosophy separates formal from material conditions of the cognition of nature, so his practical philosophy separates formal from material conditions of morality. My thesis is that there is a transition problem not only in Kant’s theoretical philosophy, but also that Kant explicitly addresses a transition problem in practical 30

Op 21:363, my translation.

10

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

philosophy in the time period of 1796–8 as well. In §45 of the Doctrine of Virtue, which Kant writes at the same time as the passages cited above from the Opus postumum, Kant alludes to the Opus postumum and demands a Transition Project also in practical philosophy. In §45, Kant discusses the problem of how duties with respect to particular conditions can be seen as falling under the universal laws of obligation. The passage continues as follows: Just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed—a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals:  a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use . . . —Even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.31

“Überschritt” and “Übergang” will be both translated as “transition” in this book because Kant uses these terms interchangeably.32 This passage raises a number of questions: What kind of transition does Kant have in mind in §45? What would a schematism of practical principles be, and why would such a transition be necessary? What precisely does the analogy between the theoretical and practical spheres look like? Why does this problem become pressing for Kant? To begin with, an analogous foundationalist relationship guides Kant’s thinking in both theoretical and practical philosophy: In this way there arises the idea of a twofold metaphysics, a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics of morals. Physics will therefore have its empirical part but it will also have a rational part; so too will ethics, though here the empirical part might be given the special name practical anthropology, while the rational part might be properly called morals . . . I  ask only whether the nature of science does not require that . . . a metaphysics of nature be put before physics proper (empirical physics) and a metaphysics of morals before practical anthropology, with metaphysics cleansed of everything empirical.33

The rational foundation of moral agency, that is, the essence of duty, is autonomy. Autonomy is independent of anything sensibly given. This is one of the most crucial features of Kantian morality, because it establishes that the normativity of moral claims is not based on contingent interests. However, even though the ground of obligation cannot lie “in the nature of the human being or in the

31 32 33

MSTL 6:468–9. See, for example, Op 21:178, 362–3, 373, 505, 617, 618. GMS 4:388. Cf. KU 5:170, 174.

Introduction

11

circumstances of the world in which he is placed,”34 autonomy still needs to be applied to the empirical human being. The idea of autonomy must be capable of guiding specific conduct, because just as the necessity of empirical laws of nature consists in their a priori foundation, so the necessity of particular moral precepts is a feature of their a priori foundation. Kant explicitly draws this comparison in the Critique of Practical Reason, when he explains that normativity of moral rules cannot be based on “merely empirical” grounds, because then they would not have that necessity which is thought in every law, namely objective necessity from a priori grounds . . . which must be cognized a priori by reason, not by experience (however empirically universal this may be). Even the rules of uniform appearances are called laws of nature . . . only when they are either cognized really a priori or (as in the case of chemical laws) when it is assumed that they would be cognized a priori from objective grounds if our insight went deeper.35

What makes an empirical law necessary is the connection to its metaphysical foundation. This relationship between a priori foundation and empirical application is picked up in §45 of the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue, where Kant explicitly alludes to the Transition Project pursued in the Opus postumum. This is not entirely surprising, because the time of the publication of the two parts of the Metaphysics of Morals, that is, the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue (1796–8), fall into the same time period in which Kant worked on the Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics.36 The second part of the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue, which deals with duties of virtue with respect to others, falls into two chapters: (1) On duties to others merely as human beings, and (2) On duties to others in accordance with the differences in their condition. Kant follows here again the Wolffian distinction between the pure and applied part of a science, and attempts to understand duties with respect to specific conditions as modifications of universally valid moral principles. Kant thus writes in §45, which I now quote at length: These (duties of virtue) do not really call for a special chapter in the system of pure ethics; since they do not involve principles of obligation for human beings

34 35 36

GMS 4:389. KpV 5:26. For approximate dates, see Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 54ff., 91ff., 103ff., 153–4. Cf. Eckart Förster, Introduction to Opus postumum, by Immanuel Kant (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1993), xxvii.

12

12

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy as such toward one another, they cannot properly constitute a part of the metaphysical first principles of a doctrine of virtue. They are only rules modified in accordance with differences of the subjects to whom the principle of virtue (in terms of what is formal) is applied in cases that come up in experience (the material). Hence . . . just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed—a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals: a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use —. . . How should people be treated in accordance with their differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty and so forth? These questions do not yield so many kinds of ethical obligation (for there is only one, that of virtue as such), but only so many different ways of applying it (corollaries). Hence they cannot be presented as sections of ethics and members of the division of a system (which must proceed a priori from a rational concept), but can only be appended to the system.—Yet even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.37

This passage is interesting for many reasons. To begin with, the systematic distinction drawn in the Opus postumum between primitive forces pertaining to matter in general and derivative forces as modifications of the former is mirrored in §45: duties with respect to particular conditions “are only rules modified in accordance with differences of the subjects to whom the principle of virtue (in terms of what is formal) is applied in cases that come up in experience (the material).” As we will see, the nature of the Transition Project has to do with the discontinuity between formal metaphysical foundation and material empirical application. If this is true, and if I am right that there is also a Transition Project in Kant’s practical philosophy, then this has dramatic consequences for the interpretation of the Opus postumum, because it immediately rules out those interpretations that argue that the Opus postumum is addressing a problem that is unique to Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Rather, we have reason to assume that Kant’s Transition Project, because it originates in the separation of formal and material aspects, is central to both Kant’s respective theories of nature and morality. Besides the implication this passage has for the transition problem in theoretical philosophy, the passage is interesting because it requires us to reflect on

37

MSTL 6:468–9.

Introduction

13

the exact nature of the parallel in practical philosophy: if the empirical manifold of particular obligations are obligations, then they must be based on the a priori ground of obligation (in virtue of which they are obligations in the first place). That is, it must be possible to show that particular duties with respect to specific conditions (qua being duties) stand under the general principle of duty. As the last sentence of the quotation points out, even the application of the principle of obligation belongs to the complete presentation of the system, and this is a corollary of Kant’s scientific effort to provide the metaphysical foundations of empirical human agency. Again, this is not a new problem, but one which Kant already discusses in his lectures of the 1770s. The division of duties into duties toward others merely as human beings and duties toward others with respect to specific conditions (§45) is taken from Baumgarten’s Ethica, in accordance with which Kant taught his lecture courses on ethics. At the very end of the Ethica, Baumgarten introduces duties with respect to a manifold of specific conditions “not common to all men”38 such as age, health, social status, sex, and moral condition. Baumgarten emphasizes that besides the traditional natural duties that are common to all men, we face normative claims as members of society, as beings with specific status functions, and as agents standing in specific gender or age relations.39 Already in his lectures of the 1770s, Kant rejects this division between general and specific duties. He claims that the latter are not so much specific duties but only specific conditions, in which the universal principle of duty has to be applied.40 In a quite entertaining manner, Kant tells his students that Baumgarten’s separation of duties would not be proper: for if we had specific duties toward the sick, depraved, and elderly (which Baumgarten claims), then, Kant holds, we would also have specific duties concerning the short and the tall, the beautiful and the ugly.41 Of course, we—and this includes Kant—do think that we have duties toward the sick and the naturally disadvantaged. Kant does not deny this. What he is denying is that these obligations, which presuppose 38

39

40

41

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Ethica philosophica (Halle:  Hemmerde, 1751), §400. All translations from Baumgarten are mine. Baumgarten’s student, Georg Friedrich Meier, with whose Philosophische Sittenlehre Kant was acquainted, expands the part on the specific variety of duties: one entire book of the five volumes is devoted to this subject. See Georg Friedrich Meier, Philosophische Sittenlehre (Halle, 1753– 61), reprinted in Christian Wolff, Gesammelte Werke, Abt.3, Vol. 109:1–5, ed. Jean École et  al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2007). Immanuel Kant, Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie [= Moral Philosophy Kaehler], ed. Werner Stark with an Introduction by Manfred Kühn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 358. All translations from Moral Philosophy Kaehler are mine. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 358.

14

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

certain conditions, form a part of a metaphysics of morals. Any taxonomy of duties that is based on specific conditions is a posteriori and as such conventional and open-ended (just as experimental physics is a posteriori and openended). Because duties with respect to specific conditions contain knowledge that can only be gained empirically, they cannot be part of an a priori system. Nevertheless, if obligations toward the sick, the elderly, and the ugly are obligations, then they must also depend on the a priori ground of obligation (in virtue of which they are obligations in the first place). From this perspective, even the specific variety of duties (with respect to specific conditions) belongs to the system of ethics in virtue of the fact that all moral precepts share the same metaphysical foundation. But how are metaphysical foundation and empirical application connected, that is, how are empirical precepts brought under the a priori principle of autonomy? Autonomy is merely the formal principle of ethical action, which itself requires sensible conditions of application. Because the a priori foundation of morality is cleansed of anything empirical, including ends and empirical motivating grounds, it is generally speaking unclear how particular obligations (empirical) can be seen as modifications of what is constitutive of agency in the Kantian system, that is, autonomy. Autonomy is a noumenal property of the will, and it is only in virtue of this property that agents can distinguish their agency from physical causation. However, agency takes place in the phenomenal world.

Origins of the gap between a priori morality and embodied agency The problem of a gap between a priori morality and embodied agency pervades Kant’s writings on moral philosophy. Like the problem of the gap in theoretical philosophy, it is not a new problem. Rather, it originates in Kant’s very conception of critical philosophy. The development of Kant’s moral philosophy from the precritical period to the Metaphysics of Morals has of course been studied extensively, but I think it is important to briefly highlight its trajectory so that it becomes clear that Kant’s Transition Project is not an afterthought but rather a continuous problem. In his “Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality,” that is, the so-called Prize Essay (written 1762 and published 1764), Kant argues that only a formal principle can function as a supreme

Introduction

15

principle of morality.42 In virtue of its formality, which Kant conceives of in analogy to purely logical rules, the supreme principle of morality holds for all rational beings independently of their specific desires or situation. To adopt a rule of action on a ground valid for all rational beings just means to adopt it independently of specific desires or situations.43 Already in the Prize Essay, however, Kant sees very clearly the problem this view will ultimately create. For he is fully aware that the “first formal ground of all obligation” alone does not yield any determinate obligation: And just as, in the absence of any material first principles of our judgments of the truth, so here no specifically determinate obligation flows from these two rules of the good, unless they are combined with indemonstrable material principles of practical cognition.44

This means that the problem of the indeterminacy of moral obligation, on which Kant still labors in the context of his casuistical questions and his conception of ethical duties as wide duties in the Metaphysics of Morals, goes back to the precritical period. At this juncture, Kant splits practical philosophy into a merely formal principle, which is meant to explain the unconditionality of the supreme principle of obligation and material principles of application. This twofold distinction is mirrored in the Critique, where Kant strictly separates the intellectual or moral world (mundus intelligibilis) from the world of empirical agents (mundus sensibilis): I call the world as it would be if it were in conformity with all moral laws (as it can be in accordance with the freedom of rational beings and should be in accordance with the necessary laws of morality) a moral world. This is conceived thus far merely as an intelligible world, since abstraction is made therein from all conditions (ends) and even from all hindrances to morality in it (weakness or impurity of human nature).45

42

43

44 45

UD 2:299. The design of Kant’s principle of perfection in terms of two formal rules mirrors the two supreme principles of speculative reason, i.e., the principle of identity and the principle of noncontradiction. Cf. VM 28:98–9; VE 27:9. See also Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Initia philosphiae practicae primae (Halle:  Hemmerde, 1760), §§31, 43; Christian Wolff, Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen, zu Beförderung ihrer Glückseeligkeit [= Deutsche Ethik], §12 (Halle, 1720), reprinted in Gesammelte Werke, Abt.1, Vol. 4, ed. by Jean École et al. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1976; Paul Menzer, “Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik in den Jahren 1760 bis 1785,” Kant-Studien 2(1–3) (1899a): 306; Dieter Henrich, “Über Kants früheste Ethik: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion,” Kant-Studien 54(1–4) (1963): 424. Cf. KU 5:173: Moral laws are “formal laws . . . not merely precepts and rules for this or that purpose, but laws, without prior reference to ends and aims.” UD 2:299. Cf. VM 28:99. KrV A808/B836.

16

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

In his famous 1783 review of the Critique, Christian Garve objects that it is not clear how Kant’s noumenal standpoint of a moral world, in which we abstract from all inclinations, can provide a compelling reason for action. For Garve, practical deliberation has to be first personal. Action requires motivating grounds (not an abstract thought of objective rightness), and motivating grounds reflect the particular concern of specific agents. Garve objects that Kant’s theoretical canon, that is, the idea that the absolute worth of an agent consists in the agreement of her actions with the idea of a purely rational will, cannot properly explain a person’s agency as her own, because it abstracts from all sensibility, desire, and happiness:  “It will enter into the mind and into the heart of only very few people” that a mere speculative “canon of pure understanding,” which constitutes the “absolute worth” of human agency, “can be an incentive for our will.”46 For Garve, Kant’s rationalism implies that the deliberating agent stands outside her particular empirical self. In responding to Garve, Kant thus turns from separating formal and material aspects to reconnecting them. Kant’s idea of universal lawfulness is a paradigm that makes it possible to think duties as unconditionally valid, but the application of this idea to human sensibility would require something like a transcendental deduction. Precisely this is what Kant attempts in the Groundwork. Indeed, Garve’s objection is prevalent throughout the Groundwork: Kant emphasizes, for example, the “strangeness” of the idea of the absolute worth of a mere will that acts on purely rational grounds, and asks whether the idea of a mere will that has absolute worth might not be a “high-flown fantasy” of philosophers.47 Kant refers to the moral law as possibly being a “figment of the brain,” “a chimerical concept,” an “empty illusion,” and a mere “phantom” [Hirngespinst] lacking all objective reality.48 For, if someone asked us [namely, Garve] why the universal validity of our maxim as a law must be the limiting condition of our actions, and on what we base the worth we assign to this way of acting—a worth so great that there can be no higher interest anywhere—and asked us how it happens that a human being believes that only through this does he feel his personal worth, in comparison with which that of an agreeable or disagreeable condition is to be held as nothing, we could give him no satisfactory answer.49

46

47 48 49

All quotations are from Garve’s original review, reprinted in Kant’s Prolegomena, ed. Rudolf Malter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1989), 240. All translations are mine. GMS 4:394. Cf. GMS 4:394, 400, 402, 406, 407, 410, 445, 449. GMS 4:449–50, my emphasis.

Introduction

17

Kant eventually takes it on himself to provide such a satisfactory answer by showing how pure reason can be practical through the deduction of transcendental freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason. Now, it is important to see that Kant here bridges the gap between noumenal foundation (mundus intelligibilis) and phenomenal experience of moral obligation (mundus sensibilis) by asserting that agents become conscious of their ineliminable commitment to autonomy by an immediately given feeling: consciousness of the authoritative status of the moral law is experienced as respect for the moral law. The notion of respect for the moral law introduces the hybrid construction of a moral feeling that is the effect of the authoritative status of a rational law on an embodied agent. This means, Kant’s deduction of the objective validity of the moral law establishes the general possibility of concepts mediating between the a priori foundation of morality and empirical agency. What do I mean here? It is important to see that moral feeling originates in an agent’s own rational activity. The practical commitment to the moral law is ineliminable, because agents must take themselves as the cause of their conduct, that is, they must formulate maxims: “As soon as we draw up maxims of the will for ourselves” we become “immediately conscious” of our autonomy and the moral law restricting it.50 This constraint is experienced as respect, which is a “special kind of feeling, which . . . does not precede the lawgiving of practical reason but is instead produced only by it.”51 For Kant, autonomous agency and moral feeling are inseparably connected through moral judgment. Because the feeling of respect affects a particular self only in the context of specific cases of practical deliberation, we can say that moral feeling connects the universal and contingent aspects of moral agency. Thus, Garve’s challenge to show that pure reason can be practical is met by introducing the hybrid concept of moral feeling as the subjective affective state produced by an agent’s commitment to an objective practical principle. Moral feeling is a bridge figure connecting the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of human agency. “And so respect for the law is not the incentive to morality; instead it is morality itself subjectively considered.”52 Thus, contra Garve, Kant has shown that the noumenal self is not alienated from the empirical self. The feeling of respect for the moral law is the sensible expression of the authoritative status of the objectively

50 51 52

KpV 5:29. KpV 5:92. KpV 5:76, my emphases. Cf. Dieter Henrich, “Das Problem der Grundlegung der Ethik bei Kant und im spekulativen Idealismus,” in Sein und Ethos. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der Ethik, ed. Paulus Engelhardt (Mainz:  Matthias-Grünewald Verlag, 1963), 372–5; Henry E. Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 127–8.

18

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

valid moral law. As we will see, moral feelings are also very personal feelings. The beauty, as it were, of Kant’s response to Garve can be seen in the demonstration that only the idea of autonomy makes it possible to think of my will as a will of my own.53 All agents—simply in virtue of being agents—must endorse the principle of autonomy, and moral feeling expresses this necessary commitment in sensible terms. As Kant returns to the aesthetic affect that morality produces in embodied agents in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, he assigns the systematic place of mediating concepts to reflective judgment. “The intellectual, intrinsically purposive (moral) good, judged aesthetically, must . . . be represented . . . as sublime, so that it arouses . . . the feeling of respect.54 There is a clear continuity of Kant’s thought ranging from the Critique of Practical Reason, to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, to finally Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals” of section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: Kant’s account of respect for the moral law in the deduction of transcendental freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason, and the role of aesthetic responsiveness in the “Doctrine of Method” of that work, presents moral judgment as essentially connected to aesthetic awareness of the pure moral law.55 This thought of providing access of the pure moral law to empirical agents, and thereby bridging the gulf between the supersensible foundation of morality and empirical conduct, is further developed in Kant’s treatment of the aesthetic affective response to the supersensible ground of human agency in the context of the feeling of the sublime (Critique of the Power of Judgment), because Kant here provides a general theory of how a judgment of reflection produces the aesthetic affective response. I will show that the main characteristics of the feeling of the sublime can also be found in Kant’s account of mediating concepts in the “Aesthetics of Morals” of section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue. On my reading, it is the faculty of judgment that allows for the possibility of building a transition from metaphysical 53

54 55

“Now, one cannot possibly think of a reason that would consciously receive direction from any other quarter with respect to its judgments, since the subject would then attribute the determination of his judgment not to his reason but to an impulse. Reason must regard itself as the author of its principles independently of alien influences” (GMS 4:448). Cf. KrV A448/B476; VM 28:268–9. Cf. Georg Geismann, “Kant über Freiheit in spekulativer und in praktischer Hinsicht,” Kant-Studien 98(3) (2007): 283–305. KU 5:271, my emphasis. On moral judgment and its aesthetic moral affect, see also KU 5:271, and Felicitas G. Munzel: “Kant’s remarks . . . clearly show that, in his understanding of moral education proper as the cultivation of moral judgment, the development of the aesthetic quality of our comportment of mind . . . must go and naturally goes, hand in hand with the cultivation of our cognitive powers of discernment.” Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The “Critical” Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 310.

Introduction

19

principles constitutive of human agency to particular empirical conduct. As in the Opus postumum, a “schematism of the power of judgment”56 is meant to connect the a priori with the empirical.

Moral reflection Despite the fact that moral agency cannot be determined by local peculiarities, it has to be applied to them. But how? The increasing importance of the faculty of judgment can be traced throughout Kant’s writings. In the Groundwork, Kant says that ethical principles “no doubt still require a judgment sharpened by experience . . . to distinguish in what cases they are applicable.”57 The practice of moral judgment enters Kant’s ethical theory in the context of assessing how to apply the pure principles of morality [Anwendung]. The function Kant assigns to a “judgment sharpened by experience” is one separated from the pure part of the metaphysics of morals, but it is still a moral function. Precisely how practical judgment is guided in its reflection about what morality requires in specific circumstances does not need to concern Kant in 1785, because the sole purpose of the Groundwork is to determine and establish the supreme principle of moral obligation.58 It is noteworthy that, at this point, Kant thinks of practical judgment in analogy to determinative theoretical judgment.59 The first Critique, the Groundwork, and the Critique of Practical Reason all conceive of the application problem as the task of subsuming a given particular under a universal rule. Now, whether an action possible for us in sensibility is or is not a case that stands under the rule requires practical judgment, by which what is said in the rule universally (in abstracto) is applied to an action in concreto.60

In numerous passages, Kant asserts that only transcendental logic provides schemata, that is, rules of application, whereas with respect to moral judgment and other cases of empirical application problems, the power of judgment can only be practiced through exercise (but does not provide rules).61

56 57 58 59 60 61

Op 21:363. GMS 4:389. GMS 4:392. KrV A131–2/B170–1. KpV 5:67. Cf. KrV A131–2/B170–1; Refl 15:170–1; Anth 7:199.

20

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

However, there is a clear shift of emphasis after the Critique of the Power of Judgment. For example, in his 1793 “Theory–Practice” essay, Kant acknowledges again the central role of moral judgment in the application of duties, that is, in order to distinguish “whether or not something is a case of the rule,” but now Kant phrases the problem rather differently: “Between theory and practice there is required . . . a middle term [Mittelglied] connecting them and providing a transition [Übergang] from one to the other.”62 Similarly, the 1797 introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue now emphasizes that application problems must be solved in a rule-governed way. Kant writes that a closer determination of moral principles call[s] upon judgment to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, and indeed in such a way that judgment provides another (subordinate) maxim (and one can always ask for yet another principle for applying this maxim to cases that may arise).63

A hierarchy of maxims envisions (as a regulative idea of the faculty of judgment) the possibility of a systematic limitation (under empirical conditions) upon the general prohibitions and commands of ethics. Such a hierarchical order of maxims is here postulated as a regulative tool, yet one that we are rationally enjoined to search to bring about. There is an obvious parallel to the problem with which Kant deals in both the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic” and the Critique of the Power of Judgment: rational cognition of nature requires a coherent systematic ordering of divers empirical laws. The same holds for rational agency: moral judgment must presuppose that it is possible to systematically (as opposed to arbitrarily) organize maxims. In this vein, we find Kant now asserting that the doctrine of method, that is, the practice of duties, “must be treated methodically . . . this too must be systematic and not fragmentary if the doctrine of virtue is to be presented as a science.”64 Yet, Kant does not tell us in these passages how the practice of moral judgment can be dealt with systematically. The context of the application problem in the Theory–Practice essay is that although moral agency cannot be determined by contingent circumstances, it must still respond to them on rational grounds.65 Garve, to whom Kant is responding here, believes that in certain circumstances “the empirical and hence contingent conditions of carrying out the law” should be made “conditions of

62 63 64 65

TP 8:275. MSTL 6:411. MSTL 6:478. Cf. MSRL 6:217.

Introduction

21

the law itself.”66 In other words, the unconditional necessitation of the moral law might be granted in theory, but in practice it does not hold. This means, autonomy might be right in theory, but when it comes to practical problems, heteronomy is the way to go. This is like saying that a dynamical theory of matter and its transcendental foundation are right in theory but not in practice. I will argue that this is not an option for Kant. Another dramatic example of the problem of application is in his 1798 “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.” Kant explicitly acknowledges here again an indeterminacy question, and claims that practical principles require “intermediary principles” for “the closer determination of their application to cases that come up.”67 Unfortunately, Kant does not further specify his theory of intermediary principles in this essay. The fundamental point that Kant attempts to make again is that the a priori part of a moral theory must be separated from the empirical domain, and that conditions of the application of morality cannot be laid at the foundation of morality. This is of course the heart of Kant’s moral theory of autonomy and, as Kant’s repeated responses to criticisms show, this is also the most difficult point to understand for adherents of heteronomous moral theories. The purity of the foundation of morality, that is, its strict separation from conditions of application, is the most fundamental aspect of Kant’s theory. Nevertheless, Kant acknowledges that there remains the problem of connecting the a priori and empirical domains of morality. All this evidence shows that §45 is neither an isolated passage, nor a passage dealing with a new problem belatedly addressed between 1796 and 1798. It is not a coincidence that once Kant begins to work on the Transition Project in the Opus postumum he draws numerous parallels between the transition problem in theoretical and practical philosophy in his writings and notes in that time period.68 The Transition Project is a systemic problem of Kant’s conception of critical philosophy. It seems that Kant used most of his final life strength on thinking through the Transition Project on the theoretical side. The several hundred pages of volumes 21 and 22 of the Academy Edition bear witness to this attempt. There is less material on the practical side. I  have mentioned §45 of the Doctrine of Virtue, but there is also the preface to the 1796 Doctrine of Right,

66 67 68

TP 8:277. VRML 8:430. For example, MSRL 6:205, 214–15; MSTL 375–76; VRML 8:427–8. Kant’s preliminary works on the Metaphysics of Morals also contain notes on the transition from metaphysics to physics; e.g., leaves 22, 24, and 46 (Op 21:470ff., 178). Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 52, 108, 157–60.

2

22

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

which literally begins with the problem of the transition from metaphysical first principles to cases of experience: The critique of practical reason was to be followed by a system, the metaphysics of morals, which falls into metaphysical and first principles of the doctrine of right and metaphysical first principles of the doctrine of virtue. (This is a counterpart of the metaphysical first principles of natural science, already published) . . . But since the concept of right is a pure concept that still looks to practice (application to cases that come up in experience), a metaphysical system of right would also have to take account, in its divisions, of the empirical variety of such cases, in order to make its division complete (as is essential in constructing a system of reason). But what is empirical cannot be divided completely, and if this is attempted (at least to approximate to it), empirical concepts cannot be brought into the system as integral parts of it but can be used only as examples in remarks . . . For in the application of these principles to cases the system itself cannot be expected, but only approximation to it. Accordingly, it will be dealt with as in the (earlier) Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science: namely, that right which belongs to the system outlined a priori will go into the text, while rights taken from particular cases of experience will be put into remarks.69

Kant’s explicit references to the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science are noteworthy because of the analogy Kant draws between theoretical and practical philosophy. In the “General Remark to Dynamics,” Kant likewise wrote that he can only approximate the division that guides the application of the constitutive principles of matter in general to divers empirical forces. “Instead of a sufficient explanation . . . I will present completely, so I hope, the moments to which its specific variety must collectively be reducible.”70 In both theoretical and practical philosophy, Kant aims for a “system of reason” which requires an account of the complete “divisions . . . of the empirical variety.” As §45, the above passage from the preface to the Doctrine of Right states that the empirical manifold of cases cannot be part of the a priori system, yet a “complete” account of the “divisions” of the empirical variety is “essential in constructing a system of reason.” So Kant begins the preface to the Doctrine of Right by reflecting on the necessary separation of the a priori and empirical parts of a science (“the concept of right is a pure concept”), mentions the problem of the “application to cases that come up in experience,” and eventually grants that he cannot present a complete solution

69 70

MSRL 6:205. MAN 4:525, my emphasis.

Introduction

23

to this transition problem, which, therefore, he will only discuss in Remarks, as he has done in the 1786 Metaphysical Foundations. The unpublished second convolut of the Opus postumum, from which I will cite in a moment, should be read in conjunction with Kant’s remarks in the preface to the Doctrine of Right. In the second convolut, Kant first claims that there are a specific number of elementary concepts [eine gewisse Menge von Elementarbegriffen die sich abzählen läßt] that make possible the application of the moving forces of matter in general to cases of experience, in the absence of which there could not be a philosophical science of nature [philosophische Naturwissenschaft]. “There must be such a part of natural science that lies inbetween the metaphysical foundations of natural science and physics because without that intermediate step there is no continuous connection of both parts,” which, Kant continues, is “dangerous” insofar as it opens the door to mere “opinion” and “hypotheses” in science.71 Therefore, the Transition [Überschritt] to the empirical laws of physics, which Kant here calls statutory laws of empirical nature [Überganges zu den gleichsam statutarischen Gesetzen der Erfahrungslehre der Natur (Physik)] must be dealt with systematically (as opposed to fragmentarily in remarks). Triggered perhaps by the term “statutory,” Kant then makes the following remark on the notion of right, which I want to juxtapose with the passage cited from the 1796 preface: Pure and statutory doctrine of right are distinguished from each other as the rational and the empirical. Because the latter [statutory doctrine of right] would be a mere mechanical product without the former [pure doctrine of right], and thus be no objective right (stemming from laws of reason) but a mere subjective right (originating in the volition of the upper power), that is, no right at all, there is required a special branch of the doctrine of right in general, which has to be inserted between the two [i.e., the rational and empirical part] and which mediates the connection between them as a Transition from the pure doctrine of right to a statutory [doctrine of right] in general . . . [This] Transition from the rational to the empirical would be very useful, indeed necessary, for judging whether the empirical is in accordance with reason [zu Beurtheilung der Vernunftmäßigkeit der letzteren].72

The pure doctrine of right, which establishes, for example, the a priori principle of right or the right to possession in general, is directly derived from practical

71 72

Op 21:177, my translation. Op 21:178, my translation, emphasis is in the original.

24

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

reason. Statutory rights, however, are positive laws that are legislated by empirical rulers. As the passage continues, Kant grants that policy makers do not turn toward the pure doctrine of right in order to guide their reasoning; the same holds for the natural scientists, who do not turn toward the Metaphysical Foundations to guide their experiments. I think we see Kant here battling for the practical relevance of his philosophical heritage. Kant’s critical philosophy demands that a pure, formal, metaphysical foundation must precede empirical lawgiving of whatever kind. Without filling the “gap,” Kant writes in the second convolut, neither continuity in juridical legislation can be expected, nor any certainty that statutory laws are objectively right. Kant makes a related point in his 1795  “Perpetual Peace” essay, when he writes that conventional exceptions to practical principles would make moral rules uncertain, and that therefore the application of a principle requires another (intermediary) principle: Then it is said that this or that is prohibited, except for number 1, number 2, number 3, and so forth indefinitely, since permissions are added to the law only contingently, not in accordance with a principle but by groping about among cases that come up.73

Certainty and systematicity are essential features of Kant’s conception of a law. Application problems cannot be resolved conventionally, but rather it is the task of the philosopher to provide mediating concepts that guide empirical reflection to a coherent and rational determination of phenomena. The idea of the secure path of a science is at the bottom of both the transition problems in theoretical and practical philosophy. As Kant sees it, the Transition Project must be completed by “the philosopher as theoretician,” but it is meant to benefit the “practitioner.”74 Unfortunately, besides the division of right into “natural right, which rests only on a priori principles, and positive (statutory) right, which proceeds from the will of the legislator,”75 neither the 1796 Doctrine of Right nor the Opus postumum contain any further hint of how the Transition might be brought about. As I said, Kant focuses his remaining life strength almost exclusively on the transition problem in theoretical philosophy. There is, however, the quite cryptic section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, which I propose to put into connection with §45 and Kant’s conception of a transition in terms of moral schemata.

73 74 75

ZeF 8:348n. Op 21:178. MSRL 6:237.

Introduction

25

Moral schemata Kant conceives of the filling of the gap in his critical philosophy via schemata. The task of a schema is not to replace empirical judgment: rather, its task is to provide a transition to empirical judgment. Moral theory alone cannot provide determinate answers to specific moral cases, just as Kant’s philosophy of physics does not solve physical problems. Thus, in §45, the concept of an a priori schema is not meant itself to determine a priori the case to which a pure concept is applied, but rather to guide empirical reflection. I will argue that both the theoretical and practical divisions of Kant’s critical philosophy require such mediating concepts, in virtue of which we can understand particular laws as necessary. The problem of connecting the pure and applied parts of Kant’s moral philosophy is, of course, not new. Robert Louden has rightly emphasized that for moral judgment to be possible there has to be material knowledge about the world: just as thoughts without intuition are empty, so pure moral philosophy requires empirical or “impure” ethics to be action guiding.76 Barbara Herman has called these empirical elements “rules of moral salience.”77 I agree that it is absolutely pivotal to insist that Kant’s moral philosophy consists of a pure and applied part, and that moral agency requires empirical background knowledge. Louden argues that empirical ethics provides this background in various forms: knowledge of species-specific obstacles and aids to morality; knowledge of such obstacles and aids with respect to specific subgroups, that is, with respect to gender, age, and cultural contingencies; knowledge of art and sciences as instrumental tools for moral education; knowledge of how to reshape the natural world in order to make moral progress, that is, institutions of culture, politics, law, and religion.78 For Louden, all of this provides the empirical “counterpart . . . [to] a metaphysics of morals”79 insofar as it aids the pursuit of moral ends. Yet, note that in virtue of its empirical origin, “impure ethics” thus conceived can neither bridge freedom and nature nor “complete the system of ethical knowledge”80 precisely because it is a mere aggregate that is in no way systematically connected to pure philosophy. Kant’s practical anthropology indeed provides material “knowledge” of the world (think of his remarks on gender, race, and nations), but this empirical body of data is open-ended and always changing, that is, it 76

77 78 79 80

Robert B. Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2000), 3–30. Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 77–8. Louden, Impure Ethics, 167–82. MSRL 6:217. Louden, Impure Ethics, 23.

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cannot amount to a coherent system. Louden himself sees this very clearly as he cites various passages from Kant to that effect: “In a system it is the whole that comes before the parts, whereas in an aggregate the parts are first.”81 Louden thus rightly asks: “How can a body of knowledge based on empirical precepts constitute a legitimate part of ethics in any sense for Kant?”82 I hope that my book provides an answer to that question. Louden subsumes a very broad range of empirical phenomena under the heading of the counterpart to pure ethics, which includes historical, political, anthropological, psychological, pedagogical, aesthetic, and religious dimensions of human agency.83 Because I begin with §45, which asks how particular obligations can be seen as necessary, I formulate the gap problem between pure morality and applied ethics more narrowly than Louden, namely, as a problem of moral judgment. What guides moral reflection? How can moral reflection be “brought under” the a priori principle of morality? How can an agent work toward forming a coherent web of maxims such that she can conceive of herself as an autonomous agent? In short, how is the regulative procedure of empirical judgment connected to what constitutes us as moral agents? As I see it, moral agency indeed requires particular knowledge about the world, but it cannot possibly be the task of the a priori philosopher to present this particular knowledge. Rather, the task is to show how particular duties formulated in specific contexts (whatever these are) can be seen as modifications of the a priori principles of morality, because it is in virtue of their a priori foundation alone that duties can be seen as necessary. Thus, I will not attempt to bind Kant’s writings on anthropology (which present an aggregate of loosely arranged topics) into the Transition Project, whereas I will say something about moral education and the role of aesthetics for moral agency. These and other selective topics— for example, certainty in ethics and physics; systematicity of divers empirical laws; the role of the power of judgment in providing transitions; schemata as a means to connect the a priori and empirical; the clue of the categories for building systems—will be motivated from the perspective of Kant’s parallel thoughts on theoretical and practical philosophy during 1796–8. I will suggest that the idea of a whole that is necessary for the scientific status of ethics (and physics) is provided by the fourfold structure of mediating concepts in Kant’s Transition Project, which is based on the table of the categories. This fourfold structure linking pure morality to empirical ethics (and the metaphysics 81 82 83

PG 9:158. Cf. Louden, Impure Ethics, 175. Louden, Impure Ethics, 17. Louden, Impure Ethics, 176.

Introduction

27

of nature to empirical physics) is present in both—Kant’s late theoretical and practical philosophy. One key claim of my interpretation is that Kant develops a theory of moral feelings as aesthetic expressions of (or affective responses to) autonomy, which he envisions to connect a priori morality and empirical agency in section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, written in the same time period as the “Octaventwurf ” of the Opus postumum. I will argue that moral feelings, such as self-respect, are the product of an agent’s practical judgment, which reflects on a particular maxim in the context of the unconditionality of the moral law and competing empirical motivating grounds. This theory originates in Kant’s theory of respect for the moral law developed in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Judgment. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant argues that such affective responses are the product of reflective judgment. Since all four moral feelings of section XII are self-wrought feelings, that is, they are produced by acknowledging the unconditional status of reason, they are akin to the feeling of the sublime, that is, a product of reflective judgment in its aesthetic form. For this reason, Kant calls these mediating concepts “aesthetic” [Ästhetische Vorbegriffe]. To be clear, though practically grounded in moral reflection, these feelings are purely aesthetic in nature (i.e., they lack motivating force and do not aid in cognition). They are, a. b. c. d.

moral feeling, feeling of conscience, love of human beings [Liebe des Nächsten], and feeling of respect for oneself (self-esteem).84

I will show that section XII attempts to link each of the four a priori feelings to one of the classes of the categories, and that herein it parallels Kant’s efforts in the Opus postumum, where the Transition is also brought about through a “schematism of the power of judgment.”85 All mediating concepts are rooted in the forms of judgment, and thus we can understand why Kant attempts to exhaustively classify all mediating concepts through the table of the categories. In my view, there is overwhelming evidence that section XII has the systematic purpose of building a bridge from the metaphysical account of practical rationality to embodied agency, which parallels Kant’s idea of the Transition Project in the “Octaventwurf.” In other words, there is embeded in the Metaphysics of Morals a 84 85

MSTL 6:399. Op 21:363, my translation.

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Transition Project in practical philosophy that has completely escaped scholarly attention, because interpreters have not thought of the Opus postumum and the Metaphysics of Morals as parallel texts. Now, pairing rationality and feeling, reason and affect, might appear as a dubious project within the Kantian framework, because Kant generally sees these terms as opposites.86 So some terminological remarks on Kant’s use of affect and feeling are in order. For example, in section XVII, Kant claims that an affect always belongs to sensibility, no matter by what kind of object it is aroused. The true strength of virtue is a tranquil mind with a considered and firm resolution to put the law of virtue into practice. That is the state of health in the moral life, whereas an affect, even one aroused by the thought of what is good, is a momentary, sparkling phenomenon that leaves one exhausted.87

The situation is not more promising with regard to the term feeling [Gefühl]. Traditionally, Kant is read, and rightly so, as emphasizing the sovereignty of reason, denigrating feelings in his moral philosophy, because feelings are always subjective, and, generally speaking, have an empirical origin. Think of the garden variety of empirically caused emotions such as pity, fear, pride, ridicule, and so on. Why should certain feelings suddenly be required in order for ethical principles to be “ready for morally practical use”?88 How can Kant claim that moral feelings are necessary for the receptivity of concepts of duty as such, while simultaneously maintaining that moral reasons apply to all rational agents? After all, the categorical authority of ethical precepts is independent of anything contingent, such as our feelings. Indeed, Kant claims in section XV that “since virtue is based on inner freedom it contains a positive command to a human being, namely to . . . control and so to rule over himself . . . forbidding him to let himself be governed by his feelings and inclinations.”89 So what is going on in section XII? There are two ways in which moral feelings might be seen as contributing to moral agency that have been discussed in the recent literature, and which I

86

87 88

89

Something similar is also true for the transcendental schemata of the “Analytic,” which violate the strict dichotomy between intellectual and sensible representations. Cf. Gerhard Seel, “Die Einleitung in die Analytik der Grundsätze, der Schematismus und die Obersten Grundsätze (A130/ B169–A158/B197),” in Immanuel Kant: Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Vol. 17/18, Klassiker Auslegen, ed. Georg Mohr et al., (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), 230. MSTL 6:409. Cf. KU 5:271f. MSTL 6:468. Thanks to Adam Shmidt for pressing me on this point at the 2016 Biennial Meeting of the North American Kant Society. MSTL 6:408.

Introduction

29

label motivational and epistemic readings.90 On the motivational reading, feelings might serve as necessary independent motives to moral conduct that moral reasons alone cannot sufficiently provide given the frailty of human nature. On the epistemic reading, feelings are tools for recognizing morally salient features in an agent’s environment. I will reject both readings as inadequate interpretations of section XII, and instead present a third option, namely, that moral feelings are an expression of the authority of moral reasons in aesthetic terms: the consciousness of moral requirements, in sensibly affected human beings, manifests itself in a particular set of moral aesthetic responses. Thus, as I understand them, the moral feelings of section XII are rational–sensible hybrids, and, for this reason, I will use the terms affects of reason, moral feelings, and rational feelings interchangeably.91 The fourfold schemata of moral aesthetic responsiveness (moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings, and self-esteem) are “subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty . . . All of them are aesthetic . . . where the aesthetic state (the way in which inner sense is affected)” is not “pathological” but “moral,” because it does not precede the presentation of the law, but, rather “can only follow upon it.”92 What I hope to accomplish with this study is to make the case for a pervasive transition project that one can trace through Kant’s entire critical philosophy and that is, in turn, the key to addressing current debates in the scholarship (the specific transition project of the Opus postumum, and the role of practical judgment in Kantian ethics). The interpretation of such a pervasive transition project,

90

91

92

Cf. Marcia Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology (Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1995); Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Anne Margaret Baxley, Kant’s Theory of Virtue:  The Value of Autocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). The German term “Gefühl” could be translated as either “feeling” or “emotion.” Many authors in the existing literature use these terms synonymously. I suggest dropping the terminology of “emotion” and “subjective psychological states” in reference to moral feeling because unlike emotions, which have an empirical basis, the fourfold schemata of moral aesthetic responsiveness are affective responses to the imperative of practical reason. It is important to have terminology that underscores that consciousness of these responses does not have an empirical basis. Therefore, I  will use the term “emotion” only when I  am talking about empirically caused states such as envy or dismay. Unfortunately, there is a further ambiguity regarding the term “affect.” The adjectival and adverbial forms (“affected,” “affective” as a translation for afficirt), as well as the verbal form (“to affect” as a translation for afficiren) are unproblematic. E.g., Kant refers to the “aesthetic state (Zustand)” as an “Afficirung des inneren Sinnes” in his discussion of moral feelings in section XII of the Metaphysics of Morals. However, “affect” as a noun means an agitation of the mind that causes the mind to lose its composure (cf. VAnth 25:589–90; KU 5:272). For this reason, I will avoid “affect” in its noun form when referring to aesthetic responses. Cf. Felicitas G. Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Pedagogy: Toward Education for Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012), 261–76. I am here indebted to an anonymous reviewer of this book. MSTL 6:399. Translation modified. The Cambridge edition translates “ästhetisch” as feeling. I prefer to keep the term “aesthetic” because, as will become clear, it is key to understand the connection of section XII to Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. Cf. KU 5:178–9, 271.

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showing where and when Kant himself adds elements, and articulates both the issue and its solution, is presented against the background of the systematic parallel that Kant draws between the Opus postumum and the Metaphysics of Morals in §45 and elsewhere. The publication of the Metaphysics of Morals falls into the same time period, in which Kant works on the early drafts of the Transition Project (1796–8). However, the systematic parallel between Kant’s late practical and theoretical philosophy has received no attention in the literature. I think that putting Kant’s late philosophy of nature in discussion with Kant’s late thoughts on morals not only serves a better understanding of the former but also sheds new light on the latter.

1

What Philosophical Problem Does the Transition Project of the Opus postumum Address?

Introduction The fundamental problem of Kant’s Opus postumum is to build a transition from the metaphysics of nature to empirical physics. Kant reports to Garve that only “the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics” will fill a gap in the “system of critical philosophy.”1 In the following month, he writes to Kiesewetter: With that work the task of the critical philosophy will be completed and a gap that now stands open will be filled. I want to make the “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics” into a special branch of natural philosophy (philosophia naturalis), one that must not be left out of the system.2

In the “Octaventwurf ” and other drafts of the Opus postumum, written between 1796 and 1798, Kant writes: In the part of the philosophical science of nature (philosophia naturalis) . . . there is a gap to be filled between the metaphysical foundations of natural science and physics; its filling is called a transition from the one to the other.3

There is no consensus in the literature on what motivates the Transition Project, and why Kant describes it as addressing a gap in his critical philosophy. Why does Kant think that the Transition Project addresses a philosophical problem? Why is it not a problem that could be left to the empirical sciences, as Adickes holds, who has extensively written on Kant’s natural philosophy and the Opus 1 2 3

Letter to Garve of September 21, 1798. Br 12:257. Br 12:258. Op 21:482.

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postumum?4 The two most prominent Kant scholars who have recently written on the Opus postumum, Friedman and Förster, come to quite different conclusions regarding the question why Kant worked on a book titled “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics.”5 Both commentators come to the conclusion (albeit for different reasons) that Kant’s Transition Project is a new project.6 I will reject both Friedman’s and Förster’s reconstructions of the Transition Project. The Transition Project is not a new problem, it is an old one. It essentially belongs to Kant’s conception of critical philosophy as philosophia naturalis. Despite the fact that the notion philosophia naturalis looms large in Kant’s various descriptions of the Transition Project, it has not received sufficient attention in the literature. The chapter falls into three parts: First, I will provide my own reconstruction of the origin of Kant’s Transition Project. I show that Kant’s dynamic account of matter constitution stands in the Wolffian tradition and that the 1786 “General Remark to Dynamics” already contains a transition from metaphysical forces of matter in general to empirical forces. Second, I will elaborate on the continuity and pervasiveness of Kant’s Transition Project by discussing alternative accounts of the Transition Project presented in the literature. Third, I  will explain why Kant takes up the old project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” again in the Opus postumum. I  will continue to show how the transition problems of Kant’s critical philosophy are continuous, and trace how the means to solve them change. In this context, I will discuss the increased importance of reflective judgment in Kant’s attempts to provide transitions after the Critique of the Power of Judgment.

Kant’s philosophia naturalis The Wolffian distinction between a pure and an applied part of a proper science The influence of Wolffian thought on the precritical Kant can hardly be overestimated. Christian Wolff (1659–1754), whose scientific method Kant praises at various places in his writings,7 explicitly demands that metaphysics shall 4 5 6

7

Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 213ff., 514ff. Op 21:373. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 264; Eckart Förster, Kant’s Final Synthesis: An Essay on the Opus Postumum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 4–11. E.g., KrV B xxxvi; Refl 18:68.

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ground, and thus has to precede, the science of physics for the sake of the latter’s certainty. In his Preliminary Discourse (1728), Wolff formulates the foundationalist relationship between philosophy and physics, that is, between a priori and empirical laws, as follows: If everything is to be demonstrated accurately in physics, then principles must be borrowed from metaphysics. Physics explains those things which are possible through bodies . . . If these things are to be treated demonstratively, then the notions of body, matter, nature, motion, the elements, and other such general notions must be known . . . Now these notions are explained in general cosmology and in ontology . . . Therefore, if all things are to be demonstrated accurately in physics, principles must be borrowed from general cosmology and ontology . . . Thus it is clear that metaphysics must precede physics.8

In his 1737 Cosmologia Generalis, Wolff again begins with the claim that the pure part of cosmology is supposed to ground an applied, experimental part. Cosmology is scientific in virtue of its general foundation, and the experimental part is supposed to confirm the general part: Scientific general cosmology demonstrates a general theory concerning the world from the principles of Ontology; on the other hand . . . experimental general cosmology elicits a theory established in scientific cosmology . . . Because those theories that are demonstrated in scientific cosmology are elicited in experimental cosmology on the basis of observations, experimental cosmology presupposes scientific cosmology.9

In this vein, Kant declares in his first publication, the 1747 Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces, that it is “obvious: that the primary sources of the effects of nature must be a projection [Vorwurf] of metaphysics.”10 Still, in his mature Metaphysical Foundations, Kant insists that physics requires philosophy:

8

9

10

Christian Wolff, Praemittitur discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere: Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, methodo scientifica pertractata et ad usum scientiarum atque vitae aptata [= Preliminary Discourse], Frankfurt, 1728, reprinted in Gesammelte Werke, Abt.2, Vol. 1:1–3, ed. by École, Jean et al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1983), §§94–5, my emphasis. Christian Wolff, Cosmologia Generalis:  Methodo Scientifica Pertractata, Qua Ad Solidam, Inprimis Dei Atque Naturae, Cognitionem Via Sternitur [= General Cosmology], Second Edition, Frankfurt:  1737, reprinted in Gesammelte Werke, Abt.2, Vol. 4, ed. by École, Jean et  al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2009), §§4–5, my emphasis. Cf. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Metaphysica/Metaphysik: historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. and trans. Günter Gawlick et al. (StuttgartBad Cannstatt:  Frommann-Holzboog, 2011), §351, where Baumgarten picks up Wolff ’s rational– empirical distinction. See also Kant’s related Refl 17:331, and Op 21:475. GSK 1:61, my translation.

34

34

Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy All natural philosophers who have wished to proceed mathematically in their occupation have always, and must have always, made use of metaphysical principles (albeit unconsciously) . . . Thus these mathematical physicists could in no way avoid metaphysical principles, and among them, also not those that make the concept of their proper object, namely matter, a priori suitable for application to outer experience, such as the concept of motion, the filling of space, inertia, and so on.11

Kant claims that proper natural science silently presupposes metaphysics of nature, which first determines a priori the most fundamental object of natural science, namely, empirical matter (i.e., the corporeal object of external sense).12 In this foundationalist context, Kant explicitly distinguishes his Wolffian conception of “philosophia naturalis” from the mathematical tradition of this notion found in Newton’s “philosophia naturalis principia mathematica.”13 The latter, according to Kant, already presupposes “real motion (wirkliche Bewegungen)”14 and thus requires “physical//dynamical principles (Anfangsgründe),”15 which it is the task of philosophy to develop from “matter’s own [moving] forces.”16 Although it would be false to maintain that “philosophy” for Kant is nothing but philosophy of science, it is a striking fact about Kant’s writings that, throughout his career—from the very first publication, which deals with the scientific problem of the measurement of force in the context of Cartesian and Leibnizian metaphysics, to the very last reflections contained in the Opus postumum—Kant develops his philosophy in the context of the contemporary natural science of his time.17 The reciprocity of empirical science and metaphysics is also apparent in the titles of two of Kant’s precritical writings: Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I.  continet monadologiam physicam (1756) (The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Geometry, of which Sample I  Contains the Physical Monadology); and his New Theory of Motion and Rest, and the Connected Consequences in the First Principles of the Natural Sciences (1758). Wundt correctly locates Kant’s conception of philosophy

11

12 13 14 15 16 17

MAN 4:472. Cf. Konstantin Pollok, “Kant’s Critical Concepts of Motion,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 44(4) (2006): 569–70. MAN 4:467, 470, 472, 473, 477, 479, 564. Op 21:505. Cf. Op 21:484; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 159n1. Op 21:505, my translation. Op 21:352, my translation. Op 21:505, my translation. Friedman has recently provided a nice example of this by pointing to Kant’s correspondence with Lambert. Michael Friedman, Kant’s Construction of Nature:  A  Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2013), 121–2. Cf. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 136ff.

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in the context of those thinkers who attempt to comprehend the contingent as grounded on necessary foundations,18 and Adickes has pointed out in this context that throughout his career Kant attempts to solve problems in the empirical sciences not through experimental methods, but metaphysically.19 Kant stands in the tradition of natural philosophy that aims at a metaphysical foundation of natural science that precedes physics, a tradition in which also Descartes stands.20 Locke’s Essay, on the contrary, which also presents a theory of knowledge that precedes specific knowledge claims, is quite different in character. Locke does not think that certainty is achievable in the natural sciences, and thus he explicitly excludes scientific ambitions. For example, Locke conceives of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities as a diversion into the physical sciences that does not lie on the main path of his Essay.21 It is of course true that Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason shares the Lockean negative project of drawing limits to knowledge. However, the limiting of knowledge, the project of curbing transcendent metaphysics, is intricately connected to showing the possibility of immanent metaphysics, that is, the a priori determination of the conditions of the possibility of experience.22 It is this latter project that is connected to philosophia naturalis, that is, to a rational foundation of physics. Thus, while both the Cartesian and Lockean propaedeutics precede substantial knowledge claims, only the former is scientific in its motivation. It is important in this context that Kant, via Wolff, stands in this scientific tradition. Wolff, whose “strict method,” Kant claims, “gave us the first example . . . of the way in which the secure course of a science is to be taken,”23 follows Descartes’s scientific motivation by aiming to demonstrate empirical truths from undeniable grounds [“unumstösslichen Gründen”] and thus to bring about “complete certainty in physics.”24 Certainty and systematicity are essential features of the

18

19 20

21

22

23 24

Max Wundt, Kant als Metaphysiker:  Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Deutschen Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke, 1924), 12–27. Erich Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1924), 139. In his seventh set of objections and replies, Descartes writes:  “I have made it clear that my method imitates that of the architect. When an architect wants to build a house which is stable on ground . . .” René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. 2, trans. John Cottingham et  al. (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1984), 366. Similarly, in the first Meditation, Descartes announces: “I realized that it was necessary . . . to . . . start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable.” Descartes, Philosophical Writings, 17. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Roger Woolhouse (London:  Penguin Books, 2004), Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 1–7; Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 22. See, for example, Kant’s famous 1772 letter to Herz (Br 10:129–30), and Kant’s Progress essay (FM 20:290–1). KrV Bxxxvi. Cited after Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 107.

36

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Wolffian philosophy, whose deductive method, which begins from universal propositions and proceeds to particular cases (as opposed to the experimental Newtonian method), aims at a hierarchically organized system of concepts.25 Accordingly, Wolff divides the knowledge of nature into a general part, which demonstrates universal propositions with respect to the essential features of bodies in general, and a particular part, which contains the application of the general part to specific empirical phenomena. The goal of the Wolffian conception of philosophy is to connect metaphysics and experimental physics into a single system of knowledge.26 The first textbook, which Kant uses for his physics lectures, that is, Eberhard’s Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, stands in the same tradition.27 It separates a general part of physics, which deals with universal attributes pertaining to matter in general, from a part dealing with the particular variety of bodies, which deals with specific phenomena such as solid and fluid bodies, and specific elasticities.28 Also Wolff ’s Cosmologia Generalis contains such a systematic distinction between primitive forces pertaining to matter in general and derivative forces that are modifications of the former.29 Kant adopts this division early on in his

25 26 27

28

29

Cf. Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 113ff. Cf. Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 114–6. Kant lectured on physics twenty-one times between 1755/6 and 1787/8. As was mandatory, Kant had to adopt a textbook for his lectures. In the 1750s and 60s, Kant lectured physics based on Johann Peter Eberhard, Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, Halle, 1753, 21759, 31767. Cf. Physik Herder, 1763 or 1764/5, VP 29:67–71. In this time period, he also lectured on mechanics based on Wolff. Cf. Werner Stark, Nachforschungen zu Briefen und Handschriften Immanuel Kants (Berlin:  Akademie Verlag, 1993), 322. Later, between 1776 and 1783, Kant adopted Johann Christian Polykarp Erxleben, Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre, Göttingen und Gotha:  1772, 21777. Cf. Berliner Physik or Physik Friedländer, 1779, VP 29:73–92. Finally, Kant used Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten, Anleitung zur gemeinnützlichen Erkenntnis der Natur, Halle, 1783. Cf. Danziger Physik or Physik Mrongovius, 1785, VP 29:93–169. For his lecture in 1787/8 he switched back to Erxleben, which was now edited and enhanced by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Göttingen, 1785. Kant wrote to Lichtenberg in 1798 mentioning his Transition Project (Br 12:247). “Because one either considers the universal properties of bodies or explains the particular occurrences that depend on these [universal properties], the philosophical doctrine of nature can thus be divided into two parts, namely the universal and the particular . . . In the second part . . . the universal properties of bodies, which were proved in the first part, are applied to particular bodies in order to explain their appearances from these [universal properties of bodies].” (Eberhard, Gründe der Naturlehre, 6, my translation). Cf. Konstantin Pollok, Kants ‘Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft:’ Ein kritischer Kommentar (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2001), 25. “Vis primitive est, quae omni corpori per se inest . . . Vis derivativa est, quae per modificationem vis primitivae resultat . . . Vis derivativa resultat per limitationem vis primitivae.” Wolff, General Cosmology, §§358–64. Wolffians, such as Hanov, whose first two volumes of his 1762/1765 Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae were in Kant’s library, further develop this systematic approach. See Michael Christoph Hanov, Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae, Tomus I.  continens physicam generalem, coelestem et aetheream tanquam systematis philosophici Christiani L. B. de Wolff (Halle:  Renger, 1762). Tomus II. continens aerologiam et hydrologiam vel scientiam aeris et aqvae tanquam continvationem systematis philosphici Christiani L.  B.  de Wolff (Halle: Renger, 1765).

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youth. In accordance with the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition, Kant discusses in the second part of his 1756 Monadology empirical phenomena of density and elasticity as derivative forces that he attempts to understand in terms of his dynamic theory of matter, that is, primitive forces.30 Kant still holds on to this Wolffian framework in his mature Metaphysical Foundations: the main chapter on Dynamics deals with forces that are constitutive of matter in general. The following “General Remark to Dynamics” deals with particular empirical phenomena such as solids, fluids, elasticity, cohesion, chemical dissolution, and densities as modifications of the matter constituting forces.31 The important philosophical point of this rationalist framework is that all empirical matter must be thought of as standing under the forces that are constitutive of matter in general, and that in this way certainty and systematicity are supposed to be attained. In this vein, Jenisch describes Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations as the touchstone [Probierstein] of Kant’s “philosophical system,”32 and Kant himself regards the “metaphysics both of nature and of morals, as confirmation of the correctness of the critique both of theoretical and practical reason.”33 It is an essential element of the Wolffian conception of science that, because the empirical part of a science presupposes the general part, the former is supposed to confirm the latter.34 It is thus the task of experimental physics “to justify through clear exemplars [untrügliche Proben] what has been established through reason [was wir durch die Vernunft herausgebracht].”35 I shall immediately point out that Kant uses the same Wolffian distinction between a general and particular part of a science in his moral philosophy: duties with respect to specific circumstances must be conceived of as modifications of duties with universal scope. Accordingly, the second part of the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue (1797), which deals with duties of virtue with respect to others, falls into two chapters: (1) On duties to others merely as human beings, and (2) On duties to others in accordance with the differences in their condition. Kant writes that duties with respect to particular conditions “are only rules modified in accordance with differences of the subjects to whom the principle of virtue (in terms of what is formal) is applied

30 31 32 33 34 35

PM 1:486–7. MAN 4:496–535. Br 10:486. KrV Bxliii, my emphasis. Wolff, General Cosmology, §5. Wolff, cited after Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 111.

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in cases that come up in experience (the material).”36 The division of duties into duties toward others merely as human beings and duties toward others with respect to specific conditions is taken from Baumgarten’s Ethica, in accordance with which Kant taught his lecture courses on ethics. Baumgarten stands, of course, in the Wolffian tradition. At the very end of the Ethica, Baumgarten introduces duties with respect to a manifold of specific conditions “not common to all men”37 such as age, health, social status, sex, and moral condition. Baumgarten’s student, Georg Friedrich Meier, whose Philosophische Sittenlehre Kant knew well, expands the part on the specific variety of duties: one entire book of the five volumes is devoted to the topic of comprehending specific duties as modifications of general obligations. Kant’s Transition Project enters precisely here at the intersection of general and particular laws. It must be possible to show that duties with respect to specific conditions (qua being duties) stand under the principle of duty in general. Thus, Kant says that even the “application [of a priori principles] belongs to the complete presentation of the system.”38 This position is a corollary of Kant’s scientific effort to provide the metaphysical foundations for empirical human agency. From this foundationalist perspective even the specific variety of duties (with respect to specific conditions) belongs to the system of ethics in virtue of the fact that all moral precepts share the same metaphysical foundation. For this reason, it is the task of metaphysical first principles of virtue [metaphysische Anfangsgründe] to demonstrate the systematicity of human duties with respect to the synthetic a priori propositions laid out in the critical part of practical philosophy.39 Thus “just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed—a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals.”40 The Transition Project lies at the intersection of metaphysical laws and the empirical variety of specific laws, which must be comprehended as modifications of the former. The Opus postumum thus formulates the problem of the Transition Project as follows:

36 37 38 39

40

MSTL 6:468. Baumgarten, Ethica, §400. MSTL 6:468–9. “The critique of practical reason was to be followed by a system, the metaphysics of morals, which falls into metaphysical and first principles of the doctrine of right and metaphysical first principles of the doctrine of virtue (this is a counterpart of the metaphysical first principles of natural science, already published)” (MSRL 6:205). See also MSRL 6:214–15; MSTL 375–6. MSTL 6:468–9.

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39

There must be a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics if the science of nature is to become a science of reason (philosophia naturalis).41 The science of nature (philosophia naturalis) consists of two parts, different according to their principles:  The first represents the movable in space (matter) under laws of motion, according to concepts a priori, and its system was composed under the title Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. The second part, which proceeds from empirical principles, would, if one wished to undertake it, be called physics . . . The transition from one science to the other must have certain intermediary concepts, which are given in the one and are applied to the other, and which thus belong to both territories alike. Otherwise this advance is not a lawlike transition but a leap in which one neither knows where one is going, nor, in looking back, understands whence one has come.42

The notion philosophia naturalis, generally speaking, means a description of nature’s order based on rational principles. Kant’s claim, repeatedly made in the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations, that already the word “nature” carries with it the concept of a priori laws, which first makes possible systematic knowledge of empirical nature, picks up this general idea of a philosophia naturalis. For Kant, nature is a law-governed whole, and scientific knowledge of it is possible because the subject of cognition prescribes the laws to nature. More precisely, scientific knowledge of nature is possible because the “a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.”43 A metaphysical theory of physics is possible because objects of outer sense (with which physics deals) are appearances (as opposed to things in themselves). All appearances are subject to the a priori restrictions of sensibility and understanding. Physics’ systematicity and necessity must stand under these necessary epistemological constraints, but cannot be based on empirical considerations: Every doctrine that is supposed to be a system, that is, a whole of cognition ordered according to principles, is called a science . . . A rational doctrine of nature thus deserves the name of a natural science, only in case the fundamental natural laws therein are cognized a priori . . . Since the word nature already

41

42

43

Op 21:474–5. For “philosophia naturalis,” see: Op 21:161, 285, 402, 407, 474–5, 481–2, 484, 505; Op 22:426. Op 21:524–6. Cf. Philosophy of nature contains the necessity of a transition “in virtue of the relationship which is to be found between a priori rules and the knowledge of their application to empirically given objects.” (Op 21:407–8) KrV A111. Cf. Prol 4:320.

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy carries with it the concept of laws, and the latter carries with it the concept of necessity of all determinations of a thing belonging to its existence, one easily sees why natural science must derive the legitimacy of this title only from its pure part—namely, that which contains the a priori principles of all other natural explanations—and why only in virtue of this pure part is natural science to be proper science.”44

For Kant, knowledge of nature is not a mere heap of possibly unrelated empirical laws, but requires systematic unity of cognitions. This unity is possible because the transcendental study of nature in general provides the foundation for the applied study of nature. Both transcendental foundation and application are parts of philosophia naturalis. If this is so, then it is of critical interest to Kant to show that empirical nature can be cognized through reason. It is “important to the critical system that empirical laws somehow ‘stand under’ . . . a priori laws of nature in general.”45 There are two reasons for claiming that Kant’s notion of philosophia naturalis—and its insistence on necessity and universality, certainty and systematicity as marks of any proper science46—stand, broadly speaking, in the Wolffian tradition. First, as I  have started to elucidate in this section, a pure part of a science is supposed to ground its applied counterpart. More specifically, empirical forces are understood as modifications of metaphysical forces. The Transition Project in the “Octaventwurf ” picks up the Wolffian systematic distinction between primitive forces pertaining to matter in general and derivative forces that are modifications of the former. As we will see, herein lies the significance of the 1786  “General Remark to Dynamics,” which attempts to understand empirical laws as modifications of a priori laws. The division between a general and a particular part of a science—foundational (metaphysical) properties and specific (empirical) properties—is an essential part of the textbooks that Kant used for both his lectures on ethics and physics, and it shapes almost all areas of Kant’s philosophical thought, be it in logic, morality, physics, physical geography, or the different races of mankind.47 Kant’s attempt to explain empirical phenomena by showing how they are grounded in metaphysics essentially leads to a systematic conception of science, which Kant explicitly opposes to the Newtonian conception of physics. For, the latter

44 45 46 47

MAN 4:467ff. Cf. Refl 14:118–9; KrV A645/B673. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 258. On this point see also Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 89–90. MAN 4:468–9; KrV B4. See KrV A53/B77, A55/B79; MSRL 6:217; PG 9:183; Br 10:230.

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does not aim at explaining the metaphysical causes of phenomena or organizing these through a system of forces, but rather mathematically determines empirical forces. The Newtonian textbooks, such as Musschenbroek’s 1747 Grundlehren der Naturwissenschaft, which Kant had in his library, is an aggregate of experiments investigating empirical forces such as gravity, cohesion, density, elasticity, electricity, magnetism, and so on. There is no attempt to systematically explain the possibility of these forces by tracing them to the metaphysical essence of bodies in general. Rather, laws are inductively generated through observation and subsequently mathematically quantified: “The entire growth of natural science can be expected to flow from diligent observation of all [the various] kinds . . . of bodies.”48 For Kant, such a merely descriptive and mathematical comprehension of phenomena is a mere aggregate of cognition. True explanation of phenomena requires insight into their possibility— they must be derived from the essential features of bodies in general, that is, the transcendental and metaphysical conditions of knowledge. In other words, what is at stake in Kant’s Transition Project is a defense of Kant’s transcendental and systematic way to approach the study of nature—the possibility of a philosophy of nature (philosophia naturalis). For Kant, the systematic approach to nature is undermined by the success of the Newtonian inductive method, which enumerates and mathematically determines forces, but does not attempt to metaphysically explain their possibility. According to Kant’s transcendental turn, the necessity of natural laws cannot be comprehended through contingent data, but must be accounted for in terms of the a priori conditions that the subject of cognition prescribes to nature. Kant is quite explicit about the two alternatives: “Either these laws are taken from nature by means of experience, or, conversely, nature is derived from the laws of the possibility of experience in general.”49 Newtonian textbooks like those of Musschenbroek present an aggregate of empirical forces based on experiments, but do not provide “a true rational coherence of explanations.”50 So, there remains the task for the transcendental philosopher to show how the manifold empirical laws discovered by science can be brought under the constitutive principles laid out in the Critique and the Metaphysical Foundations.

48

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Peter von Musschenbroek, Grundlehren der Naturwissenschaft; nach der zweyten lateinischen Ausgabe nebst einigen neuen Zusätzen des Verfassers, ins Deutsche übersetzt, mit einer Vorrede ans Licht gestellt von Johan Christoph Gottscheden (Leipzig: Gottfried Kiesewetter, 1747): 9. My translation and emphasis. Cf. Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 122–44, 146–75. Prol 4:319. MAN 4:534.

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The second reason for the claim that Kant’s conception of philosophia naturalis stands in the Wolffian tradition is that Kant’s conception of matter is dynamic. I turn to this point next.

Kant’s dynamic account of matter The Wolffian school and Kant subscribe to a, broadly speaking, dynamic account of matter. This is the second feature that makes Kant’s philosophia naturalis “Wolffian.” That matter can fill a space (i.e., be extended) only through a repulsive force is a thought Kant subscribes to from his 1756 Monadologia physica to the Opus postumum.51 Most essential features of Kant’s dynamic account of matter constitution stem from the precritical period: two fundamental forces; inverse square and cube laws describing these forces; further forces, such as elasticity as modifications of the fundamental forces. Also, Kant’s view that force is an intensive magnitude stems from the precritical period. The continuous compressibility of air, for example, is elucidated by the same air pump experiments in both his precritical and critical writings.52 Further, throughout his career, Kant attacks the atomist account of matter, which views an extended body as made up of simple, extended, and impenetrable parts of matter and empty space. On this broadly Cartesian view, impenetrability or solidity is a primary quality (or analytic predicate) of matter. Similarly, in Locke, solidity is conceived as a simple idea, which cannot further be explained.53 In opposition to this view, Kant emphasizes that impenetrability is caused by a force. Matter is not something originally given, but rather constituted by continuous forces. Impenetrability is not a logical predicate of matter in general but has to be explained dynamically, that is, through a force, because it is a causal relation.54 Certainly, the monadological conception of Kant’s dynamical account of matter in his early writings (i.e., the assumption of monadic substances as bearer of forces) is eliminated in the critical 1786 Metaphysical Foundations. In the latter work, matter is infinitely divisible. My point is that the overall theory remains a dynamic theory of matter.55 51

52 53 54

55

See PM 1:482ff.; NG 2:175–6, 179; UD 2:287; Refl 14:108–9, 112–3, 145, 296; VP 29:110–1; MAN 4:497. Compare NG 2:188 with MAN 4:500. Locke, Essay, Book 2, Chapter 4, Sections 1–6. PM 1:476; Refl 14:113, 145; NG 2:188; MAN 4:498, 500; VP 29:69, 77–8. Cf. Daniel Warren, Reality and Impenetrability in Kant’s Philosophy of Nature (New York: Routledge, 2001), 77ff. See VP 29:77–8; PM 1:482. See on this point also Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 7, 330–1.

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The dynamic theory of matter is not just Kant’s preferred choice with regard to empirical physics. Rather, it has its roots in Kant’s precritical philosophical distinction between logical and real repugnance, and the implications of this distinction for the proper method of philosophy: force is a causal relation, and causes cannot be explained analytically. For example, in the 1763 Negative Magnitudes, Kant elaborates on this distinction as follows: I fully understand how a consequence is posited by a ground in accordance with the rule of identity: analysis of the concepts shows that the consequence is contained in the ground . . . But what I should dearly like to have distinctively explained to me, however, is how one thing issues from another thing, though not by means of the law of identity. The first kind of ground I call the logical ground [logischer Grund], for the relation of the ground to its consequence can be understood logically . . . The second kind of ground, however, I call the real ground [Realgrund] . . . A body A is in motion, another body B lying in the direct path of A, is at rest. The motion of A is something; the motion of B is something else; and yet the one is posited by the other.56

The relation of real grounds to their consequences cannot be rendered comprehensible by analysis. In other words, not all metaphysical concepts can be clarified analytically, “force” and “cause” being cases in point. Kant realized the implication of the distinction between logical and real repugnance for the proper method of philosophy by the end of 1765.57 If the relationship between ground and consequence cannot be one of analytical dependence, then real possibility, as a characterization of things, must be distinguished fundamentally from logical possibility. This, in turn, has crucial implications for Kant’s understanding of the distinction between mathematics, which can begin with definitions, and philosophy (which cannot),58 such that it becomes clear why there cannot be a purely mathematical foundation of natural science. Kant distinguishes between a mathematical–mechanical and a metaphysico–dynamical account of matter. As to the people Kant calls mathematical physicists, he has in mind, in general, a class of people who subscribe to an atomist, Cartesian, account of matter in terms of extension in length, breadth, and depth. The geometrical physics of the “mathematical–mechanical” philosophers “attempts to explain physical interactions and material constitution solely in terms of the sizes, motions, and figures 56 57 58

NG 2:202–4. Cf. NG 172–6; TG 2:370. See Letter to Lambert, Br 10:56. For Kant’s mature account of this distinction, see KrV A713ff./B741ff. Cf. UD 2:283.

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of elementary particles distributed in empty space.”59 For Descartes, the metaphysical essence of matter is to be extended, and empirical motion is a mode of extension. In Descartes’s philosophy of nature, we can in principle understand how empirical motion depends on the metaphysical essence of matter, because a body having a determinate motion is just a more determinate way of being extended. For Kant, however, mathematical physicists collapse mathematics (geometrical laws) and philosophy (dynamical laws), such that the very term of Newton’s masterpiece “Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica” contains a contradiction: Motion can be treated entirely mathematically, for it is nothing but concepts of space and time, which can be presented a priori in pure intuition; the understanding makes them. Moving forces, however, as efficient causes of these motions such as are required by physics and its laws, need philosophical principles. All mathematics, then, brings one not the least bit nearer to philosophical knowledge unless a causal combination, such as that of the attraction or repulsion of matter by its moving forces, is first brought onto the scene. 60 In a certain work with the title:  Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, philosophical principles of the latter were developed. For metaphysics is a part of philosophy, and nothing but metaphysics could be at issue in the transition from philosophy to the science of nature, if it is a matter of knowledge from concepts. But there is an opponent of this view: no less a man, indeed, than Newton himself in his immortal work Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. But there is a self-contradiction in the very title of his book: For, just as little as there can be philosophical principles of mathematics, can there be mathematical principles of philosophy.61

In other words, if we consider matter as a geometrical point (as is done in the “Phoronomy” of the Metaphysical Foundations) then its motion can be constructed a priori in pure intuition.62 However, cognition of the forces constitutive of matter and motion cannot be derived mathematically. Forces are causal relations, and these are not mathematical relations but subject to the philosophical principles of the Critique. Thus, physics must be based on the epistemic restrictions laid out in the Critique:

59 60 61

62

Friedman, Exact Sciences, 181–2. Op 22:515–6. Op 22:512. See also Kant’s earliest textbook author on the distinction between mathematics and natural science: Eberhard, Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, 3. Cf. MAN 4:487.

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The moving forces belonging to physics must first be given through experience, which itself must be based on principles, namely, as to its possibility, and hence these moving forces must be given a priori.63

In the Kantian system, space is a formal intuition that makes possible laws of physics (“motion can be treated entirely mathematically”), but for the explanation of the real causes of physical forces experience is required, which itself is subject to the synthetic a priori judgments laid out in the Critique (“Moving forces . . . need philosophical principles”). Kant’s own metaphysical–dynamical position, which is opposed to the mathematical–mechanical model, is Wolffian in that it acknowledges moving forces as essentially pertaining to matter.64 The 1786 Metaphysical Foundations attempts to tie such a dynamical position into the transcendental foundation of knowledge, because “natural science must derive the legitimacy of this title only from its pure part.”65 The “fundamental natural laws” must be “cognized a priori,” but they cannot be “mere laws of experience.”66 However, according to Kant, Newton and Newtonians, such as Musschenbroeck, precisely only present such laws of experience: It is noteworthy that Newton’s propositions in his Principia philosophicae mathematica are not developed systematically, from a principle, but had to be compiled empirically and rhapsodically. Consequently, they led to the expectation of ever new additions, and, hence, his book could not contain a philosophical system.67

Contrary to this view, Kant aims at a systematic connection between the transcendental, metaphysical, and empirical determination of objects: [1] A  transcendental principle is one through which the universal a priori condition under which alone things can become objects of our cognition at all is represented. [Critique of Pure Reason] [2] By contrast, a principle is called metaphysical if it represents the a priori condition under which alone objects whose concept must be given empirically can be further determined a priori. [Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science]68

63 64

65 66 67 68

Op 22:514, my translation and emphasis. Cf. Christian Wolff, Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt [= Deutsche Metaphysik], Halle, 1720, reprinted in Gesammelte Werke, Abt.1, Vol. 1, ed. by École, Jean et al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1983), §§115, 685, 606. See also his Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Würkungen der Natur, Halle, 1723, reprinted in Gesammelte Werke, Abt.1, Vol. 6, ed. by École, Jean et al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1981), §§4, 11. MAN 4:468. Ibid. Op 22:518. KU 5:181, my emphasis.

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Accordingly, the starting point of the 1786 Metaphysical Foundations is the “empirical concept of matter,” that is, something that is an object of outer sense.69 This empirically given concept of matter is subsequently “carried through all four of the indicated functions of the concepts of the understanding (in four chapters), where in each a new determination of this concept was added.”70 In other words, Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations attempts to exhaustively exhibit the a priori conditions of the empirical concept of matter by relating it to the four titles of the table of the categories. Kant’s dynamic theory of matter begins with a quality that can be experienced: repulsive force, which is manifest through the perception of resistance. As Kant puts it in the Critique, “the matter of appearances, however, through which things in space and time are given to us, can be represented only in perception, thus a posteriori.”71 This empirical starting point and the reduction of physics to a doctrine of motion can also be found in Erxleben’s textbook and throughout Kant’s writings.72 Kant begins with the empirical concept of matter as it affects human sensibility, and precisely because sense-perception requires that senses be affected, the “basic determination of something that is to be an object of the outer senses had to be motion,”73 which implies that all natural science is “either a pure or applied doctrine of motion.”74 Since existence cannot be constructed a priori, mathematical science cannot be at the foundation of physics, but rather requires metaphysics. All natural philosophers who have wished to proceed mathematically in their occupation have always, and must have always, made use of metaphysical principles . . . All true metaphysics is drawn from the essence of the faculty of thinking itself . . . which first bring[s] the manifold of empirical representations into

69

70 71 72

73 74

MAN 4:470, 476, 482, 534; Br 10:406. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 162, 237ff.; Burkhard Tuschling, “Die Idee des transzendentalen Idealismus im späten Opus postumum,” in Übergang: Untersuchungen zum Spätwerk Immanuel Kants, ed. Forum für Philosophie Bad Homburg (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991), 107; Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 3, 19, 278–80, 314, 340. For a different reading, see Friedman, Construction of Nature, 43–4, 120, 129. MAN 4:476. KrV A720/B748. See, for example, MAN 4:476; Op 21:387, 476; Op 22: 508, 514; VP 29:79. “The understanding anticipates the perception in accordance with the only possible forms of motion—attraction, repulsion . . . So, it becomes clear how it is possible to erect a priori a system of empirical representations, and to anticipate material experience” (Op 22:502, my translation). On Kant’s dynamic position, spatial extension requires an intensive magnitude in order to be an object of possible experience. “The degree of moving force is the intensity, be it attraction or repulsion” (Op 21:347, my translation). MAN 4:476. MAN 4:476–7. Cf. KrV A41/B58: “In space considered in itself there is nothing movable; hence the movable must be something that is found in space only through experience, thus an empirical datum.” Cf. MAN 4:481–2.

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the law-governed connection through which it can become empirical cognition. Thus these mathematical physicists could in no way avoid metaphysical principles, and, among them, also not those that make the concept of their proper object, namely, matter, a priori suitable for application to outer experience, such as the concept of motion, the filling of space, inertia . . . But they rightly held that to let merely empirical principles govern these concepts would in no way be appropriate to the apodictic certainty they wished their laws of nature to possess, so they preferred to postulate such [principles], without investigating them with regard to their a priori sources.75

Before there can be a mathematical science of nature its basic concepts, such as motion and force, must be shown to be grounded in the metaphysics of experience:  “Philosophy is required to ground them primordially . . . As soon as the latter occurs, the transition to physics has taken place, and there can be philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica.”76 In other words, a mere mathematical and experimental determination of phenomena is not yet a sufficient explanation of their possibility. What Kant adds to both the empirical starting point of his textbook authors, on the one hand, and the mathematical scientists on the other, is a demonstration of how scientific statements regarding physical objects and their phenomena must be “in accord” with the a priori “rules of an empirical synthesis.”77 This implies that all empirical objects must stand under the a priori conditions of perception in general, that is, the anticipations of perception.78 This synthetic a priori principle states that all perception must have an intensive magnitude. The “Anticipations of Perception” require that matter, as that which fills space, be conceived of in terms of continuous intensities of force spheres. From here follows Kant’s metaphysical dynamic: to fill a space (impenetrability) means to exert a repulsive force.79 Since this expansive force alone would disperse itself infinitely without a counteracting force, Kant infers from the repulsive force to the force of attraction as the second original force of matter.80 That is to say, the repulsive force expands until it is limited by the counteracting force of attraction. This counteracting force must be originally pertaining to

75 76

77 78 79 80

MAN 4:472. Op 22:516. Cf. “But in order to make possible the application of mathematics to the doctrine of body, which only through this can become natural science . . . a complete analysis of the concept of a matter in general will have to be taken as the basis, and this is a task for pure philosophy” (MAN 4:472). KrV A723/B751. Cf. KrV A166ff./B207ff. MAN 4:496. MAN 4:508–9, 513.

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matter as well. It cannot be derived from other matter insofar as this other matter would itself require an attractive force. On this dynamic account of body formation, something that can be perceived by outer sense must be constituted by the reciprocal limitation of two counteracting forces. The constitution of matter requires two mutually independent forces.81 If there was just one force, matter would either be concentrated in one point (attraction), or it would be infinitely dispersed (repulsion).82 In both cases, matter could not be perceived by the senses.83 There can only be two kinds of forces, because a force can either be directed toward a point in space or directed away from it. For this reason, all moving forces in material nature must be reducible to repulsion and attraction.84 All empirical matter must be constituted by these two kinds of metaphysical forces.85 Against this background, it becomes clear why Kant continuously attacks atomist modes of explanation of natural phenomena in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Kant begins the “General Remark to Dynamics” with the claim that “everything real in the objects of outer sense . . . must be viewed as moving force.”86 Since physics is the science of the systematic exposition of appearances, its basic concept, that is, the universal and necessary attributes of matter in general, must be consistent with the a priori constraints of experience in general. This entails that matter must be conceived of in terms of continuous intensities of force spheres. From the critical point of view, all forces that constitute material substances and their physical properties, that is, everything given in sensation, all material determinations of objects that can be experienced, all “realities” as Kant calls them, must be continuous magnitudes. This is what the “Anticipations of Perception” prove as an a priori principle. Kant makes a very strong claim for

81 82 83 84 85

86

MAN 4:514. MAN 4:510–1. MAN 4:517–18. Compare PM 1:484. Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 191. By “metaphysical” forces I mean the a priori claims that philosophers make about empirical forces. In virtue of this a priori account of matter in general, all empirical forces must be understood as modifications of these two “metaphysical” forces. This is analogous to Kant’s conception of duties. All duties are of course empirical. Only empirically situated human beings have duties. Nevertheless, all empirical duties must be understood in light of the a priori account of autonomy. MAN 4:523, my emphasis. “We know substance in space only through forces that are efficacious in it whether in drawing others to it (attraction) or in preventing penetration of it (repulsion and impenetrability); we are not acquainted with other properties constituting the concept of the substance that appears in space and which we call matter” (KrV A265/B321). “The matter (the physical) . . . signifies a something that is encountered in space and time, and which thus contains an existence and corresponds to sensation” (KrV A723/B751). “The principle of all appearances as regards matter is force . . . All force of matter is either a constitutive or modifying force” (Refl 14:119, my translation).

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an epistemological foundation of the concept of matter in his critical theory of the constitution of experience.87 It is a further mathematical or empirical question (i.e., a problem lying outside a metaphysics of nature) to determine how the two matter constituting forces limit each other. Kant suggests that the forces of repulsion and attraction decrease as the distance from the force center r increases. Thus the laws describing the two counteracting forces will have the form F = 1/rx, which Kant describes as the “general law of dynamics.”88 More precisely, Kant argues that the repulsive force is a surface or contact force, that is, it acts at the surface of contact.89 The degree of the repulsive force is indirectly proportional to the volume of matter filling space. Thus, Kant suggests that the repulsive force obeys the inverse cube law Frep= 1/r3. The original force of attraction, that is, the second matter constituting force, is a penetrative force (i.e., it acts on all parts of a body alike) and is directly proportional to the quantity of matter. Kant identifies the fundamental attractive force with Newtonian attraction, that is, gravity.90 Kant suggests that the attractive force obeys the inverse square law Fattr= 1/r2.91 Note that whether the relationship of the two reciprocally limiting forces is determined by an inverse cube and square law, as Kant suggests, or by some other quantitative relationship is not part of the a priori foundation of natural science.92 This is already Kant’s position in the 1756 Monadology: To inquire into the laws governing the two forces in the elements, the repulsive and the attractive forces, is an investigation of high importance, and worthy of exercising the most acute minds. It suffices me here to have proved the existence of these forces, and to have done so with the greatest of certainty.93

In the Metaphysical Foundations, Kant says along the same lines that “if the material itself is transformed into fundamental forces (whose laws we cannot determine a priori . . .), we lack all means for constructing this concept of matter.”94 Kant’s “metaphysical dynamic”95 only consists in the claim that the reciprocal limitation of repulsive and attractive forces are constitutive of matter in 87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94

95

For precisely this reason, we may presume, does Kant change his precritical monadic account of force spheres to a continuum account in MAN. MAN 4:525. MAN 4:516, 524. MAN 4:512; Br 11:376–7. MAN 4:521, 501, 518–9. MAN 4:517–8. PM 1:484. Compare MAN 4:521–2. Cf. Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 314, 334, 338–9. MAN 4:525. Cf. MAN 4:543: “No law of either attractive of repulsive force may be risked on a priori conjectures.” On this point, see also Friedman, Exact Sciences, 183. MAN 4:523, cf. MAN 4:517.

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general. For this reason, Kant emphasizes that a failure in determining the laws describing the repulsive and attractive forces would not imply a failure of the dynamic theory of matter in general.96 Kant explicitly leaves open how the force of attraction counteracts the repulsive force, that is, whether it works through the attractive force of the parts of matter itself or through the attraction of the entirety of world matter (ether).97 That a transition from the metaphysics of nature to physics must be possible is part of the philosophical task of the Metaphysical Foundations. It is the fundamental claim of the Metaphysical Foundations that everything that can become an object of outer sense is constituted through the reciprocal limitation of repulsion and attraction. Because the derivation of metaphysical forces constitutive of matter is exhaustive,98 “all moving forces in material nature [i.e., empirical forces] must be reduced”99 to the fundamental forces of repulsion and attraction. These are thus called “Grundkräfte,” on which all further modification of forces must be based.100 This completeness claim, which is essential to the project of a philosophia naturalis (i.e., a systematic description of nature’s order based on rational principles) entails that the specific variety of matter (which the physicist investigates) is grounded upon the two fundamental metaphysical forces, even though Kant’s dynamic metaphysics is not “capable of enumerating reliably a manifold of such forces sufficient for explaining the specific variety of matter.”101 The systematic project of the Metaphysical Foundations is to determine matter in general through dynamic fundamental forces in such a way that physics as a doctrine of motion can be based on it. Accordingly, Kant emphasizes in the “General Remark to Dynamics” in the Metaphysical Foundations that anything real must be constituted by moving forces.102 The natural sciences, which deal with phenomena of outer sense, must be grounded on the principles pertaining to matter in general. Kant’s dynamic theory lays out the principles of all explanations of corporeal appearances by making the exhaustive claim that all moving forces must be reducible to repulsive and attractive forces. In addition to this essential task of determining the principles of matter in general, Kant hypothetically presents the reader with the moments to which the specific variety of

96 97

98 99 100 101 102

MAN 4:522–3, cf. MAN 4:517–9. MAN 4:518, 522–4, 463–4, 517–9; Br 11:362–5. On this point, see also MAN 4:521, and Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 331–4. MAN 4:498–9. MAN 4:499. See also Refl 14:119, 186, 187, 212. MAN 4:525. MAN 4:523–4.

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matter can be reduced.103 This meritorious task is undertaken in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Here Kant presents a transition from original forces constitutive of matter in general to the empirical variety of forces that can be experienced in specific bodies. How the transition from the two metaphysical forces of mater in general to empirical forces must be thought of determinately is merely elucidated in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” The “General Remark to Dynamics” merely attempts to show through exemplars how it is possible to account for specific scientific phenomena through a dynamic account of matter, which can then be seen to guide empirical inquiry. In this regard, Kant also follows the Wolffian school, which attempts to tie in empirical phenomena into a system of metaphysically warranted universal propositions, and which uses the latter as a regulative tool to approach experimental physics.104

The systematic function of the “General Remark to Dynamics” In the “General Remark to Dynamics,” Kant deals with density, cohesion, elasticity, and chemical dissolution as mediating concepts that, on the one hand, can be reduced to the a priori metaphysical forces of repulsion and attraction and, on the other, can explain the specific variety of empirical matter. The four moments are supposed to build a transition between the metaphysical forces of repulsion and attraction (constitutive of matter in general) to the physical laws describing the phenomena pertaining to the specific variety of matter. Thus, Kant’s dynamic account lays the foundation for “the procedure of natural science with respect to the most important of all its tasks—namely, that of explaining a potentially infinite specific variety of matters.”105 The crucial point regarding the four moments, to which the empirical manifold of matter can be reduced, is that the transition proceeds via derivative forces. These forces are not constitutive of matter in general, but can be explained in terms of the matter constituting forces. The “General Remark to Dynamics” 103

104 105

This is analogous to the 1785 Groundwork, published one year before MAN, which establishes the principle of obligation, provisionally presents a classification of duties, but reserves the problem of a systematic application of morality to specific cases for the future Doctrine of Virtue (GMS 4:421). See below Chapter 3, “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum” for discussion. Cf. Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 109, 111, 130, 134. MAN 4:532.

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aims for “the reduction of given, apparently different forces” to the forces constitutive of matter in general, in order to make possible “a true rational coherence of explanations” of empirical phenomena.106 The Transition Project is thus tied to the rational endeavor of reason for systematicity, which is an essential feature of Kant’s critical philosophy.107 Kant’s “metaphysical dynamics”108 has to be consistent with the constitutive principles of possible experience established in the Critique on the one hand, and with empirical physics on the other. Kant claims that proper natural science silently presupposes metaphysics of nature, which first determines a priori the most fundamental object of natural science, namely, empirical matter (i.e., the corporeal object of external sense).109 Although there is a broad consensus on the general function of the Metaphysical Foundations as connecting metaphysics and natural science,110 the literature has not sufficiently acknowledged that the function of the “General Remark to Dynamics” does not only lie in providing legitimacy to Kant’s dynamic theory of matter, but is meant to fulfill the systematic task of building a transition from the matter constituting forces to empirical physics, and that the “Octaventwurf ” picks up this same systematic project again.111 Most commentators tend to think of the “General Remark to Dynamics” as a section dealing with (1)  isolated problems, and (2)  a general account of the advantages and disadvantages of a dynamic theory of matter. For example, Adickes speaks of “eine Anzahl von Einzelfragen” (a number of singular questions),112 Tuschling speaks of “Randprobleme” (marginal problems),113 and Pollok speaks of selected problems of contemporary empirical physics.114

106 107 108 109 110

111

112 113 114

MAN 4:534. Cf. KrV A651/B679; EEKU 20:242–3. MAN 4:523. MAN 4:472, 479. See Konstantin Pollok, Introduction to Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, by Immanuel Kant (Hamburg:  Felix Meiner Verlag, 1997), xxxvii; Michael Friedman, “Eckart Förster and Kant’s Opus postumum,” Inquiry 46(2), (2003):  224–5; Béatrice Longuenesse, Kant on the Human Standpoint (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 41–3; Sebastian Rand, “Apriority, Metaphysics, and Empirical Content in Kant’s Theory of Matter,” Kantian Review 17(1) (2012), 112–13. Förster is an exception to this reading. He argues that MAN completes the transcendental deduction of the categories. See his “Is there ‘a Gap’ in Kant’s Critical System?” Journal for the History of Philosophy 25(4) (1987), 533–55, and his Final Synthesis, 53–61. For a rejection of this idea, see Friedman, Exact Sciences, 259n. To my knowledge, only Vittorio Mathieu, Kants Opus postumum (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 55ff. and Dina Emundts, Kants Übergangskonzeption im Opus postumum:  Zur Rolle des Nachlasswerkes fur die Grundlegung der empirischen Physik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), 53–4, 70 n85 interpret the “General Remark to Dynamics” as a transition from MAN to physics, and correctly notice the continuity between the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 219. Tuschling, “Idee des Transzendentalen Idealismus,” 108. Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 248. Cf. ibid., 25, 341.

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This generally dismissive attitude toward the “General Remark to Dynamics” overlooks, first, the mediating character of the four moments and, second, the fact that Kant picks up the tradition of his textbook authors, who divide their textbooks into a first section dealing with the general determinations of bodies and a second section dealing with the application of these general principles to particular cases. The following analysis will show that Kant’s discussions in the “General Remark to Dynamics” reveal a systematic function of building a transition from original forces constitutive of matter in general to the empirical variety of forces that can be experienced in specific bodies. My aim in this section is neither to defend Kant’s account of matter in general, nor to assess the success or failure of Kant’s systematic attempt to connect the table of the categories to the overall underlying structure of the Metaphysical Foundations.115 It is also not my goal to defend Kant’s experimental physics or to approach the “General Remark to Dynamics” with an interest in the history of physics. My only point is to show that the “General Remark to Dynamics” aims at a systematic task, the same task that the Opus postumum will attempt to fulfill. The main purpose of the Metaphysical Foundations is to determine matter in general in such a way that physics as a doctrine of motion can be based on it. The task of connecting the matter constituting forces with the empirical sciences is attempted in the “General Remark to Dynamics,” which, as the title says, is a remark, and as such does not belong to the essential project of the Metaphysical Foundations. To use an analogy, the purpose of the Groundwork is to determine and establish the principle of moral obligation. Its main task is not to determine the classification of duties. Nevertheless, Kant hypothetically presents such a division of duties, but explicitly reserves this project for a future work.116 The same point holds with respect to the “General Remark to Dynamics,” which deals with the application of the constitutive principles of matter in general to divers empirical forces. To this end, the “General Remark to Dynamics” provisionally sketches mediating concepts that make possible the transition from the principles of matter in general to the empirical variety of matter, with which the 115

116

Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 147, 186, 191–2, 212–3n, 219, 260ff, 368–9, 375, who speaks of “architektonische Spielerei” (architectonic play). “The concept of matter had therefore to be carried through all four of the indicated functions of the concepts of the understanding (in four chapters), where in each a new determination of this concept was added” (MAN 4:476; cf. 4:482, 495, 498–9, 518, 525). Adickes argues that Kant unconvincingly tags his thoughts on physics onto his table of the categories, and that, therefore, he fails to provide an a priori foundation of empirical physics. Similarly, Warren has argued that the connection between the Critique and MAN is “less direct” than Kant claims it is. Warren, Reality and Impenetrability, 91–2. GMS 4:421n.

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physicist deals. More precisely, the “General Remark to Dynamics” presents the specific variety of matter as grounded on the four moments of density, cohesion, elasticity, and chemical dissolution. As Kant stresses, these are mere hypotheses of how a Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations to physics could look. Instead of a sufficient explanation for the possibility of matter and its specific variety from these fundamental forces, which I cannot provide, I will present completely, so I hope, the moments to which its specific variety must collectively be reducible.117

Throughout the “General Remark to Dynamics,” Kant’s remarks remain tentative. His main target is to show that it is possible to account for specific empirical phenomena, such as density and cohesion, on a dynamic model of matter constitution. In what follows, I will analyze the “General Remark to Dynamics” in order to show that Kant envisions the concepts he here discusses as mediating concepts.

Density The first moment accounting for the specific variety of matter is density. Density is defined as the “degree of the filling of a space with determinate content.”118 On an atomist account, different densities are generated “by mere compression” of matter that is “specifically of the same kind.”119 All “species and kinds” of matter are constituted through “absolute impenetrability” and “absolute homogeneity” of undividable fundamental particles.120 Contrary to atomism, Kant argues that the empirical phenomena of density can also be coherently explained through the reciprocal limitation of the two fundamental forces of repulsion and attraction. But now as to the procedure of natural science with respect to the most important of all its tasks—namely, that of explaining a potentially infinite specific variety of matters—one can take only two paths in this connection: the mechanical, by combination of the absolutely full with the absolutely empty, and an opposing dynamical path, by mere variety in combining the original forces of repulsion and attraction to explain all differences of matters.121

117 118 119 120 121

MAN 4:525, my emphasis. MAN 4:525. MAN 4:526. MAN 4:533. MAN 4:532.

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Kant’s strategy is to demote the atomist account of specific densities “to the value of a hypothesis”122 by showing that different densities “can be thought without contradiction” on a dynamical model of matter constitution.123 For, the smaller the original force of resistance, the more quantity of matter can penetrate into its force sphere, and thus the larger the density of the body will be.124 And vice versa: the stronger the original repulsive force, the smaller the quantity of matter that can penetrate into its force sphere, and thus the smaller the resulting density of the body. Since the original force of attraction is directly proportional to the quantity of matter,125 and the repulsive force is originally different in different matter,126 we can understand through the reciprocal restriction of repulsion and attraction of the two original forces how matter can fill a space to a determinate degree, that is, why there is a specific variety of densities: “For since repulsion increases with the approach of the parts to a greater extent than attraction, the limit of approach, beyond which no greater is possible by the given attraction, is thereby determined.”127 Kant’s strategy is twofold. First, he is attacking atomism in order to show that the assumption of empty space loses its necessity, and is demoted to the value of a hypothesis. For it could otherwise usurp the title of a principle, under the pretense of being a necessary condition for explaining the different degrees of the filling of space.128

Second, Kant offers his dynamical account of matter as an alternative possibility for explaining the physical phenomenon of different densities.129 Both points are connected in the following passage: [First] It is only necessary to refute the postulate of the merely mechanical mode of explanation—namely, that it is impossible to think a specific difference in the density of matters without interposition of empty spaces—by simply advancing a mode of explanation in which this can be thought without contradiction. For

122 123

124 125 126 127 128 129

MAN 4:524. MAN 4:533. In 1792, Kant recognizes that it is not possible to think the specific differences in densities on his dynamic account of matter. See further down “The “Octaventwurf ” and the “Early Fascicles” of the Opus postumum: The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition” for discussion. Br 11:364. MAN 4:516, 524. MAN 5:333–534. MAN 4:521, 517. On this point, see Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 209, 211, 214. MAN 4:524. Cf. MAN 4:532. “The mathematical–mechanical mode of explanation has an advantage over the metaphysical– dynamical [mode] . . . namely, that of generating from a thoroughly homogenous material a great variety of matters” (MAN 4:525).

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy once the postulate in question, on which the merely mechanical mode of explanation rests, is shown to be invalid as a principle, then it obviously does not have to be adopted as an hypothesis in natural science, so long as a possibility remains for thinking the specific difference in densities even without any empty interstices. [Second] But this necessity rests on the circumstance that matter does not fill its space (as merely mechanical natural scientists assume) by absolute impenetrability, but rather by repulsive force, which has a degree that can be different in different matters; and, since in itself it has nothing in common with the attractive force, which depends on the quantity of matter, it may be originally different in degree in different matters whose attractive force is the same. Thus the degree of expansion of these matters, when the quantity is the same, and, conversely, the quantity of matter at the same volume, that is, its density, originally admit of very large specific differences.130

The moment of density connects the metaphysics of nature with the physical laws describing empirical phenomena of densities, but it does not provide the physical laws of density itself. It is the systematic function of the mediating concept of density to show that what the physicist describes (namely, different densities in different kinds of matter, and the laws describing these differences) is metaphysically grounded, and thus scientific. Divers empirical phenomena are modifications of the primitive forces pertaining to matter in general. “Density” is thus part of the Transition from the metaphysics of nature to physics. On Kant’s dynamical account, the concept of matter in general can be determined a priori but the specific variety of matter can only be described empirically, namely, in terms of density.131 The Transition Project thus connects the a priori and empirical parts of physics. Different densities are empirical phenomena, and Kant accordingly warns “against going beyond that which makes possible the general concept of matter as such, and wishing to explain a priori its particular, or even specific, determination and variety.”132 The gist of Kant’s argument is that any empirical description of bodies (physics), in order to count as truly scientific, has to be based on the two metaphysical forces via mediating concepts, the first of which is density. Thus, Kant’s dynamic account lays the foundation for natural science, but it does not determine further the specific variety of matter a priori.133 In order to determine the specific variety of matter, for example, their specific densities, the natural philosopher would need to 130 131 132 133

MAN 4:533–4. Cf. PM 1:483–6. Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 226. MAN 4:524. Ibid.

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determine the specific laws that describe the reciprocal limitation of the two fundamental forces. But this is something that lies outside a metaphysics of nature.134 The moment of density is a mediating concept. It stands between the two fundamental forces of repulsion and attraction and the specific determination of densities on an empirical level.

Cohesion The second mediating concept connecting the metaphysics of nature with empirical laws is the cohesion of matter.135 Kant wants to show that cohesion is not a “general property of matter” (as it is “commonly taken”), but rather pertains to its empirical variety. Cohesion is “no fundamental force of matter, but only a derivative one.”136 Subsequently, Kant elaborates on the phenomenon of cohesive forces in fluids, and argues that these can best be explained through the original repulsive force of matter in general, that is, the principle of general dynamics.137 An experiment Kant frequently describes in this context is the one of two communicating bent tubes, where one is much narrower than the other.138 Adding water to the narrower tube leads to an equally rising water level in the wider tube. This is surprising, insofar as one would expect that the larger mass of water in the wider tube—via its downward force of gravity—has a reactive force that would prevent the water from rising in both tubes equally. However, the parts of a fluid can be displaced without any resistance, and, what is more, displacing the parts of a fluid does not affect the cohesion of the parts. This is very different in a rigid body. A rigid body resists the displacement of its parts, and it will tear or break, and thus its cohesive force will change too.139 Because in fluids 134 135

136

137 138

139

MAN 4:517, 524–5. MAN 4:526. Cohesion is attraction in contact as opposed to attraction at distance. Lefevre points out that the three authors of Kant’s compendia, Eberhard, Erxleben, and Karsten, explain cohesion through attractive forces. The mechanistic approach, which explains cohesion through the external pressure of an ether, is defended by Euler and Crusius. See: Wolfgang Lefevre, ed. Between Leibniz, Newton and Kant (Dordrecht:  Kluver Academic Publishers:  2001), 267–81; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 553–5; Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 37, 178; Erich Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher, vol. 2. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1925), 117ff., 279ff., 412ff.; Refl 14:138. “Cohesion . . . does not belong to the possibility of matter in general, and cannot therefore be cognized a priori as bound up with this. This property would therefore not be metaphysical but rather physical” (MAN 4:518). MAN 4:500–1. See Eberhardt, Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, 160–3. See also Kant’s drawing in loose sheet 37 (Op 21:430) and Refl 14:277ff. MAN 4:526–7. See the reference to Kant’s “General Remark to Dynamics” (MAN 4:528) on the connection between cohesion and fluidity/rigidity in: Friedrich Albrecht Carl Gren, Grundriss der Naturlehre (Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1797), §126.

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the resistance to displacement of its parts = 0, no friction occurs in displacing its parts and thus the water level rises equally. If the least amount of friction occurred between the parts of the fluid, a height for the tubes could be found, at which a small quantity of water, poured into the narrower tube, did not disturb that in the wider one from its place. So the water column in the former would come to stand higher than that in the latter, because the lower parts, at such great pressure against one another, could no longer be displaced by so small a moving force as that of the added weight of water. But this is contrary to experience, and even to the concept of a fluid.140

According to Kant, if matter were composed of atoms and void, friction would have to occur, and this would contradict the scientific evidence provided by the experiment with the communicating tubes. As an alternative, Kant suggests an explanation of the cohesion of fluids in terms of “the principle of general dynamics that all matter is originally elastic.” Because “if the parts of a matter can be displaced along one another by any force, without resistance, as is actually the case with fluids, it must be striving to move in all directions.”141 In rigid bodies, pressure only moves in one direction, that is, the column of water in the bent tube (if it were rigid) would only move vertically according to the force of its mass. But since in fluid bodies pressure moves into all directions, the water level rises equally.142 According to Kant, the phenomenon of the cohesive forces in fluids can best be explained through the original repulsive force of matter in general.143 The explanation of cohesive forces is a controversially discussed topic in Kant’s time. Resistance to separation of its parts is a surface force, that is, it is only effective in contact.144 As a contact force, cohesion cannot be based on universal attraction because the latter is (1) dependent on the quantity of matter (whereas cohesion is not), and (2) it is a penetrating force (whereas, cohesion always acts at the surface of contact). Gehler notes that the cause of cohesion is unknown. He calls it an attractive force, but, like Kant, emphasizes that “attraction” merely 140 141

142

143 144

MAN 4:529; cf. Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 364–6. MAN 4:529. Cf. Definition of repulsive force as directed in all directions, MAN 4:496, 503. Cf. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 140; Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 2, 128. Kant presents the same explanatory relationship between fluidity and repulsive force in his Danzig physics lecture: “Fluid matter is that in which every point moves in all directions with the same force with which it is pushed from one side . . . This property can only be explained through a fundamental [force of] elasticity. For, when elastic matter is pushed together from one side it seeks to disperse itself with the same force on all other sides—This property of fluid matter is the foundation of this law” (VP 29:129, my emphases and translation). Cf. Refl 14:277ff. Cf. MAN 4:500–1. MAN 4:527.

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describes the phenomenon, but is not meant to explain cohesion through universal gravitation.145 Kant’s contribution to this physical debate consists in arguing that a dynamic account of matter constitution can explain a brought variety of empirical laws, hydrostatic laws in particular, and the difference between rigid and fluid bodies. Insofar as the moment of cohesion is both fundamental from an empirical point of view and yet derived from a metaphysical force, Kant assigns the same mediating function to the moment of cohesion as he has done to the moment of density. The further distinction between fluid and rigid bodies is empirical, and it is based on, and thus explicable in terms of, the moment of cohesion.146 Cohesion is not a “metaphysical” property of matter because it “does not belong to the possibility of matter in general.” Rather, it is part of the transition from the metaphysics of nature to physics.147

Elasticity Under the third heading, Kant distinguishes between various types of elasticity, expansive and attractive elasticity in particular. This discussion presupposes the matter constituting force of repulsion. Elasticity is an immediate effect of the repulsive force, and thus matter in general must be thought of as elastic: The expansive force of a matter is also called elasticity. Now, since it is the basis on which the filling of space rests, as an essential property of all matter, this elasticity must therefore be called original, because it can be derived from no other property of matter. All matter is therefore originally elastic.148

In the “General Remark to Dynamics,” Kant defines the empirical phenomenon of elasticity (or spring-force) as the capacity of a matter, when its magnitude or figure are changed by another moving force, to reassume them again when this latter is diminished. It is either expansive or attractive elasticity: one to regain a previously greater volume after compression, the other a previously smaller volume after expansion.149 145

146 147 148 149

Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler, ed. Physikalisches Wörterbuch oder Versuch einer Erklärung der vornehmsten Begriffe und Kunstwörter der Naturlehre mit kurzen Nachrichten von der Geschichte der Erfindungen und Beschreibungen der Werkzeuge begleitet in alphabetischer Ordnung (Leipzig: im Schwickertschen Verlage, vol. 1, 1798), 514. MAN 4:527, cf. MAN 4:563–4. MAN 4:518. MAN 4:500. MAN 4:529.

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Kant argues that both types of elasticity are not fundamental forces but “derivative” phenomena of the two matter constituting forces. Whereas expansive elasticity is a direct phenomenon of the original repulsive elasticity of matter in general, attractive elasticity of an object (Kant’s example is a bent sword blade) functions in “virtue of the same attraction that is the cause of its cohesion.”150 Kant’s aim is again to suggest that it is possible to explain the observed phenomena of expansive and attractive elasticity in terms of a dynamic account of matter.151 The explanation of elasticity through the original repulsive force of matter is another early and constant theme in Kant’s thought. Already the 1756 Monadology argues that physical monads fill space through a repulsive force that hinders adjacent monads to enter the same space. Since every finite force can be overcome by a counteracting force of a higher degree, it follows that all physical monads are originally elastic, that is, they can be compressed. Yet all physical monads are impenetrable because at the center the repulsive force is infinite.152 How contentious Kant’s claims in the “General Remark to Dynamics” are becomes obvious if one sees that Erxleben, for example, claims that the cause of elasticity is completely unknown.153 Also Gehler claims that we do not know “anything” about the underlying cause of elasticity.154 Pollok speaks of hasty terminological determinations (“flüchtige terminologische Festlegung”) in this section on elasticity.155 However, even though the execution of the project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” leaves open many questions, this should not distract us from seeing its main underlying intention, namely, to suggest a possible explanation of physical phenomena in terms of the two matter constituting forces, and thereby to tie empirical phenomena into a metaphysics of nature.

Chemical forces Under the fourth heading, Kant discusses chemical forces of matter. Chemical forces are understood in opposition to mechanical forces.156 For example, the parts of a body can be either separated via an external push or pull (mechanical), 150 151 152 153 154 155 156

Ibid. MAN 4:530. PM 1:486f. Erxleben, Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre, §142. Gehler, Physikalisches Wörterbuch, 695ff., 698. Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 368–70. “The action of moved bodies on one another by communication of their motion is called mechanical; but the action of matters is called chemical, insofar as they mutually change, even at rest, the combination of their parts through their inherent forces” (MAN 4:530).

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that is, via communication of motion, or through applying acids (chemical), that is, via “inherent forces.” In chemical reactions, the constitution of matter is inwardly changed “by means of inherent force.”157 The distinction between mechanical and chemical forces is drawn in virtue of the fact that chemical experiments cannot yet be explained mathematically, whereas this is possible for mechanical communication of forces.158 In the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations, Kant denies chemistry the status of a proper science on the ground that its inherent forces cannot be cognized a priori.159 However, if chemical forces are forces, and if their laws are laws of nature, then they, too, must be capable of being traced back to the mathematically describable forces of repulsion and attraction. Kant presents precisely such an attempt in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” In this context, Kant discusses the phenomena of absolute chemical dissolution, that is, chemical penetration. Kant argues that the controversially discussed phenomenon of chemical dissolution cannot be understood on an atomistic model of matter, whereas this would be comprehensible on his own dynamic account. In absolute dissolution or chemical penetration, two specifically different matters penetrate each other in such a way that no part of the one is found that would not be united with a specifically different part of the other, in the same proportion as the whole . . . When two materials fill one and the same space, and each of them entirely, they penetrate one another.160

How is such a complete penetration of two specifically different kinds of matter possible?161 On an atomist account of matter constitution, there would always remain atoms of the resolved matter (solute) that hinder the atoms of the other matter (solvent) to enter its space. By definition, an atom is impenetrable. So, complete penetration is not thinkable on an atomist view, insofar as chemical dissolution does not allow for discrete parts of solute and solvent to remain. Now it is obvious that, so long as the parts of a dissolved matter remain small clots (moleculae), a dissolution of them is no less possible than that of the larger 157 158

159 160 161

MAN 4:530–2. MAN 4:468; KrV A847–8/B875–6; VP 29:97. Chemical forces do not rest on “laws of impact or attraction at a distance” (VP 29:117). MAN 4:468. MAN 4:530. “Whether the dissolving forces [i.e., “salts and combustibles,” (Salze und brennliche Wesen, KrV A646/B674)] that are actually to be found in nature are capable of effecting a complete dissolution may remain undecided. Here it is only a question of whether such a dissolution can be thought” (MAN 4:530).

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy parts. Indeed, if dissolving force remains, such a dissolution must actually proceed until there is no longer any part that is not made up of the solvent and the solute, in the same proportion in which the two are found in the whole. Thus, because in such a case there can be no part of the volume of the solution that would not contain a part of the solvent, the latter must fill this volume completely as a continuum.162

What holds for the solvent, namely, its continuous filling of space in a given volume, must also hold for the solute because “there can be no part of this same volume of the solution that would not contain a proportional part of the solute.”163 Thus, Kant suggests that chemical dissolution is thinkable if we think of matter as a force continuum, that is, if we assume a dynamic account of matter.164 Kant also attempts to show that the specific volume of chemically dissolved matters is explainable in terms of “the ratio of the attracting forces to the repulsions,” that is, the constituting forces of matter in general. The volume occupied by the solution may be equal to, smaller than, or even greater than the sum of the spaces occupied by the mutually dissolving matters before mixing, depending on the ratio of the attracting forces to the repulsions. In the solution, each matter by itself, and both united, constitute an elastic medium.165

Again, Kant’s suggestions touch on topics that were controversially discussed at Kant’s time. Erxleben, for example, attempts to account for the general observation that the volume of mixtures does not increase, for example, when salt is mixed with water. Erxleben suggests a corpuscularian framework in order to account for dissolutions in fluids.166 After the dissolution, salt must be located in the interstices of water, Erxleben claims. Nevertheless, Erxleben combines the corpuscularian framework with dynamic elements when he claims that dissolution is the effect of attractive forces between the different penetrating matters. For example, compare the dissolution of water and wine with the mixture of water and oil. Kant attempts to show that no corpuscularian features are necessary in order to account for chemical phenomena. Kant applies his dynamic theory of matter

162 163 164

165 166

MAN 4:530, my emphasis. Ibid. Compare for the identical position Kant’s preparatory notes for his 1776 physics lecture, in which he calls chemical dissolution “dynamic.” Loose Sheet Toebe (Refl 14:410–1). Kant lectured on physics in accordance with Erxleben’s Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre in 1776. MAN 4:531. Cf. Refl 14:397. Erxleben, Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre, §§206, 211.

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in general to a specific empirical problem of chemistry. He claims that while specific chemical phenomena and their laws can only be determined through experiment in the natural sciences,167 they can be understood on the ground of a dynamic account of matter.168

Summary The argumentative structure is identical throughout the “General Remark to Dynamics.” All four mediating concepts build a transition from the metaphysical forces constitutive of matter in general to empirical phenomena. Kant indeed discusses “isolated problems.” However, he does so in order to make a systematic point. He binds empirical inquiry into his metaphysics of nature by sketching that it is possible to apply his dynamic metaphysics of nature to empirical phenomena. As Kant puts it, the task of philosophy is not to “uncover hypotheses for particular phenomena, but only the principle in accordance with which they are all to be judged.”169 All natural philosophy consists in the reduction of given, apparently different forces to a smaller number of forces and powers that explain the actions of the former, although this reduction proceeds only up to fundamental forces, beyond which our reason cannot go. And so metaphysical investigation behind that which lies at the basis of the empirical concept of matter is useful only for the purpose of guiding natural philosophy, so far as this is ever possible, to explore dynamical grounds of explanation. For these alone permit the hope of determinate laws, and thus a true rational coherence of explanations.170

The goal of the Transition Project is “true rational coherence of explanations,” that is, the rational endeavor of reason to ground empirical sciences in a metaphysics of nature. The “General Remark to Dynamics” represents Kant’s attempt to tie reason’s regulative assumption of the systematic unity of divers empirical laws to the constitutive a priori principles of cognition.171 The “General Remark to Dynamics” proceeds via (1) an attack on atomism, which seems less suited to account for a variety of empirical phenomena (such as hydrostatic laws or

167 168 169 170 171

MAN 4:534. For “impenetrability” and “chemical dissolution,” see: GSK 1:27; Refl 14:113, 313, 344. MAN 4:532, my emphasis. MAN 4:534. Cf. KrV A651/B679. EEKU 20:242–3.

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chemical dissolution), and (2)  explaining specific phenomena in terms of the constitutive forces of matter in general, that is, an application of matter constituting forces to empirical phenomena. The result of the “General Remark to Dynamics” is the following: what occurs in experience are different properties of matter, more precisely, a. b. c. d.

different densities, degrees of cohesions, types of elasticities, and varying chemical processes.

These phenomena and their laws can only be investigated empirically. However, in order to secure the scientific status of natural sciences, the laws and phenomena of bodies must be reducible to, that is, be varieties of, the two a priori moving forces of matter in general. Precisely this is done through the Transition Kant presents in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Kant tries to explain the phenomena of density, cohesion, elasticity, and chemical action in terms of the reciprocal action of repulsive and attractive forces. The four moments aim to show that it is possible to apply the metaphysical first principles of matter in general to empirical phenomena. Their task is to guide natural sciences to a coherent rational explanation of natural phenomena.172 Kant has argued that only two original forces can be thought a priori—an original repulsive and attractive force—because these are necessary for any filling of space to be possible. A further determination of specific forces and their laws, which would be required for the explanation of the specific variety of matter, is not possible a priori. The systematic task of the “General Remark to Dynamics” is thus to connect the rational with the empirical part of the science of nature, and Kant does so by presenting the moments to which the specific manifold of matter “must be reducible a priori.”173 The apriority that Kant claims for these intermediary moments lies in the attempt to show how each of the four moments is based on the a priori matter constituting forces. For example, on Kant’s dynamical account, the concept of matter in general can be determined a priori but the

172

173

The literature is certainly right in being dismissive of some of Kant’s cryptic explanations in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Just to name one example, under the heading of chemical forces it is entirely unclear how complete penetration of matters should be possible on Kant’s dynamic account: matter is by definition impenetrable, regardless of whether one conceives of impenetrability as an analytic predicate of matter or as derived from a repulsive force. It is not evident how Kant’s dynamic account is an improvement over Erxleben’s theory. Nevertheless, Kant’s attempt to locate chemical forces, and all other moments of the Transition, at an intermediate level is obvious. MAN 4:525.

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specific variety of matter can only be described empirically, namely in terms of the middle concepts of density, cohesion, and so on. The systematic place of Kant’s Transition Project is thus to tie in experimental physics into the rational foundation of knowledge, that is, to present a connection between the general and particular parts of philosophia naturalis, which is a division Kant has adopted from his textbooks.

Alternative accounts of the Transition Project My thesis is that the Opus postumum picks up the project of the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Kant begins the “Octaventwurf ” by stating that the “science of nature (philosophia naturalis) turns upon two hinges,” namely the “metaphysical foundations” and “physics.” He continues to argue that for the sake of the scientific status of physics there must be a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics, in virtue of the relationship which is to be found between a priori rules and the knowledge of their application to empirically given objects . . . My Metaphysical Foundations etc. already undertook several steps in this field, but simply as examples of their possible application to cases from experience, in order to make comprehensible by examples what had been stated abstractly.174

I suggest that one best understands this passage by picking up on Kant’s explicit reference to the Metaphysical Foundations at the end of this quotation. Kant says he had provided some first steps into the direction of applying a priori metaphysical foundations to empirically given objects, in order to make comprehensible by examples what had been stated abstractly. More specifically, Kant is referring to the “General Remark to Dynamics,” where Kant showed “simply as examples” the “possible application” of the metaphysics of nature to “cases from experience.” That the Opus postumum picks up the old project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” is overlooked by the two most influential interpretations of the Opus postumum that are currently available, namely Friedman’s and Förster’s. Both scholars believe that the Opus postumum embarks on an entirely new project.

174

Op 21:407–8.

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Friedman’s account of the necessity of a Transition For Friedman, there is a gap in Kant’s critical philosophy because the Metaphysical Foundations does not show how the two forces that are constitutive of matter in general account for “the phenomena studied by the emerging new sciences of heat, light, electricity and magnetism, and chemistry.”175 The transition thus deals with a “real scientific problem,” and “that problem . . . concerns the lack of tight fit between theory and observation in experimental sciences such as chemistry.”176 Friedman rightly insists on the foundationalist connection between transcendental and empirical laws of nature, and hereby correctly depicts the spirit of Kant’s Transition Project: “The Transition project therefore aims at a continuous connection between metaphysics and physics, between the rational and the empirical.”177 It is a problem pertaining to the system of critical philosophy to show how more specific forces of matter, which account for the diversity of empirical phenomena, are rooted in Kant’s metaphysics of nature. The answer to the question of why the Transition Project addresses a problem in Kant’s critical philosophy has to do with a proper understanding of Kant’s claim that physics is an “applied rational cognition.”178 Particular empirical moving forces must be seen as modifications of the metaphysical forces constitutive of matter in general, such that the science of physics has three parts: 1) The Metaphysical Foundations [of Natural Science] . . . 2) the systematic division of the moving forces of matter, whose enumeration I call the Transition to physics, but not yet a part of physics itself . . . 3) Physics as a system itself.179

Kant clearly states the systematic motivation behind the Transition Project by claiming that “physics as a system” cannot be based on “empirical principles,” because these are “fragmentary,” only provide an “aggregate,” and thus cannot bring about a system of physics, which, however, is “necessarily . . . contained” in the notion of “physica generalis.”180 The Transition Project is “directed at the systematic unity of the understanding’s cognition,” that is, the unity of experimentally derived empirical laws.181

175 176 177 178 179 180 181

Friedman, Exact Sciences, 264. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 253. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 260. MAN 4:468. Op 21:287, my translation. Op 21:407. KrV A647/B675. I will discuss the significance of the “Appendix to the Dialectic” and the introductions to the third Critique in the following section “Förster’s account of the necessity of a Transition” and “The schematism of the Transition Project” below.

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Friedman is absolutely right in claiming that chemical short range forces do not seem to rest on the fundamental forces of matter in general, universal attraction acting at distance in particular, and thus seem to lack an a priori foundation. This means that the “proper methodological goal of Kant’s preferred dynamical natural philosophy,”182 which is to guide the purely experimental investigations of the empirical sciences,183 seems to fall short in the case of chemistry. However, Kant explicitly acknowledges this point in the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations. Because “every doctrine of nature must finally lead to natural science and conclude there,”184 chemical principles leave behind “a certain dissatisfaction” insofar as they are disconnected from the “a priori grounds” of nature in general.185 It is for precisely this reason that Kant shows hypothetically in the “General Remark to Dynamics” how chemical phenomena—among others— could be explained through his a priori dynamic account of matter. The “General Remark to Dynamics” sketches how mediating concepts can be thought to connect the pure and applied parts of physics in order to address the “dissatisfaction” that remains if we explain appearances through empirical laws without being able to link these laws to the necessity of the laws of nature in general. Specific empirical moving forces must be based on metaphysical moving forces constitutive of matter in general in order for the scientific status of natural science to be possible. If chemical laws are laws, then they, too, must be based on Kant’s metaphysical account of matter in general. This is why Kant includes chemical phenomena in the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum as part of the Transition: “The whole of chemisty belongs to physics— in the topic [of moving forces] we deal with chemistry as part of the Transition.”186 There is really no fundamental change in Kant’s endeavor to tie chemistry to the pure natural science of the Metaphysical Foundations between the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum.187 Friedman concludes his considerations regarding the origin of the Transition Project with a rhetorical question: “Could it not be this growing awareness of the new physical chemistry which, more than any other factor, fuels the new optimism about the empirical or experimental sciences manifest in Kant’s transition project?”188 Note that throughout his career, Kant attempts to understand a 182 183 184 185 186 187 188

Friedman, Construction of Nature, 244. Cf. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 108, 243. MAN 4:469. Ibid. Cf. KpV 5:26. Op 21:288, my translation. Cf. Op 21:529. Cf. Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 92–5. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 290, my emphasis.

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broad variety of empirical phenomena such as heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical acids in terms of the more foundational forces of repulsion and attraction.189 Kant’s textbook authors discuss precisely these topics in the second part of their textbooks, which deal with the application of general principles to particular cases.190 Friedman correctly asserts that topics such as the ether, magnetism, electricity—though very much a concern in Kant’s physics lectures throughout his career—are only treated marginally in the 1786 Metaphysical Foundations, and that Kant expands on these topics in the Opus postumum. The Metaphysical Foundations leaves questions regarding heat, electricity, chemistry, and so on “solely to empirical physics,” Friedman writes.191 But why would this project suddenly become a new problem for Kant’s critical philosophy? Why is it suddenly necessary to extend the constitutive a priori principles “even further into the domain of the empirical in order ultimately to meet or connect with the . . . merely regulative, procedure of reflective judgment?”192 I think it is right to say that there is “a serious problem,” and “most significant “gap” in the critical system,” albeit not a gap of which Kant was previously unaware.193 Kant already points out in the “Appendix to the Dialectic” of the Critique and the introductions to the Critique of the Power of Judgment that the transcendental philosopher cannot stop with the constitutive principles of knowledge, but that in addition he must assume that nature specifies its universal laws to empirical laws for the sake of a system of physics.194 Friedman very clearly sees the continuity of this problem as well.195 So why not emphasize the continuity between the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum, which then invites a rather different question: Why is the Transition Project presented in the “General Remark to Dynamics” not sufficient for Kant’s philosophia naturalis?196 In his latest book, his path-breaking Kant’s Construction of Nature, Friedman downplays the significance of the “General Remark to Dynamics.” According to Friedman, the goal of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” that is, Kant’s detailed

189 190

191 192 193 194 195 196

See, for example, Refl 14:287ff. Compare the basic structure of Eberhard’s Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, which falls into two parts: “First Part of the Doctrine of Nature: Of Universal Properties of Bodies,” which deals with “extension,” “impenetrability,” and “motion;” and “Second Part of the Doctrine of Nature:  Of Particular Properties of Bodies,” which discusses phenomena such as fluidity, cohesion, fire, light, electricity, and magnetism. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 238. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 261. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 256, 257. EEKU 20:213–4; KU 5:182; KrV A663/B691. Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 94–5. I discuss this question further down in “The ‘Octaventwurf ’ and the ‘Early Fascicles’ of the Opus postumum.”

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discussion of physical phenomena and experiments on the basis of his dynamic account of matter, is not to provide explanatory hypotheses or reductive explanations of empirical phenomena.197 Rather, Friedman holds that Kant’s discussion of chemical forces in the “General Remark to Dynamics” is merely meant to clear the way for a purely experimental investigation, without reliance on any theoretical hypotheses, and even compatible with “possible future explanation of the properties . . . by a discrete or atomistic model.”198 On Friedman’s reading, the “General Remark to Dynamics” presents “Kant’s preferred dynamical natural philosophy” as an optional guide for the purely experimental investigations of the empirical sciences.199 Kant’s purpose for rejecting the necessity of the mathematical–mechanical alternative lies in clearing the way for “a purely empirical investigation proceeding without reliance on any theoretical hypothesis whatsoever.”200 If this were true, in what sense can we maintain that Kant’s critical philosophy guides the natural sciences at all? Why would a Transition be necessary if the dynamic continuum model of matter is only a possible alternative for guiding science at an experimental level? What is the sense of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations if Kant’s dynamic continuum model of matter in general (which Kant proves to be necessary) does not carry over to an explanatory continuum model of specific phenomena? By analogy, what is the sense of deriving the categorical imperative if it cannot be applied to human beings in specific circumstances? Does the categorical imperative only extend to the formulation of duties, but not to their application, such that, with respect to practical problems in everyday life, the categorical imperative is merely a “preferred” mode of deciding specific cases? Friedman emphasizes the advantages, “open-endedness and flexibility,” of Kant’s dynamic model over the mathematical–mechanical approach that Kant opposes.201 Open-endedness of empirical research—as opposed to foundational reductionism—is the interpretative perspective that Friedman takes on the “General Remark to Dynamics.”202 But note that any regulative guidance that Kant’s critical philosophy can possibly provide for the empirical sciences must progress from his constitutive account of what an object of experience is. 197 198 199 200 201 202

Friedman, Construction of Nature, 243, 252. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 254. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 244, my emphasis. Cf. ibid., 108, 243. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 242–3, my emphasis. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 254. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 249, 256; Exact Sciences, 182. Cf. KrV Bxii–xiii; KrV A646/B674; MAN 4:533.

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A  metaphysical theory of matter is possible only because objects of outer sense (with which physics deals) are appearances (as opposed to things in themselves), and all appearances are subject to the a priori forms of sensibility and the principles of the understanding. This means that, for Kant, physics is based on universally valid epistemological considerations; and only from this philosophical foundation—as opposed to an empirical, experimental orientation—does physics’ systematicity and necessity derive. Regulative reason is not free-floating, but can only provide rules on “how the empirical regress is to be undertaken”203 in accordance with the epistemological restrictions of Kant’s critical philosophy. Regulative reason can only guide the empirical investigations of physics if empirical laws of nature can be seen as modifications of the universal laws of the understanding. This project is not merely optional. On my reading, it is the task of the mediating concepts of the Transition to tie regulative principles of empirical natural science into pure natural science. If it is true, and I think Friedman is right about this, “that a necessary convergence of constitutive and regulative procedures is absolutely essential to Kant’s entire [critical] project,”204 then we should not assume that the “General Remark to Dynamics” merely represents Kant’s preferred way of tackling empirical problems. As we have seen, Kant’s dynamical account of empirical phenomena in the “General Remark to Dynamics” is deeply rooted in his critical philosophy, as one would expect given the “progressive unfolding” of the concept of an object in space.205 Yet, Friedman proposes that Kant’s discussion of “phenomenological or experimental properties of various types and states of matter”206 in the “General Remark to Dynamics” is motivated by empirical considerations. Kant, following Euler, thinks that a continuum approach to matter represents a better way to pursue experimental philosophy than an atomistic approach.207 Kant’s choice of this preferred (dynamical) concept over the alternative (mechanical) concept rests, in the end, on . . . the empirical success of Newton’s theory in comparison with the opposing mechanical philosophy.208

Friedman stresses that insofar as the mathematical–mechanical natural philosophy commences from absolutely hard solid particles, it erects “an ultimate

203 204 205 206 207 208

KrV A510/B538. Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 95. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 108–9. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 243. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 258. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 569. Cf. ibid., 347.

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barrier to the further progress of both theoretical and experimental inquiry.”209 This is correct as far as it goes. In addition, it should be emphasized that atomism does not just erect barriers to experimental inquiry. Rather, Kant’s metaphysical theory of matter implies that the concepts of empty space (in which all motion is absent), absolute space (which cannot move because any space in relation to which it could move is absent), and the absolute simple cannot be experienced and “hence in the exposition of appearances it has no application or object.”210 Kant’s point is that the concept of matter designates an object of experience, whereas empty space and a simple, indivisible substance (atom)—logically possible as they may be—are not. Given the transcendental ideality of space, matter is not metaphysically real but that which persists in appearance. Objects of outer sense (with which physics deals) are subject to the a priori forms of sensibility. Since space is infinitely divisible, the real in space cannot consist of simple, that is, discrete, elements.211 Because space and time are necessary representations that determine how our senses can be affected,212 that is, because space and time are necessary conditions of the possibility of empirical perceptions, these perceptions become first possible through the subjective forms of space and time, and thus have to agree with them. If space and time are continuous, discontinuity is not an object of possible experience: By nature (in the empirical sense) we understand the combination of appearances as regards their existence, in accordance with necessary rules, i.e., in accordance with laws. There are therefore certain laws, and indeed a priori, which first make a nature possible; the empirical laws can only obtain and be found by means of experience, and indeed in accord with its original laws, in accordance with which experience itself first becomes possible.213

After the Inaugural Dissertation, that is, after Kant has taken the point of view of transcendental idealism regarding space, his worry is that both elements of the atomist theory, that is, empty space and fundamental particles, are not

209

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212 213

Friedman, Construction of Nature, 255. Cf. MAN 4:498, 502, 532, where Kant rejects “absolute impenetrability” as an occult quality hindering the progress of empirical sciences. Cf. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 256. Cf. KrV A508–9/B536–7. KrV A437/B465. Cf. KrV A487/B515. “For we cannot understand anything except that which has something corresponding to our words in intuition” (KrV A277/B333). “Therefore, because appearance does not consist of absolute simple parts, so matter does not consist of this [absolute simple parts]. Space determines the possibility of appearance, and space does not consist of simple parts” (Refl 14:187, my translation). “The law of continuity thus rests on the continuity of space and time” (VM 28:204–5). Cf. MAN 4:503–4. KrV A23–4/B38–9, A30–1/B46. KrV A216/B263, my emphasis. Cf. Prol 4:283–4, 287; KrV A357–8; Refl 17:732; Refl 18:176.

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“determinable or discoverable by any experiment.”214 They are “occult qualities.”215 Empty space and simple atoms are analogous to “blind accident and blind fate” and, taken as appearances, they have no application or object. The Critique of Pure Reason has determined the conditions of the possibility of an “object of experience,” and the basic elements of an atomist account of matter, that is, empty space and simple atoms, are incompatible with these conditions.216 The “Anticipations of Perception,” which treat of matter as the real that can be perceived, formulate as a principle of experience that all perception must have an intensive magnitude. The “Anticipations” require that space be filled by continuous realities.217 The principle of continuity is a constitutive principle of the understanding, and no empirical synthesis can possibly violate it.218 For this reason, the “law of continuity is . . . spread through the whole of nature.”219 This does not yet rule out atomism, as Warren rightly points out.220 It is of course logically possible that the ultimate constituents of reality are discrete atoms. Kant himself frequently emphasizes this point and is generally cautious by insisting that he only aims to refute the necessity of atomism.221 In many passages, Kant’s moderate aim is to merely demonstrate the possibility of a metaphysical–dynamical account of body formation, which he recommends insofar as it is “much more appropriate and conducive to experimental philosophy” because its alternative, the mathematical–mechanical model, is prone to framing hypotheses given that its basic constituents, “empty intermediate spaces and fundamental corpuscles,” cannot “be determined or discovered in any experiment.”222 Thus, Kant does not argue in the “General Remark to Dynamics” that the metaphysical–dynamical account is the only valid model. However, insofar as all objects of perception must have a degree, cognition of atoms and empty space is impossible, and thus a theory of physics based on atomism would be based on occult, dogmatic qualities, that is, transcendent metaphysics. It is in this epistemological context that Kant takes the “Anticipations of Perception” to provide a “transcendental proof ” against the suppositions of atomism,223 despite the fact that his 1781 Critique defines matter as the real in space without further

214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223

MAN 4:533. Cf. Refl 14:122. MAN 4:532. Cf. Prol 4:288; Refl 14:186. KrV A166/B207, A169–70/B211–2, A175–6/B217–8. KrV A229/B281. VM 28:201–2. Warren, Reality and Impenetrability, 66–7, 81. The following remarks are indebted to his work. E.g., MAN 4:524. MAN 4:533. KrV A173–4/B215. Cf. KrV A171–2/B213–4.

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specifying it in terms of dynamic forces.224 Kant’s argument against atomism is merely “negative,” insofar as atomism does not stand the test of the Critique [“Probe der Kritik”].225 It should be clear what is at stake here: if atomism were true, then physics would be based on a transcendent metaphysics. Friedman’s reading implicitly embraces this option when he says that specific empirical phenomena might not be based on a dynamic continuum model of matter in general, but rather on a discrete or atomistic model.226 For Kant, this cannot be an option, because atomism would undermine the entire project of the Metaphysical Foundations, which is to provide a rational—not a transcendent—foundation of natural science. Kant’s project of explaining the necessity of empirical laws through a transcendental theory of the possibility of experience would fail if atomism would split the formal (a priori) and material (empirical) study of nature into two halves. It cannot possibly be Kant’s critical position to first curb transcendent metaphysics in the Critique by establishing the a priori conditions of the possibility of experience (the law of continuity being one of these conditions), and subsequently to grant that the empirical study of objects is based on fundamental attributes to which the principles of cognition do not apply, that is, to base physics on a transcendent metaphysics.227 Recall that the origin of Kant’s critical philosophy coincides with the rejection of cognition from mere concepts, that is, metaphysically suspect notions such as absolute space. For this reason, Kant’s project of immanent metaphysics in the Critique is closely connected to the project of providing a rational foundation to physics. Thus, empirical laws must agree with the formal laws through “which experience itself first becomes possible.”228 “Properly socalled natural science presupposes, in the first place, metaphysics of nature,”229 because a rational doctrine of nature requires that “the fundamental natural laws therein are cognized a priori,”230 and to “cognize something a priori means to cognize it from its mere possibility.”231 If physics is a proper science, which Kant does not doubt, then rational insight into its grounding principles must be obtainable. These grounds must lie in the subject of cognition, which prescribes the laws to nature. This means, for epistemological reasons, for reasons having to 224 225

226 227 228 229 230 231

KrV A173/B215. MAN 4:524. Cf: “Metaphysics does not explain anything, rather it removes falsely assumed axioms of explanation” (Refl 14:194, my translation). Cf. Refl 14:162; MAN 4:563–4. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 254. Cf. Warren, Reality and Impenetrability, 93. KrV A216/B263. MAN 4:469. MAN 4:468. MAN 4:470.

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do with the rational status of physics as a science, Kant cannot allow that physics be grounded on transcendent metaphysics. There is only rational cognition of empirical laws insofar as it can be shown how they are grounded on a priori laws. Kant’s secure path of a science is incompatible with the speculations of a mathematical–mechanical model.232 Kant is committed to a dynamic account of matter for epistemological reasons. If Kant’s “dynamische Naturphilosophie”233 (dynamic philosophy of nature) cannot account for divers empirical phenomena, then the project of basing the science of physics on the principles laid out in the Critique would fail. It is for this reason that Kant is concerned in the “General Remark to Dynamics” about the possibility that atomism could be a more plausible theory for explaining empirical phenomena, such as density.234 For, this would open up a gap in Kant’s philosophia naturalis. Thus, Kant intends to reject the necessity of atomism in the “General Remark to Dynamics.”235 “Atomism is a false doctrine of nature,” as he will put it in the Opus postumum.236 Kant justifies his theory of matter epistemologically (as opposed to physically). Kant’s entire scientific mindset is driven by epistemological/metaphysical—not empirical—considerations. I think we have here to agree with Adickes, who has convincingly shown that “even in the midst of [empirical] natural science Kant . . . remains a metaphysician above all.”237 It is of critical interest to Kant to show that it is really possible to progress from the principles of cognition to a scientific study of nature. Precisely herein lies the systematic significance of the “General Remark to Dynamics.”238 To sum up, on Friedman’s interpretation, the origin of the Transition Project lies in the new developments of the scientific study of empirical phenomena, such as “heat, light, electricity and magnetism, and chemistry.”239 According to Friedman, advances in the empirical sciences after Kant’s 1786 Metaphysical Foundations make it necessary to expand Kant’s philosophy of nature from the forces constitutive of matter in general to the specific variety of forces found in nature, chemical forces in particular. Whereas Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations provides metaphysical foundations for Newtonian Physics, experimental

232 233 234 235 236 237 238

239

KrV A735/B763. Cf. KrV Bvii. MAN 4:532. MAN 4:525. MAN 4:523–4. Op 22:212. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 139. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 589. Cf. Kant’s rejection of empty space in the “Third Analogy” (KrV A487/B515), of absolute space in the “Phoronomy” (MAN 4:487), and of absolute hard bodies in the “General Remark on Mechanics” (MAN 4:551–3). See Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 342–8. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 264.

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chemistry lacks such a foundation. As the empirical sciences expand, Kant needs to “extend the a priori foundations of empirical narural science much further than is envisaged in the Metaphysical Foundations itself.”240 What we should retain from Friedman’s reading is that Kant’s notion of philosophy is closely connected to the empirical sciences insofar as philosophy explains how the necessity and universality of particular laws are possible. On this reading, the Transition Project becomes necessary, because it is an essential task of Kant’s critical philosophy to provide a secure foundation for the empirical sciences.241 That it is part of transcendental philosophy to ground knowledge of the empirical sciences is the right way to look at the Transition Project. If chemical, electrical, and magnetic forces are forces, and if their laws are laws of nature, then they must stand under the transcendental laws that the understanding prescribes, and which make objective experience possible in the first place. Friedman is also right in maintaining that there is a lack of fit between empirical laws and critical philosophy. However, this lack of fit is not due to advances in the empirical sciences. By assuming that new developments in the empirical sciences motivate Kant’s Transition Project, we lose sight of the continuity of Kant’s aim to connect the transcendental and metaphysical levels of his critical philosophy to the empirical sciences. My reconstruction of the “General Remark to Dynamics” tried to show that it is neither true that the Metaphysical Foundations “says nothing at all about any additional, more specific forces of matter”242 (such that the Opus postumum emerges as a “radically new project”243), nor that the “General Remark to Dynamics” is motivated by experimental interests.

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Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 93. “What, then, is lacking in the Metaphysical Foundations? Why should it be necessary to go beyond this work to the new project of the Transition? The answer, I think, is actually quite straightforward: the Metaphysical Foundations is correct as far as it goes . . . the problem is that it simply does not go far enough . . . Whereas the Metaphysical Foundations deals with the universal forces of matter in general (the original forces of attraction and repulsion), it says nothing at all about any additional, more specific forces of matter—which, therefore . . . are left solely to empirical physics. As far as the Metaphysical Foundations is concerned, any additional, more specific forces are thus left entirely without an a priori foundation, and the task of the Transition is to fill precisely this lacuna . . . The problem of the Transition is therefore to establish something a priori, not solely concerning the two fundamental forces of attraction and repulsion as universal properties of matter in general . . . but rather concerning the rest of the moving forces that may be found in nature” (Friedman, Exact Sciences, 237–8). Cf. Ibid., 254–64, 290; Construction of Nature, 121–2. “Although empirical laws are not of course derived from the transcendental laws of the understanding, it is equally important to the critical system that empirical laws somehow ‘stand under’ the latter, that they are in some sense ‘special determinations’ of the a priori laws of nature in general . . . And it is only the Metaphysical Foundations, I suggest, that first makes it clear what the nature of this crucially important relationship between transcendental laws and empirical laws actually is” (Friedman, Exact Sciences, 258–9). Friedman, Exact Sciences, 238. Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 77.

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To put this in yet another way, it might be true that Kant’s Transition Project is chasing a “fata morgana”244 and that the concepts and phenomena of the “General Remark to Dynamics” are properly speaking physical phenomena, which cannot in principle be tied back to the system of the categories, that is, the epistemic foundation of knowledge. However, the historical Kant does not share such an experimental stance toward physics. For him, it must be possible to show how empirical laws are determinations of metaphysical principles. The whole point of the Metaphysical Foundations is to provide a proper philosophical foundation to physics. For, this is something that Kant’s textbook authors (regardless of whether they are Wolffians, Newtonians, or eclectics) did not do despite the titles of their books, such as “Erste Gründe der Naturlehre” (First Principles of Natural Science) (Eberhard) or “Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre” (Foundational Principles of Natural Science) (Erxleben).245 Kant’s claim in the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations that all “proper natural science therefore requires a pure part”246 is a criticism of Kant’s contemporaries and predecessors who have failed to provide such an a priori foundation, that is, “Erste Gründe” (First Principles).247 Kant shares the intention of his textbook authors to provide, as Eberhard puts it, “first principles of natural science, from which all further occurrences can be deduced.”248 For Kant, however, such first principles cannot proceed from what is given, that is, ontology, but must rather proceed from the a priori conditions of knowledge prescribed by the subject of cognition. For this reason, Kant’s dynamic account of matter in general is not compatible with a “possible future explanation of the properties . . . by a discrete or atomistic model.”249 If Kant’s dynamic model of matter were compatible with a possible future explanation of the properties by a discrete or atomistic model, then Kant’s Transition Project from forces constitutive of matter in general to empirical phenomena would become superfluous and unintelligible. Friedman literally eliminates the Transition Project. Kant’s Transition Project in the Opus postumum must be understood against the background of attempting to explain empirical phenomena through transcendental philosophy: philosophia naturalis. As Kant sees it, it is the task for the philosopher to further specify the maxims for investigating nature, a task that

244 245 246 247 248 249

Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 162. I am here indebted to Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe. MAN 4:469. Cf. MAN 4:472; Friedman, Construction of Nature, 263–4. Eberhard, Erste Gründe der Naturlehre, 4, my emphasis. Friedman, Construction of Nature, 254. Cf. Ibid., 91ff.

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cannot be left to empirical physics, if nature is to be a law-governed whole. The Transition Project aims at providing the foundation for guiding natural investigations.250 By this, Kant means transcendental guidance. Kant’s dynamic mode of explanation in the “General Remark to Dynamics” is not merely a regulative idea in the sense of empirical hypotheses. Friedman has an empirically minded conception of science and regulative ideas, but Kant did not. Kant’s conception of philosophia naturalis does not allow for empirically driven regulative ideas. Kant’s very conception of a regulative idea in the “Appendix to the Dialectic” and the “General Remark to Dynamics” is geared toward systematicity of the empirical as based on the a priori.251

Förster’s account of the necessity of a Transition Förster’s view on the origin of Kant’s Transition Project is quite different, because he puts a different emphasis on what the term “critical philosophy” means. For Förster, critical philosophy is, at least to begin with, an investigation of the possibility of metaphysics, that is, transcendental philosophy. In transcendental philosophy, reason deals with nothing but itself.252 Förster thus insists that the “gap” within the critical system of philosophy must address a problem that is internal to “critical philosophy” proper. Advances in the empirical sciences lie—by definition—outside the proper territory of Kant’s philosophical interest. Accordingly, Förster says that Friedman “sees the origin of Kant’s Transition project not in any problem internal to the critical philosophy itself.”253 Förster limits the notion of critical philosophy to transcendental philosophy. The disagreement between Förster and Friedman thus originates in their differing views on the notion and aims of critical philosophy. Against the background that critical philosophy must be limited to a priori knowledge, Förster suggests that the Transition Project originates in Kant’s discovery of the a priori principle of purposiveness in 1790.254 The principle of the purposiveness of nature creates a “sudden hope that the Transition project of the Opus postumum is possible,”255 because the a priori principle of reflective judgment “allows us for the first time

250 251 252

253 254 255

Op 22:263; Op 21:362–3. KrV A644/B672; MAN 4:534. KrV A845/B873, Axx. This means that the results of the Critique are neither conditioned on any contingent scientific truths nor do they presuppose any synthetic a priori facts; cf. Prol 4:274. Förster, Final Synthesis, 2. Förster, Final Synthesis, 1–23. Eckart Förster, “Reply to Friedman and Guyer,” Inquiry 46(2) (2003): 230; Final Synthesis, 5, 8–10, 48–74, 85; “Is there ‘a Gap,’ ” 533–55.

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to regard as purposive the part of nature that from the standpoints of the first Critique and the Metaphysical Foundations had to be regarded as contingent and deterministic.”256 Förster’s thought is that the 1790 Critique of the Power of Judgment a priori justifies the empirical specification of transcendental laws into an empirical system of nature—namely, through the principle of purposiveness of the reflective power of judgment.257 In contrast, the 1781/87 Critique could merely postulate the systematicity of divers empirical laws within the domain of the regulative interest of reason.258 Thus, according to Förster, there arises the “sudden hope” that the Transition project of the Opus postumum is possible. I think there are two reasons, one systematic, the other historical, that prohibit drawing this conclusion. 1. The possibility of the specification of transcendental laws into an empirical system of nature is beyond doubt for Kant in the Critique as well. That it must be possible to progress from the laws of a nature in general to empirical laws because “all empirical laws are only particular determinations of the pure laws of the understanding” is a fundamental claim pertaining to Kant’s critical project to begin with.259 The 1786 Metaphysical Foundations attempts to demonstrate the apodictic certainty and systematicity of natural science.260 This project presupposes the possibility of a progression from transcendental philosophy, to a priori principles pertaining to matter in general, to empirical bodies formed from two counteracting metaphysical forces. The possibility of an a priori system of moving forces is thus presupposed in the Metaphysical Foundations. It is hardly a new thought that would suddenly occur to Kant in 1790. Thus, as Friedman and others have rightly pointed out as well, the principle of purposiveness by itself cannot “constitute the key to the Transition project” because the conceptual framework regarding the purposive unity of nature is already in place in 1781.261 Förster is of course right when he insists that the epistemic status of the principle of purposiveness changes in 1790. In the Critique, Kant still seems to waver between two perspectives regarding the systematic unity of divers empirical laws of nature. On the one hand, it is reason’s own demand for unconditional completeness that makes the idea of systematic unity of empirical laws 256 257 258 259

260 261

Förster, Final Synthesis, 6. EEKU 20:242–3. Cf. EEKU 20:212n, 215–16n. KrV A651/B679, A826/B854. KrV A127–8. See on this point Hansgeorg Hoppe, “Die transzendental Deduktion in der ersten Auflage,” in Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Vol.17/18, Klassiker Auslegen, ed. Georg Mohr et  al. (Berlin:  Akademie Verlag, 1998), 180–1; Friedman, Exact Sciences, 257–9. Cf. KU 5:208–11. MAN 4:467–9. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 253–4. See also Emundts, Kants Übergangskonzeption, 71 n86.

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necessary.262 On the other hand, Kant claims that there could not be “a logical principle of rational unity among rules unless a transcendental principle is presupposed, through which such a systematic unity, as pertaining to the object itself, is assumed a priori as necessary.”263 In other words, whether such a systematic unity of divers empirical laws actually pertains to the objective world is still undecided, because it can neither be proved nor disproved in the Critique.264 As a merely logical or subjective principle,265 the idea of the systematicity of empirical laws is a focus imaginarius, toward which understanding is directed in its systematic investigation of nature. Kant elucidates his position through the example of a fundamental force underlying the manifold of empirical forces: For by what warrant can reason in its logical use claim to treat the manifoldness of the forces, which nature gives to our cognition, as merely a concealed unity, and to derive them as far as it is able from some fundamental force, when reason is free to admit that it is just as possible that all forces are different in kind, and that its derivation of them from a systematic unity is not in conformity with nature? For then reason would proceed directly contrary to its vocation, since it would posit as its goal an idea that entirely contradicts the arrangement of nature. Nor can one say that it has previously gleaned this unity from the contingent constitution of nature in accordance with its principles or reason. For the law of reason to seek unity is necessary, since without it we would have no reason, and without that, no coherent use of the understanding, and, lacking that, no sufficient mark of empirical truth; thus in regard to the latter we simply have to presuppose the systematic unity of nature as objectively valid and necessary.266

The introductions to the 1790 Critique of the Power of Judgment pick up again this very same topic of the progression from transcendental laws of nature to the systematicity of divers empirical laws: The introduction of the power of judgment into the system of the pure faculties of cognition through concepts rests entirely on its transcendental principle, which is peculiar to it:  that nature [in] the specification of the transcendental laws of understanding (principles of its possibility as nature in general), i.e., in

262 263 264 265 266

KrV A309/B365, A508–9/B536–7, A782–795/B810–23. KrV A650/B678, my emphasis. Cf. KrV A693/B72. KrV A649/B677; EEKU 20:208–9. KrV A658–9/B686–7, A581–3/B609–11. KrV A651/B679, translation modified, my emphasis. Cf. KrV A644–5/B672–3, A693–4/B721–2; EEKU 20:214–5; KU 5:183–6; Gerhard Lehmann, Kants Tugenden: Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte und Interpretation der Philosophie Kants (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 99–100.

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Förster’s point is that the principle of reflective judgment justifies a priori (as opposed to merely postulates) that a progression from transcendental to the systematicity of divers empirical laws is possible. Yet, it seems to me that while the propositional attitude toward the idea of the systematic unity of nature changes, its substantial content does not. That judgment provides us with a “universal but yet indeterminate principle of a purposive ordering of nature in a system,” as Kant says in 1790,268 is not substantially different from Kant’s view presented in the Critique “that all possible cognitions of the understanding (including empirical ones) have the unity of reason, and stand under common principles from which they could be derived despite their variety.”269 Against this background, Förster’s claim that “one can easily see . . . why [with the principle of purposiveness] Kant came to realize that a step beyond the Metaphysical Foundations can and must be taken”270 is too strong. The “General Remark to Dynamics” already sketches “the procedure in accordance with which the empirical and determinate use of the understanding in experience can be brought into thoroughgoing agreement with itself,”271 by providing mediating concepts that have “the purpose of guiding natural philosophy . . . [to] a true rational coherence of explanations.”272 2. There is also a piece of historical evidence that supports my own reconstruction:  Kiesewetter, who knew firsthand about the Transition Project, and who worked on a commentary on the Metaphysical Foundations, neither mentions the Critique of the Power of Judgment nor its principle of purposiveness. Rather, he views the “General Remark to Dynamics” of the Metaphysical Foundations as the origin of the Transition Project. Förster uses the June 8, 1795 letter from Johann Gottfried Carl Christian Kiesewetter in order to argue that the Transition Project originates in Kant’s discovery of the principle of purposiveness in 1790.273 Kiesewetter, who studied with Kant between 1788–9 and subsequently visited Kant in the fall of 1790, writes:

267 268 269 270 271 272 273

EEKU 20:242–3, my emphasis. Cf. EEKU 20:203–4, 212n, 215–16n. EEKU 20:214. KrV A648/B676. Förster, Final Synthesis, 11, my emphasis. KrV A665-6/B693–4. MAN 4:534. Förster, Final Synthesis, 1–23.

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For some years now you have promised to present the public with a few sheets that are to contain the transition from your Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics itself, which I await eagerly.274

On Förster’s interpretation, Kiesewetter’s remark provides evidence for the claim that the Transition Project of the Octaventwurf originates between 1789 and 1790. It is remarkable that Kiesewetter does not mention the principle of purposiveness a single time in this letter of 1795. Rather, he talks about the general difficulties that readers of the Metaphysical Foundations experience.275 In this context, Kiesewetter (1)  expresses his indebtedness to Kant, who explained the Metaphysical Foundations to him in person, and (2)  reminds Kant of his promise to provide a transition from the Metaphysical Foundations to empirical physics.276 Kiesewetter, who was planning to write a commentary on Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations, began to collect material for this commentary as early as his first visit to Königsberg.277 Not only did Kiesewetter attend Kant’s lectures, was among Kant’s regular table guests, and daily discussed with Kant problems within the latter’s philosophical system,278 he also functioned as a copyist for Kant’s manuscript of the Critique of the Power Judgment. Kant had explicitly recommended Kiesewetter to his publisher de la Garde “because he [Kiesewetter], being a specialist, is most qualified to notice and correct mistakes.”279 Subsequently, Kiesewetter visited Kant again in the fall of 1790. What is more, during Kiesewetter’s last stay in Königsberg, Kant directly provided him with explanations that were supposed to be included in Kiesewetter’s commentary on the Metaphysical Foundations.280 Surely, Kiesewetter would mention the 274 275

276

277 278

279 280

Br 12:23. Regarding the history of the reception of Kant’s MAN, see Pollok, Introduction, xix–xxix. Cf. the letter from Jenisch (Br 10:486). “For some years now you have promised to present the public with a few sheets that are to contain the transition from your Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics itself, which I await eagerly. In my opinion, it is a striking appearance that only few have studied the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, even though your other writings have been . . . explained . . . and commented on so much. I do not know whether this is because one does not see the . . . value of this work or because one finds it too difficult . . . Would it not be aggreeable to the public if a commentary on this work would be published? Among all of your writings it [the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science] has required the greatest effort on my side, and I still remember with great gratitude that I am indebted to your lectures for a complete understanding of this work (ich denke immer noch mit großer Dankbarkeit daran, daß ich das völlige Verstehen desselben Ihrem mündlichen Unterricht schuldig bin)” (Br 12:23–4, my translation). Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 310. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 312. Kiesewetter had conversations with Kant throughout the winter of 1788–9, apparently, every day from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 42ff. Br 11:97, my translation. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 312.

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principle of purposiveness as the key to understanding the Transition Project if this was indeed Kant’s position. But there is no mentioning of the principle of purposiveness at all. The preface and introduction of Kiesewetter’s commentary, which are the only parts that have been written or survived, are dated 1808. A  year earlier, Kiesewetter had traveled to Königsberg in order to gain access to Kant’s notes on the Transition Project—that is, what is now called the Opus postumum— but he could not get a hold of the manuscript. Thus, Kiesewetter makes an informed guess about the topic of Kant’s Transition Project. He assumes that the Transition Project has to do with the “modification of [empirical] matter based on the relation between the two foundational forces [of matter in general].”281 This is, of course, precisely the problem of the “General Remark to Dynamics” in the Metaphysical Foundations. This is also precisely the problem of the very first page of the Transition Project presented in the “Octaventwurf.” Here is how the “Octaventwurf ” begins: Transition From the Metaphysical Foundations Of Natural Science To Physics. From the moving forces, by which matter in general is possible, to those which give it a determinate connection (which is alterable by other natural forces), that is: (1) density, (2) cohesion, (3) movability . . . of the parts which cohere.282

There is thus also historical evidence for my thesis that Kant’s “Octaventwurf,” written ten years after the “General Remark to Dynamics,” picks up precisely the project of the “General Remark to Dynamics”: transition from the moving forces by which matter in general is possible to those that give it a determinate connection alterable by other natural forces. Kiesewetter describes this project

281

282

Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 315. “After Kant—in the Critique of Pure Reason—determined the limits of the realm of cognition, and the laws that must necessarily hold within this realm, he used these results for his philosophy of nature and wrote the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science . . . [Yet], he thought something additional was required to complete his philosophy of nature, namely, the transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics . . . As becomes clear from his letters to me, he did not think that transcendental philosophy connected with the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is the whole philosophy of nature. Rather, he was working on an essential and integrating part [of the philosophy of nature], which he wanted to publish under the title Transition from the Metaphysics of Nature to Physics, and which he calls the keystone of his system in one of his letters. Because this work has not yet been published . . . its subject matter can only be guessed. Perhaps it contains an exposition of the laws of the modification of [empirical] matter, based on the relation of the two foundational forces [of matter in general], or perhaps heuristic maxims for attaining empirical laws from observations and experiments. (Sie enthielt vielleicht eine Darstellung der Gesetze der Modification der Materie aus dem Verhaltnis der beiden Grundkräfte, vielleicht auch heuristische Maximen, um aus Beobachtungen u. Versuchen zu empirischen Gesetzen zu gelangen)” (Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 312–15). Op 21:373.

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as “an exposition of the laws of the modification of matter, based on the relation of the two foundational forces.”283 It should also be noted that already loose sheets 29 and 35, which belong to the “Octaventwurf ” fascicle, explicitly pick up the old problems of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” namely, the “cause of cohesion,” “chemical . . . permeating of materials,” “fluidity and rigidity,” the claim that atomism is “a nest of imagination,” and that only the “physic-dynamical” approach can be true, “proportion of attraction and . . . repulsion” producing an “infinite manifold” of qualitatively different matter, problems of “density” and “elasticity.”284 These are the problems of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” and with these problems Kant begins the Transition Project in the “Octaventwurf.” What is more, Adickes locates the loose sheets 29 and 35 in the context of the Kiesewetter papers that Kant wrote for his discussions with Kiesewetter.285 Therefore, I  suggest that Kiesewetter’s remark that “for some years now you have promised to present the public with a few sheets that are to contain the transition from your Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics itself,” which Förster takes to be referring to the principle of purposiveness of the Critique of the Power Judgment, is better interpreted as a reference to the 1786 Transition presented in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” We also learn from Kiesewetter’s manuscript that Kant did not restrict critical philosophy to transcendental philosophy. Rather, Kiesewetter provides the following foundationalist outline of Kant’s system of critical philosophy: (1) The Critique of Pure Reason draws the boundaries of cognition. It determines the constitutive laws of cognition. (2) The results of the Critique are applied in the Metaphysical Foundations. (3) The transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics Kant considered to be the “Schlusstein [keystone] of his system.”286 Kiesewetter’s classification of Kant’s critical system is identical with the tripartite structure of Kant’s conception of a philosophia naturalis, which Kant also sketches in numerous drafts in the Opus postumum.287 Kant uses 283 284 285 286 287

Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 315. Op 21:440, my translation. Cf. Op 21:438–43. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 44–5. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 312–15. E.g., “Natural philosophy thus consists of metaphysics of nature—the Topic (of the moving forces of nature), and Physics (the connection of these moving forces into a system of the cognition of nature through experience). Although without this Topic there can be an investigation of nature, there cannot be such [an investigation of nature] that can be called empirical science of nature” (Op 21:485, my translation). The “scientific doctrine of nature (philosophia naturalis)” falls into “1. The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, which is justified a priori, 2.  The general physiological doctrine of forces that is based on empirical principles . . . [and] is justified a priori, 3. Physics” (Op 21:293, my translation).

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the term philosophia naturalis expressis verbis in his letter to Kiesewetter,288 as well as in many passages of the Opus postumum.289 Kiesewetter uses the German translation of this term, Naturphilosophie, and characterizes Kant’s planned Transition as providing “heuristic maxims,” whose purpose is to guide “observations and experiments” with the goal of attaining “empirical laws.” This project is one of providing mediating concepts, or—as Kiesewetter formulates it—“an exhibition of the laws of the modification of matter, based on the relation of the two foundational forces.”290 This is also confirmed by Rink, Kant’s friend, frequent table companion, and the editor of Kant’s Physical Geography and “Progress” essay. In 1793, Kant summarizes an article, published in Gren’s Journal der Physik (1793), which attempts to account for elasticity without recourse to the original repulsive force of matter in general.291 Friedrich Albrecht Karl Gren (1760–98) was Professor in Halle, and the editor of the Journal der Physik,292 which, besides Gehler’s Physikalisches Wörterbuch, is one of the major sources from which Kant draws for his Opus postumum.293 There are quite a few passages in which Kant and Rink mention Gren,294 one of which is particularly interesting because Rink mentions Kant’s Transition Project in the context of discussing whether heat could be understood on a dynamic theory of matter. He writes: But whether heat itself can be assumed to be something material, or whether a dynamic type of explanation is required in respect of it, is a question which has by no means been decided . . . If only the worthy author of this Physical Geography [i.e., Kant] could have made known his “Transition from the Metaphysics of Nature to Physics”! Then, as I know for certain [wie ich bestimmt weiss], many a profound observation would be found here.295

Thus, also Rink, who was a frequent table guest of Kant between 1792–93 and 1795–1801, confirms that the Transition Project attempts to tie empirical 288 289 290 291 292

293 294 295

Br 12:258. See Op 21:174–5, 293, 360, 361–2, 366–7, 402–3, 474–5, 482, 618. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 315. Refl 14:499ff. Journal der Physik, ed. Friedrich Albrecht Carl Gren (Leipzig:  Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1790– 94). Gren was also the editor of the Neues Journal der Physik (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1795–7). He is the author of Systematisches Handbuch der Gesamten Chemie (Halle: WaisenhausBuchhandlung, 1787–94), and Grundriss der Naturlehre (Halle:  Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1787–94). Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 471. PG 9:185, 198, 221; Refl 14:499, 521–4. PG 9:221.

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phenomena into Kant’s dynamic theory of matter.296 This, however, is not a new project made possible by Kant’s discovery of the principle of purposiveness. It is a continuous project of Kant’s critical philosophy. What makes an empirical law of nature necessary is that it can be linked to a transcendental theory of the possibility of experience. For Kant, knowledge of nature is not a heap of possibly unrelated empirical laws but requires systematic unity of cognitions. This unity is possible because the metaphysical study of nature in general provides the foundation for the applied study of nature. Thus, in the Critique he writes: Categories are concepts that prescribe laws a priori to appearances, thus to nature as the sum total of all appearances (natura materialiter spectata) . . . All possible perceptions, hence everything that can ever reach empirical consciousness, i.e., all appearances of nature . . . stand under the categories . . . The pure faculty of understanding does not suffice, however, to prescribe to appearances through mere categories a priori laws beyond those on which rests a nature in general . . . Particular laws, because they concern empirically determined appearances, cannot be completely derived from the categories, although they all stand under them.297

How precisely natura materialiter spectata stands under natura formaliter spectata is a continuous question for Kant. The problem of attributing necessity to empirical laws is subsequently formulated in the Opus postumum as follows: In order to achieve physics I must know in advance how to investigate nature. Natural science is either metaphysics of the doctrine of nature or physics. The latter does not constitute a system with the former because physics is a mere aggregate of experiences, unless there is a transition from the one to the other.298

The schematism of the Transition Project Kant’s critical account of objects of experience begins with the separation of two stems of cognition, sensibility (intuition) and understanding (concept). Because intuition and concept are not homogeneous representations (as in the Wolffian school), they require schemata to fill the gap between them. Kant introduces the

296

297 298

Cf. Friedrich Theodor Rink, Aussichten aus Immanuel Kants Leben (Königsberg:  Göbbels und Unzer, 1805), 120. KrV B163–5. Op 21:488.

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term “schema” in the Critique by asking how, given the heterogeneity of concept and intuition, “[is] the application of the category to appearances possible?”299 This “important” question [erhebliche Frage] “makes a transcendental doctrine of the power of judgment necessary.”300 The conception of a schema as a “third thing” or “mediating representation” is supposed to make possible the “application” of pure concepts in general to appearances. It is “intellectual on the one hand and sensible on the other.”301 Everyone schooled in Kant’s critical philosophy will immediately associate the term “schema” with this transcendental sense of determinate judgment outlined in the “Transcendental Analytic.” It is thus not surprising that interpreters, upon reading the term in the Opus postumum, were led to assume that Kant must mean to revise his theory of the schematism of the “Transcendental Analytic.” However, this is not the only use Kant makes of the term in the Critique, because he also uses it in the “Appendix to the Dialectic” in the context of regulative principles. The “Appendix to the Dialectic” sets forth regulative principles guiding empirical investigation in order to meet reason’s demand for systematic unity of a science: the regulative principles of homogeneity, specificity, and affinity are meant to guide empirical investigation toward the goal of a complete system of empirical laws. In the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” the regulative principle of the systematicity of nature in its divers empirical laws is presented as connected to the idea of a divine intellect. More precisely, the idea of a divine intellect functions as the schema of the regulative idea of the purposive arrangement of nature in the multiplicity of its empirical laws:  the idea that it is “from a highest intelligence [God] that we derive the order of the world and its systematic unity,” functions as a “schema of the regulative principle for the systematic unity of all cognitions of nature.”302 And again, “this transcendental thing is merely the schema of that regulative principle through which reason, as far as it can, extends systematic unity over all experience.”303 Reason in its regulative function thinks a divine intellect as if the systematicity of divers empirical laws was based on it. Kant presents an idea of reason as “a schema of the regulative principle for the systematic unity of all cognitions of nature.”304 Such “immanent” use of regulative ideas, Kant tells us, is “of great importance for transcendental 299 300 301 302 303 304

KrV A137–8/B176–7. Ibid. KrV A138–40/B177. KrV A673–4/B701–2. KrV A682/B710. KrV A674/B702, my emphasis.

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philosophy” because it first makes possible “systematic unity” of manifold empirical laws, and thus empirical truth.305 Kant’s use of the term “schema” in the “Appendix to the Dialectic” is curious enough. How can an idea of reason, that is, the assumption that it is “from a highest intelligence [God] that we derive the order of the world and its systematic unity,” function as a “schema of the regulative principle for the systematic unity of all cognitions of nature?”306 As other scholars have rightly observed, an idea of reason seems incapable of guiding empirical investigation because, first, it does not have any determinable content, and, second, it is in no obvious way mediating, that is, located between reason and understanding. It is an idea, that is, it lacks any sensible component that one would think is required to guide empirical sciences.307 Yet, I think it is clear why Kant uses the term in this context: for, just as the actions of the understanding . . . apart from the schemata of sensibility, are undetermined, likewise the unity of reason is also in itself undetermined in regard to the conditions under which . . . the understanding should combine its concepts systematically.308

In other words, Kant sees an analogy between the gap between sensibility and understanding, that is, the two stems of cognition, and that between the principles of the understanding, which provide constitutive unity to nature, and reason, which rationally enjoins us to seek for systematic unity of empirical laws as a regulative idea. “The understanding constitutes an object for reason, just as sensibility does for the understanding.”309 Despite the fact that the determinative schemata of the categories do not address the same gap as the regulative schemata of the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” Kant chose to use the same term, schema, to indicate transition problems between two heterogeneous elements that in each case are necessarily involved in the process of cognition.310 305 306 307

308 309 310

See KrV A643ff./B671ff., A676–9/B704–6, A651/B679. KrV A673–4/B701–2. For an attempt to make sense of Kant’s idea of a schema in the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” see Rachel Zuckert, “Empirical Scientific Investigation and the Ideas of Reason,” in Kant and the Laws of Nature, ed. Angela Breitenbach et  al. (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2017), 89–107; and Henry Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, revised and enlarged edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2004), 423ff. I am indebted to both readings. KrV A664–5/B692–3. KrV A664/B692. Whether and how reason must be involved in theoretical cognition is itself a debated topic. See my discussion of Kant’s notion of a system in “Kant’s philosophia naturalis” above. For further discussion, see, for example, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, “Why Must There Be a Transcendental Deduction in Kant’s Critique of Judgment?” in Kant’s Transcendental Deductions: The Three Critiques and the Opus postumum, ed. Eckart Förster (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 157ff.; Reinhard Brandt,

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In the third Critique, this schema of reason finds its ultimate development in the synthetic a priori principle of reflective judgment. For, even though all objects of experience stand under the formal principles of the understanding that determine nature in general, particular empirical laws of nature could be so divers that “no thoroughgoing interconnection of empirical cognitions into a whole of experience would take place.”311 Thus there arises the transition problem that Kant described in the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” a problem that calls again upon judgment, albeit in its regulative employment. The reflecting power of judgment, which is under obligation from ascending from the particular in nature to the universal, therefore requires a principle . . . in order to make possible a system of experience in accordance with particular laws of nature.312 The power of judgment, which is obliged to bring particular laws, even with regard to what differentiates them under the same general laws of nature, under higher, though still empirical laws, must ground its procedure on such a principle.313 The understanding is of course in possession a priori of universal laws of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience at all; but still it requires in addition a certain order of nature in its particular rules . . . These rules, without which there would be no progress [Fortgang] from the general analogy of a possible experience in general to the particular, it must think as laws (i.e., as necessary), because otherwise they would not constitute an order of nature.314

Note that neither an idea of reason nor the a priori principle of the faculty of judgment is capable of guiding empirical investigation in any determinate way. The “affinity” of empirical laws is merely a “subjectively necessary transcendental presupposition.”315 But this presupposition by itself is completely indeterminate, because the unity of empirical laws of nature must, of course, be searched for empirically in terms of the “physical–mechanical connection

311 312 313 314 315

“The Deductions in the Critique of Judgment:  Comments on Hampshire and Horstmann,” in Kant’s Transcendental Deductions: The Three Critiques and the Opus postumum, ed. Eckart Förster, 177ff. (Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 1989). My own view is indebted to Friedman’s works cited above and to Hannah Ginsborg, “Kant on the Systematicity and Purposiveness of Nature,” in Rethinking Kant, vol. 5., ed. Pablo Muchnik et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, forthcoming). KU 5:183. KU 5:180. EEKU 20:210. KU 5:184, my emphasis. EEKU 20:209.

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according to universal laws.”316 What would be needed to connect the regulative idea of the systematic unity of nature in its empirical laws with the determinate principles of understanding is a theory of mediating concepts that would make comprehensible how particular, experimentally obtained cognitions of empirical laws (physics) can be regressively linked to the laws constitutive of matter in general (MAN). For, the general principle of reflective judgment by itself (which reflective judgment prescribes a priori to judgment in its empirical investigation of nature) does not yet license the necessity of particular empirical laws.317 The schemata of the Transition Project of the Opus postumum are meant to fill this lacuna by providing mediating concepts that guide empirical investigation. As we have seen, the main part of Metaphysical Foundations shows that everything that can become an object of outer sense must be constituted through the reciprocal limitation of repulsion and attraction. Because the derivation of metaphysical forces constitutive of matter is exhaustive, “all moving forces in material nature [i.e., empirical forces] must be reduced” to the fundamental forces of repulsion and attraction.318 This completeness claim entails that the specific variety of matter, as well as specific mechanical forces (which the physicist investigates) are grounded upon the two fundamental metaphysical forces.319 In other words: in order to secure the scientific status of natural sciences, the laws and phenomena of bodies must be reducible to, that is, be varieties of, the two a priori moving forces of matter in general. The Transition Project is meant to guide natural sciences to a coherent rational explanation of natural phenomena by connecting the constitutive a priori principles of material nature with the regulative procedure of reflective judgment. The Transition Project thus lies at the intersection of metaphysical laws and the empirical variety of specific laws, and it attempts to comprehend the latter as modifications of the former. The regulative idea of the unity of particular empirical laws of nature, which the faculty of judgment must assume so that it becomes “possible to organize experiences in a systematic way,”320 is further specified by a system of moving forces (based on the forces that are constitutive of matter in general), in virtue of which the scientist can, and, from the standpoint of transcendental philosophy, indeed must, seek for a coherent explanation of nature. The goal of

316 317 318 319 320

KrV A692/B720. Cf. EEKU 20:208–11. MAN 4:499. Cf. “General Remark to Dynamics,” 4:524ff., and “General Remark to Mechanics,” 4:551ff. EEKU 20:211.

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the Transition is to determine the topic of moving forces that founds the system of physics.321 Kant says, Between metaphysics and physics there still exists a broad gulf (hiatus in systemato) across which the transition cannot be a step but requires a bridge of intermediary concepts which form a distinctive construction. A system can never be constructed out of merely empirical concepts.322 The Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics must not consist entirely of a priori concepts of matter in general, for it would then merely be metaphysics (e.g. where one talks merely of attraction and repulsion in general), and also must not consist entirely of empirical representations, for they would then belong to physics (e.g. observation of chemistry). Rather [the Transition] belongs to the a priori principles of . . . natural investigation . . . that is, to the subjective principle of the schematism of the power of judgment to classify empirically given moving forces in accordance with a priori principles . . . and so to pass from an aggregate . . . to a system of physics.323

Kiesewetter, as we have seen, characterizes Kant’s planned Transition as providing “heuristic maxims,” whose purpose is to guide “observations and experiments,” with the goal of providing a priori insight into the explanatory grounds of “empirical laws.” This requires “an exposition of the laws of the modification of matter, based on the relation of the two foundational forces.”324 The Transition is the schematism of the composition of moving forces insofar as these constitute an a priori system in accordance with the form of classification for a system of physics in general. Thus, [it is] the architectonic of natural investigation.325

The term schema here is not meant in its transcendental sense of determinate judgment outlined in the “Transcendental Analytic.” Rather, it picks up the regulative idea of a schema presented in the “Appendix to the Dialectic”: the natural scientist must investigate nature as if its particular empirical laws formed

321 322

323 324 325

Op 22:297, 299. Op 21:476, my emphasis. Cf. Op 21:310–1, 402–3, 474–5. “Therefore, the transition from metaphysics to physics, from the a priori concept of the movable in space (i.e. of the concept of a matter in general) to the system of moving forces, can proceed only by means of that which is common to both . . . Insofar as it contains for itself a system of the application of a priori concepts to experience” (Op 21:478, my emphasis). For further passages describing the transition as a “schematism” for the composition of empirical moving forces from metaphysical forces for the sake of the possibility of physics as a science, see Op 21:174, 362–3, 425; Op 22:265. Op 21:362–3, my emphasis and translation. Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 315. Op 22:263, my translation.

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a systematic unity. The schemata of the Transition attempt to link this indeterminate regulative use of reflective judgment to the constitutive metaphysical principles of material nature. Thus, Kant’s use of the term schematism neither indicates a revision of the “Transcendental Analytic,”326 nor does it aim to transform the regulative validity of the principle of the power of judgment into constitutive statements regarding nature.327 The Transition is not meant to intrude into physics (chemistry, etc.) [.] It only anticipates the moving forces, which are thought a priori . . . and it only classifies the empirical/general in accordance with the former, in order to regulate [regulieren] the conditions of empirical investigation for the sake of a system of the investigation of nature [zum Behuf eines Systems der Naturforschung] (regulative principles).328

The project of showing how particular laws can be seen as necessary is a continuous endeavor of Kant’s critical philosophy, and it can be traced throughout Kant’s critical work, including the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” “General Remark to Dynamics,” the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and the Opus postumum.329 Already the earliest fascicles of the Opus postumum—Convolut 4, which also contains the “Octaventwurf ”—characterize the transition in terms of a schematism.330 Kant consistently uses the notions transition (Übergang, Überschritt), schematism, and intermediary concepts synonymously.331 The term “schematism” in the Opus postumum is always directed toward the systematicity of empirical physics, never backward to a completion of the deduction of the categories.332 The Transition proceeds from the metaphysical foundations, and Kant consistently emphasizes the tendency of MAN toward physics, as one would expect against the background of the problem of the “Appendix to the Dialectic.” Also, the Doctrine of Virtue, finished by February 1797, describes the transition in

326 327 328

329

330 331 332

For this reading, see Förster, Reply, 238, n5; Final Synthesis, 50–1, 59–74. For this reading, see Mathieu, Kants Opus postumum, 138, 239–46. Op 22:263, my translation. Friedman is absolutely right when he says that “the apparently paradoxical demand for principles that are, at the same time, both constitutive and regulative—literally for an intersection of the constitutive and regulative domains—is thus a natural and inevitable demand of the critical philosophy” (Friedman, “Regulative and Constitutive,” 95). For similar assessments regarding the continuity of the problem, see: John H. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 158ff.; Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Taste:  A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2001), 37–39, 204f.; Michael Friedman, “Laws of Nature and Causal Necessity,” Kant-Studien 105(4) (2014): 545ff. Op 21:362–3, 367, 369, 485. See Op 21:485, 487, 167, 285–6, 290, 291, 505, 617; Op 22:263. E.g., Op 21:482, 617; Op 22:189. Cf. Friedman, Exact Sciences, 260–1; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 113, 165n1; Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 2–3, n7.

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practical philosophy in terms of a schematism. This is important because it shows that the Transition Project is not meant to fix a problem that is unique to theoretical cognition, but rather goes to the heart of Kant’s comprehensive conception of philosophy.333 The problems of application (schema, mediating concepts) and systematicity are two sides of the same problem, which deals with the lawful progression from the metaphysical foundation of nature to empirical physics. Such a transition becomes necessary if Kant’s claim that the scientific status of physics can only be comprehensible through transcendental philosophy is to be true. Kiesewetter reports twice that Kant described the Transition Project to him as a “Schlussstein,” which would complete Kant’s philosophia naturalis. Kant describes the Transition as a special part in his “philosophia naturalis,” and that without it there would remain a gap in the system. Through the Transition (Übergang) a gap in the system of the pure science of nature (philosophia naturalis pura) is filled, and the circle of all that which belongs to the a priori cognition of nature is closed (der Kreis alles dessen was zum Erkentnis a priori der Natur gehört geschlossen).334

Kant already announces this project in the preface to the 1786 Metaphysical Foundations:  “Every doctrine of nature must finally lead to natural sciences and conclude there . . . and therefore makes claim to be thoroughly comprehended.”335 The central thought of Kant’s conception of philosophia naturalis is that a formal a priori determination of nature in general is supposed to ground the necessity of divers empirical laws. It is crucial for an understanding of the Opus postumum to be aware of the continuity of this problem in Kant’s critical philosophy.

The “Octaventwurf ” and the “Early Fascicles” of the Opus postumum: The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition The “General Remark to Dynamics” conceives of density, cohesion, elasticity, and chemical forces as mediating concepts facilitating the application of the metaphysics of nature to objects of outer sense. Yet, despite the strong claim that “all moving forces in material nature must be reduced” to the fundamental 333 334 335

See MSTL 6:468, and Introduction to this book. Op 21:640, my translation. Cf. Kant’s 1798 letter to Kiesewetter cited above, Br 12:258. MAN 4:469, my emphasis.

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forces of repulsion and attraction,336 Kant could merely “hope” to present the reader “completely” with the moments to which the specific variety of matter can be reduced “a priori.”337 Instead of a sufficient explanation for the possibility of matter and its specific variety from these fundamental forces, which I cannot provide, I will present completely, so I  hope, the moments to which its specific variety must collectively be reducible a priori . . . The remarks inserted between the definitions will explain their application.338

Kant lacks any principle that would derive these moments “completely.” The “General Remark to Dynamics” merely sketches a topic of moving forces, but it neither justifies its systematicity and completeness nor its method of generation. The Opus postumum attempts to make one step beyond the “General Remark to Dynamics” by searching for an elementary system of mediating concepts that demonstrates the systematicity of physics as a science. Only a principle through which all mediating moments are derived could guarantee the systematic status of physics. For this reason, the “Octaventwurf ” explicitly orders the mediating concepts in accordance with the table of the categories: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. The difference between the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the “Octaventwurf ” lies in the attempt to establish the completeness of the four mediating moments, “which cannot be brought about in any other way than by following the order of the categories.”339 Kant says in the “Octaventwurf ” that he would have to generate, from a principle, an elementary system of specific moving forces that is both a priori (i.e., derived from the fundamental forces) and applicable to experience (i.e., account for specific phenomena of matter).340 We deal here of the physical first principles of natural science (philosophiae naturalis), because the mathematical [first principles] are not a part of philosophy . . . The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science have a natural tendency toward physics . . . because this is the goal of philosophy as a doctrine of nature [Philosophie als Naturlehre] . . . Thus, the moving forces of matter must specifically be enumerated a priori in a complete system in order to make possible the transition from the Metaphysics of Nature to Physics.341

336 337 338 339 340 341

MAN 4:499. MAN 4:525. Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 226–7; Förster, Final Synthesis, 5. MAN 4:525, my translation and emphasis. Op 21:363, my translation. Op 22:265. Op 21:617–8, my emphasis and translation. Cf. Op 21:532; and Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 165–8.

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The “General Remark to Dynamics” only hypothetically specifies the moments to which the empirical diversity of moving forces can be reduced. From this perspective, a systematic transition (derived from one principle) would indeed entitle us to speak of the transition to physics as a Schlussstein of Kant’s critical system, as Kiesewetter does. I  propose that it is for this reason that the Opus postumum—in contrast to the “General Remark to Dynamics”—emphasizes that the Transition has to be based on a principle and ordered in accordance with the table of the categories. Physics as a system requires a principle of how one is to investigate methodically the moving forces of nature, divide them into classes, and thus is to be guided with regard to the coordination of the whole.342

The Transition aims to demonstrate the necessity and systematicity of divers empirical laws by determining the moments to which empirical physics can be reduced, and by showing from which principle these moments can be derived systematically.343 The “General Remark to Dynamics” had only addressed this task by way of examples. The sketch of the four moments, to which Kant refers in the “Octaventwurf ” as the steps he had already taken into the direction of a transition from metaphysical foundations to physics,344 needs to become a systematic transition to physics. Without a system of a priori moving forces, metaphysical principles cannot be applied to empirically given objects (objects in concreto) so to make possible systematic knowledge of outer objects. This, however, Kant says, “cannot be tolerated in a philosophy such as physics ought to be.”345 Completeness and systematicity are built-in requirements of Kant’s critical philosophy. This is just as true of the table of the categories as it is of the principles of the understanding, the fourfold division of the Metaphysical Foundations, and the four mediating concepts that guide the investigation of empirical moving forces of nature: That this table [of the categories] is uncommonly useful, indeed indispensable in the theoretical part of philosophy for completely outlining the plan for the whole of a science . . . is already self-evident from the fact that this table completely contains all the elementary concepts of the understanding, indeed even the form of a system of them in the human understanding, consequently that it 342 343 344 345

Op 22:265, my emphasis and translation. Op 21:169, 177, 475, 492. Op 21:407–8. Op 21:407.

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gives instruction about all the moments, indeed even of their order, of a planned speculative science, as I have elsewhere given proof. *Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science346 Now this completeness of a science cannot reliably be assumed from a rough calculation of an aggregate put together by mere estimates; hence it is possible only by means of an idea of the whole of the a priori cognition of the understanding, and through the division of concepts that such an idea determines and that constitutes it, thus only through their connection in a system.347

Because the metaphysical first principles of material nature are grounded in the transcendental principles that make possible experience, there arises the prospect for the faculty of judgment to systematically investigate nature in such a way that physics, which itself is of course empirical and open-ended, can be justified as a rational doctrine of nature. This prospect is unavailable to both the various Naturlehren Kant encountered in his textbooks and the mathematical scientists, because these proceed from empirical phenomena, that is, they provide an “aggregate of perceptions, whose completeness as a system is . . . a task for philosophy.”348 The “Octaventwurf ” thus formulates the problem: The concept of natural science (philosophia naturalis) is the systematic exposition of the laws of motion of objects in space and time, insofar as these can be cognized as a priori, i.e., as necessary. For empirical knowledge of them concerns only contingent knowledge of these outer appearances, only to be acquired by experience; and it is not philosophy, but merely an aggregate of perceptions, whose completeness as a system is, nevertheless, a task for philosophy. The supreme division of the science of nature . . . can be none other than that between its metaphysical foundations . . . and physics, which systematically orders the content of empirical knowledge . . . There can be a relationship of one form of knowledge to the other, which rests neither entirely on a priori principles nor on empirical principles, but simply on the transition from one to the other. [The Transition shows] how it is possible for us to collect and order the elements of a doctrine

346 347

348

KrV B109–10. KrV A64–5/B89. Cf. KrV A80–2/B106–8; B109–10; A645/B673. “Systematic unity is that which first makes ordinary cognition into science . . . I understand by a system, however, the unity of the manifold of cognitions under one idea. This is the rational concept of the form of a whole, insofar as through this the domain of the manifold as well as the position of the parts with respect to each other is determined a priori” (KrV A832/B860). Cf. MAN 4:473–6; PG 9:72; EEKU 20:242ff. On this point, see also Zammito, Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 170ff.; Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 128ff., 133; Rand, “Apriority, Metaphysics, and Empirical Content,” 112–3. Op 21:402.

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy of nature to be based on experience, and to arrange them with the completeness required for systematic classification.349

In accordance with these programmatic remarks emphasizing the systematicity of natural science, the “Early Fascicles” and the “Octaventwurf ” plan to present four intermediate concepts guided by the four classes of categories (quantity, quality, relation, modality). Kant aims at a “complete specification of moving forces . . . by following the order of the categories.”350 This means the goal is to classify empirical moving forces in accordance with a priori considerations. The elementary system of the moving forces of matter . . . is the system of categories under which the concepts of the moving forces are systematically ordered, i.e., in accordance with principles a priori.351

At this stage of his reflections, 1796–8, Kant’s drafts do not pass beyond the first two mediating concepts—density and cohesion.352 Under the heading of density (quantity), Kant discusses the ponderability of matter, which, as Kant argues, presupposes the penetrative force of gravitation (attraction).353 Under the category of quality, Kant discusses the cohesion of matter, which, Kant argues, is based on a universally distributed heat material that he calls caloric or ether.354 The caloric itself is conceived of as continuously pulsating, that is, it alternates between attraction and repulsion.355 Under relation, Kant again discusses cohesion; he never really gets to develop his thoughts pertaining to modality.356 What the first drafts written between 1796 and 1798 clearly illustrate is that Kant does not revise his general theory of matter of the Metaphysical Foundations, but rather picks up on the problems of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” that is, he builds a transition toward empirical physics. Kant continues with his project of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” which he attempts to systematically organize by linking the mediating concepts to the table of the categories. Note again the continuity of Kant’s Transition Project: already the “General Remark to Dynamics” presented four moments, and held that the specific variety of

349

350 351 352 353 354 355 356

Op 21:402–3, my emphasis, translation altered. Cf. Op 21:290; Op 22:240, 312; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 155ff. Op 21:363, my translation. Cf. Op 21:367. Op 22:226, my translation. Cf. Op 21:311, 527; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 200ff., 210–2. Op 21:388, 311. Op 21:408–9. Op 21:387. Op 21:378. See Op 21:291, 394ff, 403ff., 405ff.; Op 22:205, 211, 220. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 71–2, 78, 81, 83, 89, 105ff, 112, 588ff.; Förster, Final Synthesis, 13–16.

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matter must be reducible a priori to these four moments. Adickes takes this to be indicative of an implicit attempt to link the definitions and explanations of the “General Remark to Dynamics” to the table of the categories.357 Given the continuity between the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum, this assessment strikes me as plausible. However, whereas Kant makes a convincing case regarding the necessity of mediating concepts as application conditions for searching systematic unity of empirical laws, and thus for guiding natural science, it remains unclear in both the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum how precisely the mediating concepts are generated. What is the procedure? What gives it logical force? Under Quantity, Kant begins by defining a body: “A limited mass is a body.”358 Kant now asks how one can determine the specific quantity of matter in a body, and he answers—by way of gravitation only. Kant’s general answer stresses that the “determinate concept” of matter’s quantity presupposes dynamic moving forces.359 “Only the motion of matter in mass determines its quantity.”360 Kant insists that the quantity of matter cannot be determined by an atomist theory. The rejection of atomism with respect to an empirical determination of matter in a given volume, that is, the explanation of different degrees of physical densities,361 is Kant’s major concern in these passages. Because absolutely simple parts of matter are inconceivable, the quantity of matter cannot be determined arithmetically by counting the parts of matter.362 Nor can the quantity of matter be determined by measuring the volume of a body, that is, geometrically, because this would presuppose that all specifically different kinds of matter are equally dense. Therefore, Kant argues, the quantity of matter must be determined dynamically. The quantity of matter can only be securely investigated by the moving force through which it becomes ponderable (ponderabilis). Were all matter uniform and equally distributed in equal volumes then the quantity of matter could be geometrically measured and compared . . . Since this cannot be assumed, it follows that the universal measure of the quantity of matter is only possible through dynamic but not geometric measurement, more precisely, through the moving force of gravitational attraction.363 357 358 359 360 361 362 363

Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 226–7. Op 21:341, my translation. Cf. Op 21:347; Op 22:205. Op 22:206, my emphasis. Op 22:208. Cf. Op 21:403. Op 21:206, 267; Op 22:207, 226–7, 268, 556–7. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 131ff., 475ff. Op 21:339. Op 22:226–7, my translation. Cf. Op 21:387, 405, 408.

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What makes a body heavy, that is, an object of experience as a quantum in space, is the attractive force of universal gravitation. Ponderability is thus based on the a priori force of universal attraction, on the one hand, and makes possible “the precise determination of the quantity of matter, of whatever type it be,”364 on the other. The ponderability of matter is thus a bridge from matter in general toward empirical physics insofar as the experience of different “types of matter”365 is based on it. Without ponderability of matter, the scientist could not empirically compare the different quantities of various types of matter. The “investigation of nature”366 thus depends on the force of gravity, because it is only proportional to the quantity of matter, but independent of the different kinds of matter.367 Thus ponderability (ponderabilitas) is the first function of the moving forces according to the category of quantity. It belongs to both, metaphysics of nature and physics, and for this reason to the transition from the first to the second.368 So all matter must be regarded as ponderable, for otherwise one could have no determinate concept of its quantity.369

Thus, the Transition commences from bodies in space with mass, i.e., density, and moves toward the determination of specific differences in densities. Kant’s first intermediary concept, ponderability, builds a “transition . . . from concepts of nature given a priori to empirical ones which yield empirical knowledge.”370 Ponderability is thus a necessary precondition for the empirical determination of matter.371 Under Quality, Kant aims to reject atomist models explaining the cohesion of matter.372 Kant argues that the empirical phenomena of cohesion in fluids and rigid bodies presuppose a heat material (caloric). Recall Kant’s treatment of coherence in rigid and fluid bodies in terms of the displacement of their parts

364 365 366 367 368

369

370 371 372

Op 22:208, my emphasis. Op 21:409. Op 21:362, my translation. Op 22:217. Cf. Op 21:409, 340–1, 347, 411; Op 22:206. Op 21:307. Cf. Op 22:217; Förster, Final Synthesis, 13–17. “The proposition that all matter is ponderable is not an empirical proposition” (Op 21:295, my translation), but rather makes empirical inquiry of different types of matter possible. “That ponderosity must belong to all matter . . . can be recognized a priori. The ponderability in bodies . . . may yet be different, precisely in consequence of the specific differences of types of matter” (Op 21:375). Op 22:209–10. Cf. Op 21:405: “Ponderability (ponderabilitas) differs from ponderosity (ponderositas) in that the latter signifies greater than average weight in comparison with other [types of matter] of the same volume.” “The more matter a body contains in the same volume the heavier it is, and this condition is called its ponderosity” (Op 22:210). Op 21:387. Op 21:409, 607; Op 22:268. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 130–3. Op 22:270.

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in his 1786 “General Remark to Dynamics.” Kant had argued that whereas rigid matter resists displacement of its parts through friction, no such friction occurs in fluid matter. Förster draws attention to this passage from the “General Remark to Dynamics,” in which Kant says: But why certain matters, even though they may have . . . a lesser force of cohesion than other matters that are fluid, nevertheless resist the displacement of their parts so strongly . . . how, that is, rigid bodies are possible—is still an unsolved problem, no matter how easily the common doctrine of nature presumes to have settled it.373

Kant’s explanation of different aggregate states in terms of friction in the “General Remark to Dynamics” (degree of cohesion → friction → rigidity) appears to be problematic insofar as friction already presupposes rigidity. This theory of the “General Remark to Dynamics” is revised through the theory of caloric and heat in the Opus postumum. On this theory, all matter is originally fluid, and the escape of heat produces a variety of rigid textures: [The] division of matter in regard to its quality can be only this: It is either fluid or solid . . . The principle of all fluidity is generally attributed to heat, whose escape must have rigidification as its inevitable consequence.374

The overall claim that the formation of rigid and fluid bodies presupposes heat as a moving force, which Kant identifies with caloric or ether [Wärmestoff] that “permeates all bodies universally,” has been reconstructed in detail by Adickes.375 What I like to focus on is the systematic use to which Kant wants to put this intermediary principle of caloric (cohesion). For, caloric is supposed to account for the different aggregate states of matter in such a way that various empirical phenomena can be explained through it. It can be seen from the texture of fibres, laminae and blocks, which is formed by crystallizing minerals . . . that this [escape of caloric] is the cause of rigidity.376

“That all fluid matter assumes a texture when it progresses from fluidity to rigidity can be learnt from empirical science of nature,” Kant writes, however, it is 373 374

375

376

MAN 4:529. Cf. Förster, Introduction, xxxviii; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 38–9n2, 501ff. Op 22:213, my emphasis. Cf. “The moving forces of matter with respect to quality, insofar as matter is either fluid or . . . rigid, are based on an all-permeating movable and moving . . . heat material” (Op 22:232, my translation). Op 22:214. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 41, 70, 72, 483ff., 486, 506ff., 510ff., 525–6; Op 21:380, 418, 428–9. Op 21:522–3. Cf. Op 21:382, 391–2, 397; Op 22: 213, 232.

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“the Transition from the metaphysics [of nature] to physics” that “develops” through a priori principles “the conditions of the possibility [Grund und Art der Möglichkeit]” of these “operations of nature.”377 The phenomena of the various textures of rigid and fluid bodies, so Kant’s thesis, cannot be explained without the moving forces of caloric, which, for this reason, is considered a priori.378 The point of the Transition is to develop principles that are “necessary insofar as that without them no experience regarding specific appearances would be possible. Cognition a priori.”379 The “exposition of the empirical laws of motion of matter does not belong to the task of the Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics,” because the Transition only provides the “principles a priori for the system of the moving forces of matter in general,” which is subsequently applied [Anwendungen] in physics.380 The task of the Transition is to “guide” physics,381 such that the phenomena of physics can be classified in a system based on “the concepts of the moving forces of matter a priori.”382 This means, the a priori account of matter in general of the Metaphysical Foundations is the unquestioned starting point for Kant’s reflections in the Opus postumum. All matter must have repulsive forces, since otherwise it would fill no space; but attractive force must also be attributed to it, since otherwise it would disperse itself into the infinity of space—in both cases space would be empty.383

With respect to the definition of matter in general, Kant explicitly refers back to his “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.”384 “All moving forces are either attraction or repulsion.”385 Since repulsion is a surface force and attraction a penetrative force, “one [may] profitably use the division of moving forces into superficial force and penetrative force for the distinction of physical forces.”386 I thus cannot follow those interpreters who see the Opus postumum as a revision of Kant’s conception of matter in general as presented in the Metaphysical

377 378 379 380 381

382 383 384 385 386

Op 22:590–1, my translation. Op 22:231, 232; Op 21:332. Op 21:331, my translation. Cf. Op 21:378. Op 22:232, my translation. Cf. Op 21:332; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 513, 515ff. Op 21:321, my translation. Cf. Op 22:152 (“guidance for natural investigation in accordance with a system”), 255, 263. Op 21:477. Op 21:310. Cf. Op 22:211–12. Op 22:205–6. Op 21:307. Cf. Op 21:165. Op 21:308, my emphasis. Cf. Op 21:390–1.

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Foundations.387 Förster, for example, maintains that Kant’s theory of rigidification in terms of caloric in the Opus postumum is “an effort to overcome the problem of the Metaphysical Foundations.”388 This is not a problem of the metaphysical foundations but a problem with which Kant deals in the “General Remark to Dynamics,” that is, the application of the metaphysical foundations to physical phenomena. That is why Kant explicitly addresses the natural scientist.389 The early leaves of the Opus postumum have thus to be seen in continuity with the Metaphysical Foundations, but not as “modifications of his [Kant’s] earlier position.”390 The task of the Transition is to present an “elementary system” of all moving forces of matter “in order to systematically classify them a priori in accordance with the concepts of attraction and repulsion, under which the empirical concepts of the moving forces” are completely subsumed.391 The project of determining the systematicity of empirical forces thus presupposes the theory of body constitution in the Metaphysical Foundations, where Kant had proved a priori that matter can fill space only through the reciprocal limitation of repulsive and attractive moving forces. More than these two kinds of moving forces cannot be thought as pertaining to matter.392 This is also the starting point of Kant’s Transition Project, which begins with “original forces” of attraction and repulsion, beyond which further “original forces cannot be thought,” although they can be “derived” from them.393 The goal of the Transition is to guide empirical investigation by devising a system of moving forces, which are “empirical in one respect, but a priori in another,” and thus to make a systematic application of the rational part of philosophia naturalis to its empirical part possible, without thereby being physics itself.394 By tracing a broad variety of empirical phenomena to the concept of caloric, Kant attempts to systematically organize the contents of the “General Remark to Dynamics” around one underlying principle. Caloric is supposed to make possible the explanation of a vast range of empirical phenomena including crystallization, cohesion, adhesion, light, electricity, magnetism, and elasticity “in 387

388 389 390 391 392 393 394

E.g., Burkhard Tuschling, Metaphysische und Transzendentale Dynamik in Kants Opus postumum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1971), 34ff., 63, 90ff. Förster, Introduction, xxxviii. MAN 4:529; Op 21:487. On this point, see also Pollok, Introduction, xxxvii, xxxiii, xxxix, lix. Förster, Introduction, xxxviii. Op 21:507, my emphasis and translation. Cf. Op 22:533. MAN 4:496ff., 511. Op 21:423, my translation. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 39n1. Op 21:289, my translation. Cf. Op 21:310–1; Op 22:263, 255.

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order to explain a manifold of appearances from one principle.”395 For example, with respect to elasticity, Kant says: The causality of heat is that it expands all bodies, weakens their cohesion, and renders them fluid; that it is the cause of all elasticity, which is thus fundamentally derived from it.396

Kant continues to reflect on empirical phenomena in their connection to repulsive and attractive forces. Many of these connections appear to be mere stipulations, as, for example, Kant’s reflections on cohesion as attraction in contact (friction, slippage) and the possible basis of these phenomena in caloric. Adhesion is a displaceable cohesion, as, for instance, when slippage on a smooth inclined plane meets a resistance, which is called friction . . . Even a mirrorsmooth surface has such a friction which gradually wears away the solid matter which is rubbed . . . Rigid bodies rubbed against one another give heat [caloric].397

Kant uses the metaphysics of matter in general in order to reflect on empirical problems, and he uses physically conditioned phenomena to hypothesize caloric.398 What the “Early Fascicles” and the “Octaventwurf ” show is that Kant stipulates that cohesion of physical bodies could be brought about by an oscillating ether as opposed to inner molecular forces of matter. Cohering parts are pushed together by the pulsations of the ether. The bodily moving forces in cohesion are grounded in the oscillating pushes of an ether, which is alternating between attraction and repulsion.399 Attraction in contact (cohesion) is thus not an original force, but derived from the permeating force [Durchdringung] of an oscillating ether. As such, the moment of coherence belongs to the Transition Project. Kant’s attempt to unify and solve physical problems through one underlying principle can be already found in the first loose leaves of the “Octaventwurf,” which picks up the topics of fluids, densities, and rigidification in their relation to caloric.400 In his drafts from 1796–8, Kant attempts to solve the problem of the systematicity of divers empirical laws through the ether as the principle of all moving forces of matter. From the very beginning, the purpose of the

395 396 397 398 399 400

Op 21:319, my translation. Cf. Op 21:380–2; Op 22:215. Op 21:521. Cf. Op 21:319, 338, 383–4, 410; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 464ff. Op 21:411. Cf. Op 22:215. Op 21:417, 423; Op 22:152. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 39n1, 87–8, 135, 487, 535ff., 590. Op 22:152; Op 21:331. Op 21:428–9. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 41.

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Transition Project is to systematically guide (“reguliren,” “regulative Principien”) the empirical sciences (“System der Naturforschung”) through mediating concepts (“Schematism”) for the sake of an “architectonic of natural investigation.”401 Kant begins to reflect on the ether in the context of explaining specific physical phenomena from the very beginning, and this development will eventually lead to the proofs of the ether in Übergang 1–14, dated 1799, which posits the ether as the basis of all moving forces of matter, and thus provides a real “principle” of the system of moving forces.402 Kant’s Opus postumum attempts to systematically present what the “General Remark to Dynamics” had dealt with hypothetically. Kant’s revisions with respect to the explanation of specific physical phenomena, I insist, are revisions that fall into the proper domain of the “General Remark to Dynamics.” They are not revisions of the metaphysical constitution of matter in general. This becomes also clear with respect to the well-known circle in Kant’s account of density: in 1791, Kant invited his former student and mathematician, Jacob Sigismund Beck, to write commentaries on his major works in order to make his critical philosophy more accessible. In this context, Kant becomes aware of a circle in his dynamical account of matter.403 The repulsive and attractive forces are supposed to be constitutive forces of matter. This means they are supposed to make the filling of space to a determinate degree possible in the first place. Yet the attractive force, which Kant conceives of as Newtonian attraction, being a penetrative force, already presupposes a given quantity of matter to which it is proportional.404 Kant thus presupposes what he wants to explain. It is impossible that the attractive force, on the one hand, constitutes matter and as such precedes all given quantity of matter and on the other hand, presupposes the quantity of matter.405 For Förster, the 1792 circle implies that the a priori construction of matter in general through the two opposing forces of attraction and repulsion in the Metaphysical Foundations has failed.406 But is this true? Does the 1792 circle, which Kant explicitly calls a “physical question”—not 401 402

403

404 405

406

Op 22:263, my translation. Cf. Op 22:152; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 163–4. “The concept of this material [the ether] is the basis for the a priori connection of all the moving forces of matter, without which no unity in the relation of this manifold of forces in a single whole of matter could be thought” (Op 21:229). Cf. Op 21:224, 231, 241, 549, 487; Op 22:540, 584. Note that the ether, on which all moving forces are based, is incompatible with atomism. (Op 21:229, 537; Op 22:192) “Atomism is a false doctrine of nature” (Op 22:212). See Beck’s September 8, 1792 letter, Kant’s notes on it, and Kant’s responses in his October 17, 1792 and December 4, 1792 letters (Br 11:376–7, 359–65). MAN 4:516. Gravitational force is dependent on the quantity of mass (and thus density). See on this point: Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 309–10. Cf. Refl 14:337–8; Förster, Final Synthesis, 35. Förster, Final Synthesis, 59, 71.

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a metaphysical question—in the letter to Beck,407 really affect the metaphysical determination of matter in general? The metaphysical explanation of body formation in the Metaphysical Foundations required two opposing forces of different measures. Kant argued that the forces of repulsion and attraction decrease in different proportions as the distances from the force center r increases. Yet, Kant emphasized that the precise mathematical quantification of the counteracting forces is not part of the metaphysical argument. For this reason, Kant explicitly noted that a failure in determining the laws describing the repulsive and attractive forces would not imply a failure of the dynamic theory of matter in general.408 Kant merely suggested that the repulsive force obeys the inverse cube law Frep= 1/r3, and that the original force of attraction, which Kant identified with Newtonian attraction, would obey the inverse square law Fattr= 1/r2.409 These were only possible mathematical determinations of the foundational forces.410 Kant is neither committed to this mathematical formulation nor to the specific way in which these forces work.411 Note that already in the Metaphysical Foundations, Kant considers the pulsation of the ether as an alternative to Newtonian gravitation in order to comprehend the fundamental attractive force.412 Therefore, the 1792 circle does not affect the metaphysical determination of matter in general. Rather it affects the “General Remark to Dynamics,” for it is here that Kant had said that the atomic theory of matter constitution is a mere “hypothesis in natural science, so long as a possibility remains for thinking the specific difference in densities” on a dynamic account of matter.413 Kant wanted to show that his dynamic account of matter could account for specific physical phenomena, such as specific varieties of densities. Precisely this project, that is, the project of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” has failed.414 In his letter to Beck, Kant emphasizes that it must be possible to think different physical densities if one wants to avoid the atomist model.415 The Transition Project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” consisted in showing, through examples, that the metaphysical determination of matter in general through

407 408 409 410

411

412 413 414 415

Br 11:376. MAN 4:521–3. Cf. MAN 4:517–9. MAN 4:512, 521, 501, 518–9; Br 11:376–7. Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 212. MAN 4:521. Here and in the following I am indebted to Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1; Pollok, Metaphyische Anfangsgründe; and Emundts, Kants Übergangskonzeption. See MAN 4:524 and Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 226. For a critical assessment of Kant’s constructive account of matter, see Friedman, Construction of Nature, 223, n200. MAN 4:518. Cf. MAN 4:508–9, 514, 564; Br 11:362; VP 29:146. MAN 4:534. See again Emundts, Kants Übergangskonzeption, who comes to the same result. Br 11:376–7.

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dynamic fundamental forces is a coherent alternative to atomism. The goal was to show the real possibility of grounding physics (as a doctrine of motion) on a dynamic account of matter in general. The examples in the “General Remark to Dynamics” were meant as a touchstone of truth of Kant’s critical philosophy, insofar as their task was to verify the coherency of a dynamic account of matter, and thereby refuting the necessity of the mere mechanical mode of explanation. Kant prefaces the entire debate in the “General Remark to Dynamics” with a rejection of atomism: The general principle of the dynamics of material nature is that everything real in the objects of the outer senses . . . must be viewed as moving force. So by this principle the so-called solid or absolute impenetrability [and thus atomism] is banished from natural science, as an empty concept, and repulsive force is posited in its stead . . . Now from this it follows that space . . . can be assumed to be completely filled, and in different degrees . . . For, in accordance with the originally different degree of the repulsive forces . . . their relation to the original attraction (whether of any [piece of] matter separately, or to the united attraction of all matter in the universe) can be thought of as infinitely various.416

The metaphysical claim that repulsion and attraction are the two matter constituting forces (which rules out atomism) is meant to be confirmed by the discussion of particular empirical phenomena in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” What the circle shows, however, is that Kant’s dynamic account is not a coherent alternative to atomism insofar as it cannot explain one of most general features of empirical bodies: different densities. The “General Remark to Dynamics” fails to show that it is possible to appropriately relate the a priori account of matter in general to the empirical part of physics. Thus, without a progression from transcendental philosophy, to a priori principles pertaining to matter in general, to empirical bodies formed from two counteracting metaphysical forces, there remains a gap in the system of Kant’s philosophia naturalis.417 416

417

MAN 4:523–4. First emphasis is mine. Cf. “Anticipations of Perception” KrV A173–6/B215–8. See also Kant’s usage of “anticipating” at Op 22:502, 263. Kiesewetter reports that while he was working on the commentary on MAN, Kant, at some point, wanted him to put the work on hold until he, Kant, had finished his own book on the Transition. Unfortunately, the letter in which Kant requests that Kiesewetter put his commentary on hold must have been lost, so that we cannot exactly determine when this happened. Kant’s request that Kiesewetter put his work on MAN on hold could have taken place after he discovered that the circle in his account of body formation implied that he had to substantially rework his “General Remark to Dynamics.” But this is, of course, speculation. Cf. “Many of the remarks . . . were already written by me during my stay in Königsberg. [They] were read and approved by him [Kant], and other [remarks] were given to me by himself. For, already back then did I have the plan to publish a commentary on the named work [MAN] . . . A plan that also found his [Kant’s] approval. At first,

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Friedman holds that the circle in Kant’s theory of matter must be irrelevant to the Transition Project because it is not explicitly mentioned in the Opus postumum.418 I think this latter claim also needs to be revised. The problem of physical body formation (“How does matter produce a body?”419) makes Kant consider, in the early drafts of the Opus postumum, how the problematic attractive force (which as Newtonian force leads into the circle) could be replaced by other attractive forces such as cohesion (i.e., attraction in contact), and if it can, how one would have to account for cohesion (e.g., through the continuous oscillations of an ether). Kant discusses alternative attractive and repulsive forces for the possibility of physical body formation.420 In other words, Kant addresses the circle in the early leaves of the Opus postumum with his theory of a pulsating ether.

Conclusion Kant’s attempt in the Opus postumum to generate an elementary system of mediating concepts that is both a priori (i.e., derived from the two fundamental forces) and applicable to experience (i.e., account for body formation and the specific phenomena of matter) picks up the project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” again. However, there must be a unique facet [of the science of nature] which links the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science a priori with the empirical principles of physics, and which contains mediating concepts that lead from the former [Metaphysical Foundations] to the latter [empirical physics] as a system. This facet is the systematic embodiment of all a priori thinkable moving forces of attraction and repulsion along with their modifications . . . Hence the name Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics, similar to a bridge that leads from one territory to the next . . . spanning over a chasm.421

The task of the Opus postumum is to build a bridge from the metaphysical foundations of natural science (more precisely, forces that constitute matter in

418

419 420 421

external circumstances hindered the more specific execution of my plan and its completion. Later, Kant himself requested that I may wait until he had completed his work, which was to contain the transition from the Metapysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics, and which he considered to be the capstone of his critical system” (Warda, “Eine Nachgelassene Arbeit,” 310). Friedman, Exact Sciences, 223n13. Cf. Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher 1, 184, 214–5; Förster, Final Synthesis, 182 n13. Op 21:476. Cf. Op 21:387, 423, 430, 476. Op 21:616–7, my emphasis and translation. Cf. Op 21:618:  “philosophiae naturalis;” “mediating concept,” “completeness.”

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general a priori) to physics (i.e., natural forces that can be experienced) for the sake of the scientific status of physics (which is the empirical branch of philosophia naturalis).422 For precisely this reason does Kant identify the problem of the “gap” with the problem of a “transition.”423 The terminology of transition and gap, schematism and systematicity addresses the same problem. The Transition is necessary if Kant’s claim that the scientific status of physics can only be comprehensible through transcendental philosophy is true. Kant’s key claim in the “Octaventwurf ” is that his theoretical philosophy has a gap because it cannot provide—in principle—a procedure for explaining the empirical variety of matter on the basis of his dynamic account of matter in general, to which Kant is committed for epistemological reasons argued for in the Critique. In other words, Kant’s philosophy of nature lacks the resources for investigating the empirical variety of matter on scientific grounds. The general idea underlying the Transition Project originates in the task of Kant’s critical philosophy to provide secure foundations for knowledge. The Transition Project is a philosophical problem because it addresses a gap in the system of critical philosophy understood as philosophia naturalis. The Transition Project is meant to guide natural sciences to a coherent rational explanation of natural phenomena. The faculty of judgment must assume in its regulative function that it is possible to comprehend particular empirical laws on the basis of more universal laws, which in turn are based on the transcendental conditions of possible experience.424 Kant’s critical philosophy stands in the tradition of the Wolffian philosophia naturalis, which demands that metaphysics precede physics. The Transition Project must be understood against the background of the various attempts of Wolffians to divide the knowledge of nature into a general part, which demonstrates universal propositions with respect to the essential features of bodies in general, and a particular part, which contains the application of the general part to specific empirical phenomena. The goal of the Wolffian conception of philosophy is to connect metaphysics and experimental physics into a single system of knowledge, because in order to demonstrate the necessity of natural laws, insight into their a priori foundation must be provided. As Paul Franks has put it, the problem of how “physics [can] be kept rigorously separate from 422 423

424

Op 21:310–1. “Thus there is a gap to be filled between the metaphysical foundations of natural science and physics; its filling is called a transition from the one to the other” (Op 21:482, my emphasis). Cf. Op 22:149. For a reading suggesting that “gap” and “transition” signify two different problems, see Förster, Final Synthesis, 48ff. KU 5:183–6.

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metaphysics, while being grounded in it,” has a long history in other early modern philosophers and continues into German Idealism.425 If one wants to hold on to Kant’s conception of the necessity of laws as being based on a priori grounds, which—in the system of critical philosophy—implies the various dualisms of intuition and understanding, formal and material conditions of nature, phenomena and noumena, and so on, then there has to be a theory of mediating concepts. The general possibility of such a theory is provided by the principle of reflective judgment, which enjoins us to search for the systematic unity of divers empirical laws. Given the critical foundations of knowledge, a system of empirical cognition can only be asymptotically approached if reflective judgment “explore[s] dynamical grounds of explanation. For these alone permit the hope of determinate laws.”426 The Transition Project guides natural investigation in its search for the unity of empirical laws by connecting the constitutive principles of nature with empirical investigation via a system of mediating concepts. This is a continuous project originating in the strict separation of formal from material conditions of knowledge. The “Appendix to the Dialectic,” the “General Remark to Dynamics,” the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and the Opus postumum are stages of an answer to a single pervasive gap problem. Kant provides a first systematic sketch of the Transition from the pure to the applied part of physics in the 1786 “General Remark to Dynamics.” However, there are two shortcomings of this attempt. First, the “General Remark to Dynamics” only hypothetically specifies the moments to which the empirical diversity of moving forces can be reduced. A  systematic transition would need to be derived from a principle. Thus, the “Octaventwurf ” explicitly refers back to the “General Remark to Dynamics,” and it attempts to systematically order all mediating concepts through the table of the categories. Second, the purpose of the Transition Project of the “General Remark to Dynamics” is to show, through examples, that the metaphysical determination of matter in general through dynamic fundamental forces is a coherent alternative to atomism. However, the 1792 circle in the dynamic account of densities requires Kant to rethink the Transition from a dynamic account of matter in general to the specific variety of densities of empirical bodies.

425

426

Paul Franks, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 17–25. MAN 4:534, my emphasis.

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The project of attempting to understand empirical laws as necessary is at the heart of Kant’s philosophy of nature. What do these early drafts of the Opus postumum, written between 1796 and 1798, ultimately accomplish? Kant attempts to systematically link the mediating concepts to the table of the categories, and he attempts to trace a broad variety of empirical phenomena to the concept caloric as one underlying principle. Are these attempts more convincing than Kant’s hypotheses in the “General Remark to Dynamics”? As has become clear in this chapter, it is entirely unclear how the mediating concepts of the Transition Project are generated. How this application is supposed to work, that is, how the schemata of the Transition Project are supposed to enable the application of metaphysical laws of nature in general to sensible particulars is not addressed by Kant. Nowhere does he spell out how judgment produces these schemata of the Transition Project. What is the procedure? What gives them logical force? Where do the mediating concepts come from? They are the product of judgment reflecting on empirical phenomena in their connection to repulsive and attractive forces. Kant uses the metaphysics of matter in general in order to reflect on empirical problems. This means, reflective judgment investigates particular empirical cases as if they were the products of the metaphysical matter constituting forces. Reflective judgment is both source and referent of the system of mediating concepts.427 Yet, these considerations are entirely independent of the table of the categories.428 This is why, for example, Kant cannot decide whether cohesion should be discussed under quality or relation. In the time period from 1796 to1798, Kant’s mediating concepts remain mere stipulations. Besides the numerously repeated programmatic remarks, there cannot be found any proper deduction that would establish a normative link between the a priori foundation of matter in general and the system of mediating concepts. If caloric is supposed to make possible the systematic explanation of empirical phenomena including crystallization, cohesion, magnetism, elasticity, and so on “in order to explain a manifold of appearances from one principle,”429 then Kant would need to demonstrate how the normativity of the mediating concepts is rooted in the forms of judgment. Only then would he show that the concepts of the Transition are logically necessary. The conceptual scheme of mediating concepts that is supposed to guide the empirical study 427

428

429

I borrow the phrase “source and referent” from Allison, Kant’s Theory of Taste, 41, who uses it to emphasize that reflective judgment prescribes normative rules to itself (as opposed to nature and freedom). This makes judgment merely reflective (as opposed to determinative). Cf. EEKU 20:225. See Chapter 3, “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum,” for further discussion. Op 21:319, 380–2; Op 22:215.

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of nature is the product of reflective judgment, and so it must be rooted in the epistemological restrictions of theoretical judgment in general. This means, the procedure of reflection cannot be free-floating or contingent. The early drafts of the Opus postumum do not philosophically improve the “General Remark to Dynamics” in this respect, precisely because Kant’s mediating concepts remain mere hypotheses. Kant establishes the general condition of the possibility of mediating concepts through the principle of reflective judgment, but he fails to show how particular schemata are connected to the various categories or classes of categories. Kant neither shows how the fourfold structure of the “General Remark to Dynamics” nor how the four classes of mediating concepts of the Opus postumum are precisely based on the table of the categories.430 For this reason, Adickes rightly claims that Kant’s classification of empirical moving forces in accordance with a priori considerations, that is, the table of the categories, is forced and arbitrary.431 Kant presents artificial schemata (“geküntselte Schemate”) in order to discuss “physikalische Einzelprobleme” (particular problems of physics), which he relates to the categories and the ether with the hope to solve them philosophically.432 This does not mean, however, that Kant’s Transition Project expresses an “overly rationalistic endeavor,”433 which chases a “mere fata morgana,” and is ultimately “a waste of labor and time.”434 Adickes thinks as a modern scientist when he claims that Kant did not see the scientific problems of the “General Remark to Dynamics” and the Opus postumum as what they are: scientific problems, which cannot be solved philosophically.435 Kant, however, thinks as an eighteenth-century philosopher who sees physics as a branch of philosophy.436 To the contemporary, scientifically minded ear, the project of the systematic unity of empirical moving forces of nature ordered on a priori grounds sounds, of course, “overly rationalistic.” But this is Kant’s project. Even though the execution of Kant’s attempts to connect the formal to the material study of nature might be seen as unsatisfactory, it has become clear that the underlying philosophical problem of providing explanations of how particular empirical laws can be seen as necessary is a continuous problem of Kant’s 430

431 432 433 434 435 436

On this point, see also Pollok, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, 2–3, 20, 27–30, 128–137ff.; Warren, Reality and Impenetrability, 90ff. For a similar worry regarding the schemata of the “Transcendental Analytic,” see Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, 218ff. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 105, 207ff., 213–4, 474. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 210f. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 210. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 162. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 589. Op 21:407.

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critical philosophy. Reflective judgment must approach empirical problems in terms of what is constitutive of material nature in general, that is, by means of metaphysical presuppositions, if a rational doctrine of nature is to be realized. Kant responds to all inductively minded scientists that only a “metaphysical investigation behind that which lies at the basis of the empirical concept of matter” can successfully serve the regulative function “of guiding natural philosophy [toward] a true rational coherence of explanations.”437 My task in this chapter was to explain the origin of the Transition Project in the “Early Fascicles” and the “Octaventwurf ” of the Opus postumum. I let Kant’s philosophy of nature rest at this point, and turn toward an explanation of Kant’s idea of a Transition in moral philosophy of the same time period of 1796–8. Kant’s final solution to the theoretical Transition Project in the Opus postumum, the so-called ether deductions of 1799, where Kant attempts to demonstrate the real possibility of the ether, falls outside the time period under investigation, and would require a separate chapter.438 The result of this chapter is that Kant’s Transition Project originates in the very structure of transcendental idealism as it is conceived in the Critique. It is by no means a new project. As Zammito has put it, “the problem, then, was how to make the transition from the transcendental certainty to the empirical application. From the outset [i.e., the 1781 Critique] Kant felt confident that such a transition is possible,” and so he promised his readers both metaphysical doctrines of nature and morals that would provide the specification of transcendental truths in their application to “empirical knowledge both cognitive and practical.”439 The Transition Project is not unique to theoretical reason, but can also be found in Kant’s moral philosophy. How else can we understand a practical rule as necessary, or how else could the noumenal idea of freedom and its law guide specific empirical conduct?

437 438

439

MAN 4:534. Kant’s attempted ether deduction continues to stand in the Wolffian tradition insofar as he conceives of the ether as “the basis (first cause) of all the moving forces” and the specific variety of empirical forces as “modes of the latter (e.g., light)” (Op 21:605). In this context it is noteworthy that the Wolffian Hanov in the two volumes of his 1762 and 1765 Philosophiae Naturalis, of which Kant owned a copy, attempts—like Kant—to derive the particular part of physics dealing with optics, heat, electricity, magnetism, and so on from the ether as the single underlying principle. A thorough investigation of Hanov’s influence on Kant remains a desideratum for Kant scholarship. Cf. Lind, Physik im Lehrbuch, 139. Zammito, Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 159.

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Why is a Transition Project in Practical Philosophy Required?

Introduction Kant believes that the accidents or modes of empirical matter, such as its different aggregate states, densities, and elasticities, must be seen to be specific modifications of the essential structure of matter in general. This kind of foundationalism constitutes Kant’s rational account of nature. Kant’s idea of a transition from a metaphysical account of matter in general to empirical physics, which he pursues in the Opus postumum, originates in the foundationalist idea that the modes of matter must be explainable in terms of the essential matter constituting forces. An analogous foundationalist relationship also guides Kant’s thinking in practical philosophy. The metaphysical basis of all empirical duties is the idea of autonomy. This means, it must be in terms of autonomy that we understand the diversity of ethical duties. The idea of autonomy must be capable of guiding specific conduct, because just as the necessity of empirical laws of nature consists in their a priori foundation, so the normativity of empirical maxims is a feature of their a priori foundation. But precisely how are metaphysical foundation and empirical agency connected? In his 1762 Prize Essay, Kant argues that all anthropological dimensions of practical philosophy must be bracketed with respect to the project of determining the supreme principle of moral obligation. This is a response to Baumgarten and other natural law theorists who held that without a sufficient empirical motivating ground, a human being can neither will nor not will. These authors argued that the psychological foundation of action consists in the fact that agents are inclined toward one thing rather than toward another insofar as it is perceived as good. We have to take something as good in order to desire it. What Kant describes in the second Critique as “an old formula of the schools, nihil appetimus, nisi

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sub ratione boni; nihil aversamur, nisi sub ratione mali”1 just describes this psychological foundation of practical philosophy. Kant is not so much against this psychological aspect with respect to describing action in general.2 Rather, Kant argues that a theory of obligation that begins with this psychological perspective of action, and subsequently argues that a theory of obligation “is entirely based on motivating grounds,”3 cannot be a proper theory of obligation. For, any theory commencing from antecedent motivating grounds presupposes that something is perceived as good or bad, which means that it presupposes a standard of morality. Because the conception of practical philosophy in terms of motivating grounds already presupposes the concept of moral obligation, Kant separates the various dimensions of ethical action and isolates the problem of a supreme principle. Kant argues that only a formal principle can function as a supreme principle of morality. For this reason, he splits practical philosophy into a merely formal principle, which is meant to explain the possibility of the concept of moral obligation, and its application to the empirical human being, which includes sensibility, desires, feelings, and local peculiarities of agents. The strength of Kant’s account of morality lies in its formalism, because human freedom can only be secured from contingent infringements if the normative force of moral rules is independent of contingent peculiarities, interests, and motivating grounds. What makes a principle moral is its unconditional basis: the idea of autonomy. However, with the formal conception of obligation as necessitation through the moral law, specific human obligations are not yet determined. Despite the fact that moral agency cannot be determined by local peculiarities, it has to be applied to them. In order to understand a specific material maxim as morally justified, it must be possible to show how it is based on the formal principle of morality. Thus, self-identification as an autonomous agent requires a law-governed progress from the idea of autonomy to the formulation of specific maxims. In other words, it must be possible to see an agent’s obligations that arise from her local, particular identity (empirical) as a modification of her universal identity as moral agent (a priori). What defines an agent’s empirical identity is the quite specific web of her maxims, in virtue of which she

1

2

3

KpV 5:59. “We desire nothing except under the form of the good; nothing is avoided except under the form of the bad.” Quite to the contrary, Kant’s notion of a maxim, on the most general level, reflects that each choice presupposes that an agent takes something as good or as bad. Cf. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 39–40, 51; RGV 6:23–24, 29; KpV 5:60. Wolff, Deutsche Metaphysik, §512. See also, Georg Friedrich Meier, Allgemeine Practische Weltweisheit, §69 (Halle, 1764), reprinted in Christian Wolff, Gesammelte Werke, Abt.3, Vol. 107, ed. Jean École et al. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2006).

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provides reasons for her actions. This makes it possible to conceive of herself as the author of her actions, precisely because all specific duties are only cases of applying one and the same a priori value of autonomy. Thus, Kant writes in §45 of the Doctrine of Virtue that obligations deriving from specific identities (e.g., with respect to age, health, social status, and gender) must be incorporated into the system of ethics, because specific duties are only rules modified in accordance with differences of the subjects to whom the principle of virtue (in terms of what is formal) is applied in cases that come up in experience (the material) . . . These . . . do not yield so many kinds of ethical obligation (for there is only one, that of virtue as such), but only so many different ways of applying it (corollaries) . . . —Yet even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.4

The reason why Kant must be committed to the idea of a system of morals is that all moral obligations are grounded in one unitary principle. Abandoning the idea of a systematic unity of laws would entail abandoning the idea of a lawful restriction of freedom. Systematicity of moral laws is a presupposition of rational agency, just as the systematicity of natural laws is a presupposition for a rational explanation of the physical universe. The mediating concepts of the Opus postumum attempt to connect the multitude of divers empirical laws to the a priori foundation of nature in general, and thus to provide a route for understanding empirical laws as necessary. Analogously, the gap between the metaphysical foundation of morality and specific moral rules must be filled in such a way that the latter can be understood as morally justified. As we will see, the principle of autonomy by itself neither provides a procedure for determining what it means to strive toward autonomy under empirical circumstances nor does it provide a procedure for resolving moral dilemmas. There is no nonarbitrary way to choose between principles to which an agent is morally committed in cases where these principles require opposing courses of action. I will show that, generally speaking, it is unclear how the process of moral reflection of empirically situated agents can be seen as guided by the constitutive a priori principle of Kantian morality. However, agents can only consider themselves as the authors of their conduct insofar as they can rationally justify the maxim on which they act. If agents cannot—in principle—coherently judge which maxim is permitted, obligatory, or forbidden in situations of moral dilemma because they cannot make this decision on nonarbitrary grounds,

4

MSTL 6:468–9, my emphasis.

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autonomy has reached its practical limits. Agents can only distinguish their agency from physical causation insofar as agency is expressive of principles that agents have adopted. This implies that agents need to aim at coherently organizing their maxims in order to understand themselves as persons. To the extent that principles contradict themselves—or to the extent that agents cannot justify how they prioritize among various grounds of obligations—agents cannot conceive of themselves as agents. Prioritization among rules must be guided by autonomous choice, that is, through moral judgment. The goal of this chapter is to elaborate on the gap problem between a priori morality and empirical agency as a pervasive problem for Kant’s moral theory, and to set the stage for Kant’s way of addressing it through a theory of moral feelings in the “Aesthetics of Morals.”

Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis Throughout his career, Kant charges a theory of morality based on motivating grounds with circularity.5 This is to say, if motivation is put at the basis of obligation, “as is in fact commonly done,”6 then the object by its relation to the will gives the law to it. This relation, whether it rests on inclination, or on representations of reason, makes possible hypothetical imperatives only.7

Motivating grounds, regardless of whether they originate in the lower or higher faculty of desire, can thus not be at the foundation of morality. Kant is here criticizing Baumgarten, whose Metaphysica, Ethica, and Initia Kant used as a foil for his lectures on metaphysics and moral philosophy. For Baumgarten, agency means to move toward the realization of an end, and not merely to think about it.8 That which moves us is called the causa impulsiva (motivating ground)9 or the elateres animi (incentives of the mind, Gemuethsbewegungen).10 Motivating grounds are the key element in Baumgarten’s theory because humans only move to action from desire. Baumgarten’s theory of morality thus originates in this general theory of action, which is developed in his Empirical Psychology. Here

5 6 7 8 9 10

E.g., VE 27:9; GMS 4:443. KpV 5:9. GMS 4:441. Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §726. Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §342. Cf. Baumgarten, Initia, §§12–26. Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §§669, 671.

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Baumgarten elaborates on the thought that the faculty of desire and aversion follows upon [sequitur] the faculty of cognition:  the perception of something as good provides a motive that determines our desire. In Ethics Herder, Kant reports on Baumgarten’s threefold division: Introduction into Practical Philosophy. Foundation in Psychology. Three main concepts within the soul. 1) Cognition. To hold phenomena for true or false . . . 2) Feeling: presupposes cognition, phenomena [are] pleasure and displeasure . . . 3) Desire presupposes both: a) representation [and] b) reference to pleasure and displeasure.11

It is important to understand why Kant rejects this model of cognition → pleasure → desire as a proper model for accounting for moral obligation. For Baumgarten, what brings about a motivating ground, that is, what gives the representation of an object its appealing or aversive value, is the cognition of the object with respect to its good or bad consequences. There is a strong current of naturalism here in Baumgarten: good actions have, by nature, good consequences. The standard of rightness of an action is thus a fact about the structure of the world, which exists independent of an agent’s particular will, and to which her actions ought to conform. Because there is a natural connection between good conduct and good consequences (happiness), Baumgarten’s theory provides a good explanation of why moral standards bind an agent, that is, motivate her.12 Baumgarten tries to understand the ground of obligation from the concept of inner motivation. Natural obligations motivate us to pursue the good in virtue of their good consequences. Thus, by nature, human beings “are obliged to pursue happiness.”13 Since by nature the stronger motivating grounds propel us toward the good, Baumgarten’s principle of obligation is at bottom a principle of utility or eudemonism. This eudemonism is already contained in the very definition of the appetitive faculty, that is, the intention to realize what induces pleasure.14 Baumgarten is not the typical “rationalist” that one might expect: what provides a motivating ground is not the certainty of a cognition, as, for example, Descartes holds.15 Rather, Baumgarten’s theory of obligation in 11 12 13

14 15

VE 27:12, my translation. Cf. VAnth 25:1334; VE 29:877–8. Baumgarten, Initia, §39. Cf. Ibid., §33. Baumgarten, Ethica, §13. Cf. Schmucker, Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants in Seinen Vorkritischen Schriften und Reflektionen (Meisenheim am Glan:  A. Hain, 1961), 28–51; Henrich, “Über Kants früheste Ethik,” 428–9. Cf. Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §665. Descartes argues that clear perception of truth comes with a built-in moving ground to pursue it. The “great light in the intellect [is] . . . followed by a great inclination in the will.” The will is drawn to the good appetitively, and the more an agent is inclined toward one choice because she clearly

18

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terms of motivating grounds holds that intuitive cognition alone, that is, cognition of a particular, is a motivationally loaded representation, and thus provides an incentive for action.16 The general idea is: thoughts do not move; abstract, conceptual knowledge is insufficient to incite action.17 For Baumgarten, it is because “deeds cannot exist without the effectual appetite of the person who is obligated to them”18 that the task of ethics is to provide “its cognitions with life [Leben], [i.e.,] presenting the will with sufficient motivating grounds to do what is good and to omit what is evil.”19 The most important practical task of practical philosophy (for Baumgarten) is to make cognitions of the good effective.20 The topic of the life of cognitions, which provides the motivating ground for action, continuously reoccurs in Baumgarten’s textbooks. The more vividly we comprehend the good or bad consequences of our conduct, the more likely it is that we end up doing the right thing. In order to attain the greatest degree of distinctness about our deeds, that is, their effects on our condition, Baumgarten urges us “to collect as many observations and experiments” as we can. Specific judgment of something as good is bound to a vivid understanding of the good consequences of our conduct, and these are brought to “life” through examples taken from books, plays, history, and observations of oneself and others. Only in this way, Baumgarten emphasizes, can cognition of the good become alive (lebendig) and thus become an incentive qua being intuitively (anschaulich) convincing.21 In his Anthropology, Kant picks up on this idea and frequently refers to novels, biographies, plays, and history as pedagogical aids to “produce an enlivening of the will.”22 In the Groundwork, Kant says that “examples serve for

16

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18 19

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perceives it, the freer her choice is. “The indifference I feel when there is no reason pushing me in one direction rather than another is the lowest grade of freedom . . . If I always saw clearly what was true and good, I should never have to deliberate about the right judgment or choice.” (Descartes, Philosophical Writings, 40–1) Note that Baumgarten does not use intuitive cognition in the Leibnizian sense. Leibniz’s introduction of the terminology in his 1684 Meditationes de cognitione, veritate, et ideis reserves “cognitio intuitiva” (immediate grasp) as the highest form of cognition, which is only possible for God. On the contrary, for Baumgarten, intuitive cognition belongs to sensible cognition. It is awareness of a particular that is always bound to the senses (Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §544). See Baumgarten, Ethica, §444; De Vi et Efficacia Ethices Philosophicae, §10, ed. Armin Emmel (www. ruhr-uni-bochum.de/aesth/Emmel/Spalding.pdf ); Metaphysica, §§220, 671. Baumgarten, Initia, §141. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Philosophische Brieffe von Aletheophilus, 12 (Frankfurt, Leipzig, 1741); Cf. Baumgarten, Initia, §4. Cf. Baumgarten, Initia, §3. Cf. Meier, Allgemeine Practische Weltweisheit, §§10, 13, 18, 21. Cf. Pietro Pimpinella, “Cognitio intuitiva bei Wolff und Baumgarten,” in Vernunftkritik und Aufklärung:  Studien zur Philosophie Kants und seines Jahrhunderts, ed. Michael Oberhausen (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2001), 265–94. Anth 7:253–4. Cf. KpV 5:151–4; Anth 7:121; VAnth 25:734, 857–8, 1213–14. Cf. Robert Louden, “Applying Kant’s Ethics:  The Role of Anthropology,” in A Companion to Kant, ed. Graham Bird (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 358.

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encouragement . . . they make intuitive what the practical rule expresses more generally.”23 However, for Baumgarten, encouragement through examples is a constitutive part of morality because he understands morality through a theory of action, and action depends on motivating grounds. The Popularphilosophie of Christian Garve, for example, also takes examples as central to morality. Kant, on the contrary, responds to these theories by saying that a theory of morality cannot be grounded on examples, since these already presuppose a standard of morality.24 For Kant, examples belong to anthropology or applied ethics, which deals with the empirical homo phenomenon (as opposed to homo noumenon).25 Kant’s criticism of Baumgarten’s account of obligation in terms of motivation points out that “motivation” is always already intentional, that is, directed toward an object. This object has to be comprehended as good, or otherwise it could not provide a motivating ground to pursue it. However, the standard of judging something as good cannot be presupposed by a theory of obligation. It is precisely the task of a theory of obligation to make such a standard of the good comprehensible in the first place. This means that Baumgarten has not explained the possibility of the concept of obligation. Rather, he has described a meansend relationship. In Ethics Herder, we read: The ethics of our author [Baumgarten] . . . always wrongly presupposes the broad concept of obligation, to which he attributes motivating grounds of utility, merely, in an improper sense of the term “ethics.” For only he performs a morally good action, who does it from principles, not as a means, but as an end.26

Still, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant holds that Baumgarten calls good what is a means to happiness.27 It is in response to Baumgarten that Kant brackets all questions regarding the motivation to act morally, because as long as theoretical cognition of an object has to precede the determination of the will, the immediate or unconditional necessity of moral obligation cannot be comprehended. The alleged primacy of theoretical cognition and a morality that builds on it leads into a circle, because it already presupposes what it needs to make comprehensible. Baumgarten’s theory is

23 24 25

26 27

GMS 4:409, my emphasis. Cf. KpV 5:151ff. GMS 4:408. KrV A54–5/B79; A550–1/B578–9. Cf. Robert Louden, “The Second Part of Morals,” in Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, ed. Brian Jacobs et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 60–84; Robert Louden, “Making the Law Visible:  The Role of Examples in Kant’s Ethics” in Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals:  A  Critical Guide, ed. Jens Timmermann, (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2009), 63–81. VE 27:14. KpV 5:58–9.

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a paradigm case of a heteronomous theory of morality, an Allgemeine Praktische Weltweisheit.28 Thus, Kant isolates a principium diiudicationis and declares that only this principle belongs to pure morality, not empirical principles of execution or means of implementation. By not distinguishing between the principium diiudicationis and executionis of morality, Kant says, “everything was false in morality.”29 Only the objective principle of diiudication is the topic of pure moral philosophy; everything else is part of empirical anthropology.30 Kant splits practical philosophy into a merely formal principle, which is meant to explain the unconditionality of the supreme principle of obligation, and material principles of execution and implementation belonging to sensibility. As Kant puts it in his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation, the formal principle of moral obligation is the “paradigm” of “NOUMENAL PERFECTION,” “which can only be conceived by the pure understanding and which is a common measure for all other things in so far as they are realities.”31 Everything empirical is here dismissed from Kant’s idea of a metaphysics of morals. “Virtue, and with it human wisdom in its entire purity, are ideas.”32 In the metaphysics of morals we must abstract from all human conditions, the application and its hindrances in concreto. We only look for the canon, which is a pure and universally valid idea.33

Prior to the Groundwork, Kant does not tell us how the pure moral law can affect an actual human will. Kant simply assumes that it is possible.34 Kant’s 28 29

30

31 32 33

34

Cf. KpV 5:64; GMS 4:390, 441. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 56. Cf. Ibid., 40, 106; VE 27:97–8, 145; Refl 19:112, 117, 131, 135, 167, 199. Cf. Manfred Kühn, Introduction to Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie, by Immanuel Kant (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), xxviii. MSI 2:395–6. KrV A569/B597. Refl 19:172. Cf. TG 2:334–5; MSI 2:396; Br 10:97–8; KrV A61/B85, A533/B561, A554/B582; Refl 17:483–4, 515–16, 520, 552–3, 589; Refl 18:89; Refl 19:120, 230–1, 233; VL 24:481; VM 28:173; VPE 29:12. Cf. Schmucker, Ursprünge der Ethik, 148–255, 389–91; Paul Menzer, “Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik in den Jahren 1760 bis 1785,” Kant-Studien 3(1–3) (1899b): 49–51; Klaus Reich, Die Tugend in der Idee: Zur Genese von Kants Ideenlehre, in Gesammelte Schriften: Mit Einleitung und Annotationen aus dem Nachlass, ed. Manfred Baum et al., (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2001), 306–13; Clemens Schwaiger, Kategorische und Andere Imperative: Zur Entwicklung von Kants praktischer Philosophie bis 1785 (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1999), 81–95. Kant’s formal law of morality is a completely ahistorical product built upon a “conception of a fully proper rational will—which for Kant is still something that we must always conceptualize in terms of a divine will” (Karl Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 57). “I assume that there are really pure moral laws, which determine completely a priori (without regard to empirical motives, i.e., happiness) the action and omission, i.e., the use of the freedom of a rational being in general” (KrV A807/B835). Cf. KrV A555/B583.

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replacement of the Wolff/Baumgartian foundation of morality in a theory of action with the idea of formal universality splits morality into an a priori (mundus intelligibilis) and an empirical part (mundus sensibilis), which ultimately will require a middle term connecting these two parts. Kant finds this middle term in his conception of moral feeling understood as an affective response to pure reason. Kant’s deduction of the moral law through the fact of reason, which I will discuss in more detail below, shows that moral feeling is an expression of objective rationality in subjective aesthetic terms. For this reason, moral feeling is a rational/sensible hybrid, and because it shows that pure reason is practical, it functions as a middle term connecting the transcendental and empirical levels of agency. It is important to emphasize from the outset that moral feeling is a subjective affective state produced by an agent’s commitment to an objective practical principle, but that it is not meant to directly motivate ethical conduct: And so respect for the law is not the incentive to morality; instead it is morality itself subjectively considered . . . inasmuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the claims of self-love in opposition with its own, supplies authority to the law.35

Many authors in the recent literature have ascribed a direct motivational role to the feeling of respect as competing with other empirical motivating grounds. It should be obvious that such authors essentially subscribe to a Baumgartian picture of moral agency, which Kant explicitly rejects. Kant’s theory of morality is not a theory of one set of motivating grounds outweighing another set of motivating grounds. For example, McCarty has claimed that moral feelings are always comparable to the subjective forces of alternative and competing motivational states. The “strength” of a motive force, in other words, is always gauged in relation to other motive forces coexisting in the agent’s psychology . . . Consequently, when we refer to respect as a motivating feeling, we refer implicitly also to all other, comparable feelings in the motivational economy of the moral agent.36

A similarly mechanistic view of competing desires is attributed to Kant by Grenberg, who holds that “the relative strengths of . . . desires and aversions . . . constitute an agent’s drives to action . . . and are what determines action.”37 35

36

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KpV 5:76, my emphases. Cf. Henrich, “Das Problem der Grundlegung,” 372–5; Allison, Theory of Freedom, 127–8. Richard McCarty, Kant’s Theory of Action (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2009), 178, my emphasis. Jeanine Grenberg, “Feeling, Desire and Interest in Kant’s Theory of Action,” Kant-Studien 92(2) (2001): 163.

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That to which an agent is ultimately moved by her desire will depend upon the strength of a particular feeling in relation to others, upon how the agent represents that feeling to herself in relation to her other feelings, and upon her overall sensible state.38

Grenberg argues that because motives of self-love are inextirpable impulses, they need to be overcome by other impulses that are actively endorsed by the rational agent, that is, the superior and stronger force determines action: “An agent depends upon being moved to action through the influence of feeling on the faculty of desire.”39 All of this is Baumgarten talk: pleasures determine action. The distinction between “two main types of drives:  practical feeling or mere desire on the one hand, and more rational interests on the other,”40 is just Baumgarten’s distinction between the lower and higher faculty of desire. McCarty’s and Grenberg’s positions are compatible with Baumgarten’s theory of moral obligation, but not with Kant’s. For Kant, the spontaneity of adopting a rule is independent of pleasure, desire, and interest.41 This requires us to rethink the proper function of Kant’s conception of moral feeling. On my reading, Kant’s deduction of the moral law through the fact of reason establishes the general possibility of mediating concepts between the a priori foundation of morality and empirical agency, but it does not aim to establish moral feeling as itself motivating moral agency. The feeling of respect for the moral law is the sensible expression of the authoritative status of the moral law. Neither the authority nor the motivational grip of the moral law stems from the feeling of respect. As Sherman has correctly put it: Kant’s claim is that practical reason motivates us directly (that is, we take a direct interest in [the] principle of pure practical reason), but in addition, insofar as we are affective creatures, we experience that determination affectively, as respect. Respect is not itself a separate source of motivation. Rather, it is the effect of moral motivation on feeling.42

Kant’s conception of moral feeling as the sensible expression of a purely intellectual law is key to understanding his theory of mediating concepts in section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue as building a bridge between the a priori foundation of morality and empirical agency. The mediating concepts of 38 39 40 41 42

Ibid. Grenberg, “Feeling, Desire and Interest,” 164. Cf. Ibid., 155f. Grenberg, “Feeling, Desire and Interest,” 172. MSTL 6:384–5. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 176.

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the Transition Project are located between the a priori and empirical territories of morality.43 If moral feeling played a direct epistemic or motivational role, it would have to be located at the level of empirical agency, which Kant clearly rejects, as we will see in more detail in the next chapter. Kant’s deduction of the moral law through the fact of reason shows that the feeling of respect for the moral law originates in an agent’s own rational activity. Since it is only in specific empirical contexts that the feeling of respect affects a particular self, we can say that the moral feeling of respect connects the universal foundation of agency with quite particular empirical agents. Let me briefly elaborate on this point. Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason argues from the reality of the moral law to transcendental freedom. 44 The fact of reason reveals a certain kind of freedom, namely, self-legislating agency that is independent of contingent desires and interests. Moral feeling is not a contingent aspect of human agency, but rather it is the ratio cognoscendi of an agent’s universal commitment to rationality. 45 Respect is a feeling that is self-wrought by means of a moral judgment.46 It is the sensible effect of rationality on embodied agents: consciousness of our autonomy through the feeling of respect “is not an empirical fact but the sole fact of pure reason.”47 Kant’s whole point of saying that the feeling of respect forces itself upon us as a fact of reason is to insist that it is the immediate product of rational deliberation, and that it cannot be deduced otherwise.48 Moral feeling is the product of moral reflection. The practical judgment comes first, and the moral feeling of respect accompanies this judgment.49 The objective validity of the moral law is thus legitimized through its immediate practical evidence. Kant’s famous gallows examples show how agents become conscious of autonomy, namely, through an affective aesthetic

43 44

45 46 47 48

49

Cf. Op 21:524–6. Cf. Dieter Henrich, “Die Deduktion des Sittengesetzes:  Über die Gründe der Dunkelheit des Letzten Abschnittes von Kants ‘Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,’ ” in Denken im Schatten des Nihilismus:  Festschrift für Wilhelm Weischedel zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Alexander Schwan (Darmstadt:  Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), 55–112; Allison, Theory of Freedom, 214–29. For a different view, see:  Reinhard Brandt, “Der Zirkel im Dritten Abschnitt von Kant’s ‘Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,’ ” in Kant: Analysen, Probleme, Kritik, ed. Hariolf Oberer et al. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1988), 169–91. KpV 5:5n. Cf. GMS 4:401n; KpV 5:76. KpV 5:31. “Hence the objective reality of the moral law cannot be proved by any deduction, by any efforts of theoretical reason, speculative or empirically supported” (KpV 5:47). Cf. KpV 5:42, 72; VE 27:1428; VM 28:271. Cf. MSTL 6:406, 448, 454, 464.

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response. Consciousness of autonomy and the moral feeling of respect cannot be separated. The feeling of respect is thus a necessary product of practical deliberation and it occurs at the intersection of universal and empirical aspects of moral agency. For, the “voice of reason” that “so distinct, so irrepressible, and so audible to even the most common human beings”50 announces that an action ought and can be done irrespective of any sensible interest, does so only in particular circumstances, and for a particular individual who is deliberating a specific problem.51 On the one hand (re: universal), the fact of reason expresses the ineliminable commitment to rationality. Agents can only distinguish their agency from physical causation insofar as they take their agency as expressive of rules that they have adopted themselves. What constitutes agency is thus the idea of autonomy. An agent exempting herself from the moral law in virtue of a freely adopted maxim is violating the law that is constitutive of her own freedom. That is why even the commonest understanding must acknowledge the bindingness of the law of autonomy. The notion of respect is thus always directed to persons qua personhood, not to an agent’s specific practical identity.52 As Ameriks rightly remarks, the “meaning of ‘self ’ in Kantian Self-legislation is . . . tied to the nature or structure of reason itself, not to the self in any mere empirical or psychological or physical sense.”53 On the other hand (re: empirical), the fact of reason is always experienced by individual agents who are reflecting on whether or not to act on a specific empirical maxim. Kant elucidates this through the example of an agent who is ordered by a tyrant to bear false witness against an innocent person. In the gallows example, it is clear that the Kantian virtuous agent is strongly inclined to save her life in such circumstances. She experiences the fact of reason as a constraint imposed on her. She also recognizes that she is the author of that constraint. Thus, Kant holds that the feeling of respect involves both a negative feeling, because the moral law restrains our self-love, and a positive feeling of self-approbation.54 The feeling of respect for law requires an agent’s quite specific practical deliberation.55 50 51 52

53 54 55

KpV 5:35. KpV 5:42. Cf. KpV 5:73, 76, 88; TP 8:283. KpV 5:76. Cf. Konstantin Pollok, “Kant und Habermas über das Principium Executionis Moralischer Handlungen,” in Moralische Motivation:  Kant und die Alternativen, ed. Heiner Klemme et  al. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2006), 197–8. See Karl Ameriks, Interpreting Kant’s Critiques (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 262–81. KpV 5:72–3. Cf. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 177; Munzel, Moral Character, 126–32, 296–313. “Sensible feeling, which underlies all our inclinations, is indeed the condition of that feeling we call respect” (KpV 5:75). I am here indebted to Melissa Zinkin, “Respect for the Law and the Use of Dynamical Terms in Kant’s Theory of Moral Motivation,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 88(1) (2006):31–53.

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As Kleingeld puts it, “Kant’s account of the fact of reason is, therefore, radically agent based. The argument is developed from the agent’s point of view.”56 Because the feeling of respect affects a particular self only in the context of specific cases of practical deliberation, we can say that moral feeling connects the universal and contingent aspects of moral agency. The notion of respect for the moral law introduces the hybrid construction of a moral feeling that is the effect of the authoritative status of a rational law on an embodied agent. Kant’s theory of moral feeling thus establishes the general possibility of concepts mediating between mundus intelligibilis and mundus sensibilis by showing that practical judgments have a necessary effect on the sensibility of agents. Practical judgments and moral feeling are inseparable.

A priori foundation and empirical open-endedness of ethics Since the deduction of transcendental freedom through the fact of reason presupposes cognition of particular moral commands, the question arises how these particular commands are generated. Although the principle of morality is a priori, the concepts of desire and inclination, “which are all of empirical origin” must “necessarily” be included “in the composition of the system [of duties],” namely as hindrance that needs to be overcome or incentives that must not be made the motivating ground to action.57 Putting this point slightly differently, the motive to act from duty is essentially one-dimensional. The singleness of the motive of duty arises from Kant’s fundamental goal—pursued in the Groundwork—to separate the many contingent motivating grounds of prudential agency from an unconditioned motivating ground. Because the separation of morality from prudence leaves Kant with a single moral motivating ground, he rightly says that, strictly speaking, there is just one duty, namely, to act from the motive of duty.58 Given the one-dimensionality of moral motivation, how do agents determine ethical ends? 56

57 58

Pauline Kleingeld, “Moral Consciousness and the ‘Fact of Reason,’ ” in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide, ed. Andrews Reath et al. (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press), 72. That the fact of reason only occurs in the context of specific commands is also pointed out by Dieter Schönecker, “Kant’s Moral Intuitionism:  The Fact of Reason and Moral Predispositions,” Kant Studies Online (2013): 15–16. KrV B29. VAMS 23:417–18. Cf. 6: MSTL 394–5, 406, 447; Mary J. Gregor, Laws of Freedom: A Study of Kant’s Method of Applying the Categorical Imperative in the Metaphysik der Sitten (New York:  Barnes and Noble, 1963), 64, 70, 74.

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The “supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue” states that “the human being is an end for himself as well as for others.” This makes it an agent’s general “duty to make the human being as such his end.”59 But what does it mean to make the human being an end in specific circumstances? In this respect, the principle of the doctrine of virtue is undetermined. With the formal conception of obligation as necessitation through the moral law, specific human obligations are not yet determined. In addition, ethics requires material conditions specifying the idea of self-legislation with respect to concrete aspects of human agency. The content of specific ethical duties can only be determined in an empirical context, because ethical duties aim at securing an agent’s self-determination in the light of inclinations and passions, which hinder the exercise of the free power of choice: “There is only one principle of practical reason . . . the law of autonomy, but there are different ways to fall away from autonomy,” and the different ethical laws “instruct us not to fall away from our autonomy in these different ways.”60 The ways in which agents can act inconsistently with the idea of autonomy are infinite. For example, lying, avarice, and servility are three types of action that make inner freedom impossible.61 Many other types of conduct could easily be added. Exactly which purposes are essential to the will—besides the two general obligatory ends of one’s own perfection and other’s happiness—cannot be determined from pure reason alone. The metaphysics of morals requires anthropological knowledge for its application. Thus, Kant says, the special determination of duties as human duties, with a view to classifying them, is possible only after the subject of this determination (the human being) is cognized as he is really constituted.62

Because specific duties need to be determined in relation to general anthropological facts and specific empirical situations, it is unclear how ethics could ever be more than an aggregate of rules. Kant’s conception of ethics is essentially dynamic, that is, open to dealing with changing circumstances, because there is only one a priori virtue, namely, to act from a virtuous disposition (to which 59

60

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MSTL 6:395. Cf. “The ground of this principle is:  rational nature exists as an end in itself.” (GMS 4:428) Cf. GMS 4:431. Christine M. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 71–2. I am speaking loosely here. An agent is still exercising her inner freedom when she lies, but she is exercising it “deficiently.” For two senses of inner freedom, as capacity and as developed capacity, see, e.g., Stephen Engstrom, “The Inner Freedom of Virtue,” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, ed. Mark Timmons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 289–315. KpV 5:8. Cf. GMS 4:412. See also Oliver Thorndike, “Understanding Kant’s Claim that ‘Morality Cannot Be Without Anthropology,’ ” in Rethinking Kant, vol. 1, ed. Pablo Muchnik (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 109–35.

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Kant also refers as moral character), and many empirical virtues.63 Accordingly, Kant says that ethics “is an inexhaustible field” (ein unerschöpfliches Feld).64 The dynamic aspect of Kant’s ethics is encapsulated in Kant’s conception of ethics as a doctrine of virtue. Virtue is self-constraint, that is, strength in ruling over the empirical variety of human inclinations. Empirical anthropology tells us what these inclinations, affects, and desires, are. Kant says, Virtue is the capacity to control one’s inclinations as hindrances to practical reason . . . The difference of inclinations conceived of as hindrances thus constitutes the material difference of virtue, and, therefore, there are many virtues.65

Virtue is understood as denying external factors the authority over an agent’s choices. If this is so, then the determination of specific duties always involves an a priori and an empirical aspect. Autonomy is merely the formal principle of ethical action, which itself requires sensible conditions of application, such as current psychological states. Thus, Kant stresses how important empirical observations are that elucidate the general conditions under which phenomena such as avarice, love of honor, or servility occur. He also stresses the need for particular self-knowledge: individual agents need to reflect on their specific motives. Think of the Groundwork, where Kant rejects specific maxims such as “the act of lying for contingent interests,” or “the act of suicide to prevent psychological hardship.” Kant’s ethics rejects maxims:  acts-in-order-to-achieve-ends. Not everything in this “package” is a priori.66 The indeterminacy of Kant’s conception of ethics makes it necessary to inquire into the exact relationship between the a priori foundation of morality and its open-ended application. Siep, for example, has asked how we are to understand Kant’s claim that “ethics can also be defined as the system of the ends of pure practical reason.”67 How can pure practical reason have ends?68 Even if one accepts Kant’s argument, outlined in the third Critique and the Religion, that the ultimate end of pure practical reason generates two ends that are also duties, namely one’s own perfection and other’s happiness, what does Kant’s moral theory say about the relationship between these two a priori ends and the empirical multiplicity of ethical ends that we ought to pursue in everyday life? If ethics is open-ended, in

63 64 65 66 67 68

See MSTL 6:394–5, 406, 410. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 358. VAMS 23:388. Cf. VAMS 23:384; MSTL 6:477. Cf. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 82. MSTL 6:381. Ludwig Siep, “Wozu Metaphysik der Sitten?” in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten: Ein kooperativer Kommentar, ed. Otfried Höffe (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 31–44.

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what sense can we speak of ethics as a system? For example, Kant announces in the Groundwork that he intends to “publish some day” the system of morals under the title of a “metaphysics of morals.”69 What does systematicity here mean, and why is it required? Does Kant here merely mean the complete division of duties, and if yes, how can it be derived a priori?70 Siep’s argument runs as follows: (1) A metaphysics of morals must be cleansed of everything empirical and, hence, must exclude all anthropological knowledge.71 (2) The published Metaphysics of Morals explicitly includes anthropology.72 (3) Therefore, Kant’s conception of the metaphysics of morals must be incoherent. Siep rightly insists that the Doctrine of Virtue, that is, the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals, can by no means be conceived of as pure because Kant defines virtue as “the capacity and considered resolve to withstand . . . what opposes the moral disposition within us” and thus to overcome hindrances to the fulfillment of duty.73 Insofar as human hindrances can only be known empirically, it is either incoherent to include the doctrine of virtue in a metaphysics of morals or it is a weakening of Kant’s demand for purity. It is mysterious, Siep asserts, what the “completeness of pure philosophy as metaphysics of morals” would consist of, given that already “the metaphysical first principles” contain anthropological concepts such as inclination, hindrance, and happiness.74 “If the doctrine of virtue is to be presented as a science,” then it “must be systematic and not fragmentary,” Kant stresses.75 But how is a systematic doctrine of virtue possible? In order to address Siep’s concern, and in order to see why it hits an essential nerve of Kant’s moral philosophy, it is helpful to point out that Kant designs both the metaphysics of morals and the metaphysics of nature to ground empirical sciences, namely, ethics and physics, respectively. In the preface of the Groundwork, Kant distinguishes between an a priori part of morality cleansed of everything empirical, called metaphysics of morals, and its empirical counterpart, called practical anthropology or doctrine of virtue—Kant uses these terms synonymously—which determines laws for the human will insofar as he is affected by nature.76 In his lecture on ethics of the same time, Kant makes the same distinction: 69 70 71 72 73 74

75 76

GMS 4:391. Cf. MSRL 6:219; MSTL 6:375. GMS 4:421n. GMS 4:389. MSRL 6:216–17. MSTL 6:380. Siep, “Wozu Metaphysik,” 36–7: “It thus seems that Kant has weakened the Groundwork’s demand for purity in the later Metaphysics of Morals.” My translation. MSTL 6:478. GMS 4:388. Cf. GMS 4:387, 410n.

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The metaphysics of morals, or metaphysica pura, is only the first part of morality; the second part is philosophia moralis applicata, moral anthropology, to which empirical principles belong. Just as there is metaphysics and physics, so the same applies here . . . Moral anthropology is morality applied to men. Moralia pura is based upon necessary laws, and hence it cannot be founded upon the particular constitution of man. The particular constitution of man, and the laws based upon it, come to the fore in moral anthropology under the name of ethics.77

Kant intends the metaphysics of morals to ground and precede ethics in the same way as the metaphysics of nature grounds and precedes empirical physics. The doctrine of virtue is an empirical discipline, in which the idea of self-determination is applied to “the hindrances of the feelings, inclinations, and passions to which human beings are more or less subject.”78 Ethics is the counterpart to pure morality. Whereas the latter deals with the homo noumenon, the former deals with the empirical homo phenomenon.79 The relationship between the a priori and empirical parts of Kant’s theory of morality is a foundational one: ethical laws are founded on a priori principles, from which they derive their necessity. The notion “metaphysics of morals” must thus be reserved for the a priori foundation of the system of morals, but it is not yet the system of empirically determined ethical duties itself.80 Siep is absolutely right in questioning what a system of morals would amount to given the dynamic character of Kant’s ethics, but he is wrong in accusing Kant of watering down his conception of a metaphysics of morals. Kant consistently holds onto the distinction between a pure and an applied part of a science, which, as we have seen in Chapter 1, stands in the Wolffian tradition. Siep’s legitimate worry is that the categorical imperative alone can neither determine the manifold obligatory ends of human beings nor whether they form a system or not, because the restrictions necessary to formulate obligatory ends are contingent. Many scholars have thought to overcome this problem by comparing the notion of “matter in general” of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science with the concept of a “human being in general” in the Doctrine of Virtue. For example, Gregor writes: 77 78 79

80

VE 29:599, my translation. KrV A54–5/B79. Cf. VPE 29:12. KrV A550–1/B578–9. Cf. Louden, Impure Ethics, 62–106; Louden, “The Second Part of Morals,” 60–84. Cf. Rüdiger Bittner, “Das Unternehmen einer Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,” in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten: Ein kooperativer Kommentar, ed. Otfried Höffe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 14–16, 29.

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In practical metaphysics the minimal a posteriori elements are characterized more vaguely as what pertains to “men considered simply as men,” and include man’s various instincts, inclinations and powers . . . A metaphysics of morals . . . will limit empirical elements and thereby be able to give an a priori, and hence exhaustive, enumeration of the duties of men qua men.81

To begin with, Kant never argued that empirical elements could be enumerated exhaustively. The project of deriving a multiplicity of ethical duties out of desires, which any human being can be expected to have, or general conditions of rational self-determination, which every human being can be expected to rely on, is empirical, and thus cannot be compared to Kant’s a priori construction of matter in general. As I have shown in detail in Chapter 1, Kant has a philosophical argument for why the two matter constituting forces of matter in general, repulsion and attraction, are a priori forces, and why further a priori forces beyond these two cannot be thought, which is why any other more specific empirical forces must be conceived of as modifications of these two fundamental forces. Kant’s alleged a priori conception of humanity in general, however, is an empirical generalization. The derivation of duties of virtue from the conditions for rational agency is not a priori, because the things that undermine the conditions for rational agency—be this for all humans across all contexts, or with respect to certain cultural/institutional arrangements and contexts—can only be determined empirically. Kant does not have an a priori anthropology analogous to the a priori concept of matter in general. An enumeration of “man’s various instincts, inclinations and powers” cannot provide an a priori determination of what the human being qua human being ought to do. Gregor’s distinction between human nature in general and “contingent circumstances and conditions”82 is an empirical distinction. Allen Wood, to provide another example, points out that a metaphysics of morals is limited to those duties that can be derived from the pure principle of morality via its application to human nature in general (as opposed to human nature in specific conditions).83 Wood does not say what the concept of human nature in general contains, that is, what the anthropological constants are to which the pure principle of morality is applied. Like Gregor, he mentions the concept of matter in general as a parallel concept, but does not further explain this parallel.84 81 82 83 84

Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 14–15. Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 14–15. Allen W. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 196. Wood, Ethical Thought, 385–6. See also his Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 60.

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The importance of Siep’s train of thought consists in forcing us to challenge the predominant view that Kant’s system of duties is somehow unfolded a priori, in response to certain characteristics and situations, against the background that commentators fail to sufficiently explain what “a priori” here means.85 On the one hand, there is a whole school of recent scholars that does not sufficiently explain how empirical considerations can play a systematic role in a theory that is decidedly a priori, or that, by putting all the weight on the latitude of ethics, fails to address how empirical considerations are supposed to be connected to the a priori foundation of morality, making the connection between the a priori principle of autonomy and empirical agency conventional. Wood, for example, writes that there “will always be questions about how far the requirements of morality can be brought under stable rules and how far they must be left to individual judgments about particular circumstances.”86 It has become fashionable to argue that Kant is not a rigorist, by emphasizing the indeterminacy in the latitude of choice.87 But without addressing how exceptions to otherwise binding ethical maxims can be morally determined, this cannot be seen as a satisfactory Kantian approach. For, in order to think of exceptions in the Kantian system, the categorical imperative would need to lose its obligatory force. On the other hand, those scholars who criticize, with good reason, interpretations that attempt to incorporate empirical considerations into Kant’s conception of pure morality, seem rather insensitive to the legitimate motivation of their colleagues for doing so, and fail to provide a viable alternative to the allegedly too empirically minded readings they criticize.88 I think we should reject this alternative. The Kantian position does not face the question of either stability (pure rationality) or individual judgment (embodied agency). The Transition Project is Kant’s attempt to stay clear of these two extremes, because it is designed to fill the gap between the pure and applied part of ethics. But where lies the boundary between these two parts? Kant clearly invites the parallel between matter in general and human nature 85

86 87

88

See, for example, Claudia M. Schmidt, “The Anthropological Dimension of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals,” Kant-Studien 96(1) (2005):  66, 70, 73, 77. For similar views, see Alix Cohen, Kant and the Human Sciences:  Biology, Anthropology and History (London:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 90; Louden, Impure Ethics, 168; Annemarie Pieper, “Ethik als Verhältnis von Moralphilosophie und Anthropologie:  Kants Entwurf einer Transzendentalpragmatik und ihre Transformation durch Apel,” Kant-Studien 69(1–4) (1978): 314–29. Wood, Kantian Ethics, 64. E.g., Wood, Kantian Ethics; Thomas E. Hill, Human Welfare and Moral Worth (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2002). See, for example, Nandi Theunissen, “Kant’s Commitment to Metaphysics of Morals,” European Journal of Philosophy (2013): doi: 10.1111/ejop.12051.

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in general through his many remarks on a twofold metaphysics, a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics of morals. If this parallel is supposed to be more than a groping among mere concepts, then we should first acknowledge that Kant’s a priori construction of matter in general cannot be seen on a par with his empirical endeavors in the Doctrine of Virtue. Instead, I suggest the following parallel: just as the concept of matter in general is an application of the transcendental conditions of cognition to something that is empirically given in space, so the categorical imperative is the formula of all moral necessitation for a rational but finite will. This means, the categorical imperative already represents an application of the moral law (autonomy) to sensibility in general. All other duties of the Doctrine of Virtue presuppose contingent circumstances and conditions and thus fall under the empirical science of ethics. Herein it would parallel the problems Kant discusses in the “General Remark to Dynamics.” Kant conceives of laws of freedom (Sittengesetze) in analogy to laws of nature (Naturgesetze). In the preface to the Metaphysical Foundations, which is composed at roughly the same time as the Groundwork,89 Kant claims that any genuine science must meet two criteria: first, apodictic certainty of its laws, and second, systematic unity of its cognitions.90 Because moral philosophy is conceived of as a metaphysics, which lays the foundation for a system of duties, Kant claims that the doctrine of virtue (ethics), also needs metaphysical first principles, so that it can be set forth as a genuine science (systematically) and not merely as an aggregate of precepts sought out by one (fragmentarily).91

That the published Metaphysics of Morals presents hardly anything more than an aggregate of fragmentary precepts is commonly acknowledged in the literature.92 It is important to explain why, given the open-endedness of ethics and

89

90 91 92

The Groundwork was finished by September 19, 1784 and published by March 1785. The Metaphysical Foundations was finished during the summer of 1785. Cf. Bernd Ludwig, Introduction to Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre: Metaphysik der Sitten Erster Teil, by Immanuel Kant (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1998), xvii. MAN 4:468. MSTL 6:375. Cf. KrV A841/B869, A850/B878. See Paul Guyer, Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 259; Bernd Ludwig, Introduction to Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre: Metaphysik der Sitten Zweiter Teil, by Immanuel Kant, xiii–xxviii (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1990), xvii–xxiii; Andrea Esser, Eine Ethik für Endliche: Kant’s Tugendlehre in der Gegenwart (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2004), 344–8; Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 115; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 90. Cf. MSRL 6:219, and my detailed discussion in Chapter 3, “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum.”

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Kant’s numerous remarks indicating that ethical duties in virtue of their indeterminacy lack the necessity and completeness required for a system,93 it is a philosophical task to present the systematicity of divers laws. The answer to this question has to do with Kant’s notion of science and lawfulness. Both nature and freedom are essentially tied to the concept of law.94 The concept of nature is “synonymous” with law-governed experience, because “all empirical laws are only particular determinations of the pure laws of the understanding.”95 Physics is possible as a science of the systematic exposition of appearances only insofar as it has its epistemological foundation in the a priori constraints of experience in general. Metaphysics grounds physics, and it is this grounding relation that provides necessity to empirical laws. Kant argues that ethical laws, too, require an a priori foundation. As nature is synonymous with lawfulness, so freedom is synonymous with moral laws unifying the use of freedom into a coherent whole. Morality is “freedom in general under laws.”96 Since all moral obligations are grounded in the sole principle of morality, abandoning the idea of a systematic unity of laws would entail abandoning the idea of a lawful restriction of freedom. The requirement of systematicity is an essential ingredient of the notion of autonomy, because the consistency of maxims is a presupposition of rational agency, just as the systematicity of natural laws is a presupposition for a rational explanation of the universe. This not only implies that Kant must be committed to the claim that there cannot be a conflict of duties,97 it also requires to assign a systematic role to moral judgment to hierarchically order moral principles. The closer determination of moral principles under empirical circumstances call[s] upon judgment to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, and indeed in such a way that judgment provides another (subordinate) maxim (and one can always ask for yet another principle for applying this maxim to cases that may arise).98

A hierarchy of maxims envisions (as a regulative idea of the faculty of judgment) the possibility of a systematic limitation (under empirical conditions) upon the general prohibitions and commands of ethics. With respect to the conditions of 93 94 95

96

97 98

MSTL 6:447; VAMS 23:417. KpV 5:19–20. Cf. KpV 5:26, 30, 43, 46, 47, 51; GMS 4:446–7. KrV A127–8. Cf. Refl 19:239; MAN 4:468–9; KrV A645/B673. For a detailed discussion, see Chapter 1, “Kant’s philosophia naturalis” and “Friedman’s account of the necessity of a Transition” under the head “Alternative accounts of the Transition Project.” Refl 19:239. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 64–5, 177–8; Refl 19:239–40; GMS 4:447, 450; KpV 5:4n, 29, 70; RGV 6:97. MSRL 6:224. MSTL 6:411.

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the possibility of such a hierarchy, which is here postulated as a regulative tool, Kant says in the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: But a wide duty is not to be taken as permission to make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as permission to limit one maxim of duty by another (e.g., love of one’s neighbor in general [allgemeine Nächstenliebe] by love of one’s parents), by which in fact the field of the practice of virtue is widened.99

Here the limitation of one maxim of duty is envisioned via another maxim of duty. Some Kant interpreters have not been too sympathetic to the idea expressed in this passage. Wood, for example, writes that the “theorists most hopelessly addicted to rules are those who cannot imagine making an exception to a rule unless there is some other rule telling them when to do so.”100 I think it is important to understand why Kant must indeed be “addicted” to rules. A free will and a will under maxims are one and the same.101 Autonomous agency is condemned to be rule-governed, because the most fundamental act of autonomous choice is to adopt rules.102 Only the adoption of maxims provides reasons for action. When agents need to prioritize among rules, they must do so through another free, autonomous choice, that is, through another rule. Otherwise they abandon autonomy, loose autonomous control of their lives, and the most fundamental principle of Kant’s moral philosophy would be inapplicable to everyday conduct. Kant’s demand for a limitation of general rules by other rules first makes possible an autonomous self-conception of agents in everyday conduct. This is quite the opposite of an addiction. But how are agents supposed to limit one maxim of duty by another maxim of duty? Kant defines practical principles as “propositions that contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules.”103 For example, the ethical duties of caring for neighbors and foreigners stand under the duty to promote others’ happiness. This means Kant conceives of practical rules as coming in various degrees of generality.104 Allison suggests to think of maxims in analogy with concepts “as arranged hierarchically, with the more general embedded in the more specific, like genera and species.”105 I like to use this 99 100 101 102 103 104

105

MSTL 6:390. Wood, Kantian Ethics, 63. GMS 4:447. E.g., MSTL 6:385. KpV 5:19. Here I use the notions of maxim, rule, and practical principle synonymously. Practical principles are rules that agents freely adopt. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 93.

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suggestion in order to make visible a parallel to the problem of the “Appendix to the Dialectic”: In order to be able to ascribe actions to herself, an agent needs to coherently—hierarchically as genius and species—order her maxims. Empirical judgment must decide in cases in concreto [in vorkommenden Fällen] what is ethical–permissible and what is not. In order to fulfill its task, judgment must assume that cases in concreto are decidable in a noncontingent way. For, without the assumption that it is possible to decide what in cases in concreto is ethical– permissible and what is not, there is no coherent use of ethical principles. And without a possible coherent use under empirical conditions, there is no coherent notion of duty, just as there is no notion of empirical truth unless empirical laws can be assumed to be orderable in a systematic whole.106 This does not mean, and Kant does not say so in the passage cited above, that, in every single case, love of one’s parents must limit love of one’s neighbor. Prioritizing among moral considerations is not based on an a priori algorithm but rather allows for variation and flexibility in judgment. The web of maxims that constitutes an agent as a person is always in flux. There is no a priori hierarchy of principles that will settle all cases once and for all. However, agents need to be able to determine on moral grounds what token duties they have on a given occasion. This choice cannot be made on arbitrary grounds, but requires moral guidance. Unless the Kantian agent can provide a moral account of when and where universally valid principles are or are not sufficient to issue a token obligation, she loses her foothold in the foundation of Kantian morality. This is why the gap between a priori morality and empirical agency must be bridged. In other words, what is required is a transition of intermediate principles guiding empirical judgment. If the progression from the pure part of morals to the empirical part of ethics is not lawful, then agency cannot be morally justified. For this reason, Kant demands a moral transition from principle to action: Just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed— a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals: a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use.107

106

107

Cf. KrV A644/B672, and Chapter 1 “Alternative accounts of the Transition Project” and “The schematism of the Transition Project.” MSTL 6:468.

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This passage is written at the same time as the “Octaventwurf ” of the Opus postumum, in which Kant provides mediating concepts that connect the metaphysics of nature to empirical physics. The idea of a schema is not to replace empirical judgment, but to provide an a priori guidance for it. It is a transition to empirical judgment. Kant’s concept of a schema in the Transition Project is not meant itself to a priori determine the case to which a pure concept is applied, but rather to provide a moral foundation to casuistry that otherwise remains “fragmentary.”108 Casuistry is a tool to reflect on and prioritize maxims. This process of reflection cannot be based on agent-specific interests, because, for Kant, casuistry searches for objective truth.109 It does not express individuated agency that might allow for discretionary exceptions based on agent-specific idiosyncrasies. This means, actualizing the idea of autonomy in the context of situation-specific peculiarities requires moral guidance. Even though it is true that philosophy books do not solve ethical problems, because only agents located in specific circumstances can do that, it is a task pertaining to Kant’s conception of philosophy to show how particular moral rules can be seen as morally justified. Although the Transition Project is a step beyond the a priori foundation of morality, it first makes comprehensible how an agent’s particular web of moral rules can be seen as necessary, that is, morally justified. In other words, the idea of a Transition demands a continuity between universal and local identities of agents. This terminology of universal and local identity stems from Korsgaard, who has used Platonic and Aristotelian ideas to show that choosing principles means to adopt an identity.110 In order to conceive of ourselves as practically free agents, that is, as agents who think of themselves as the authors of their conduct, we need to be able to distinguish human agency from other causes in the world. We do so by relating our actions to maxims. The adoption of maxims, that is, practical principles, stands at the center of Kant’s moral theory. Only in virtue of them can an agent hold herself—as well as others—responsible for her actions, because only through them can agents attribute actions to themselves. Act attribution presupposes that agents can choose on what principle to act. Korsgaard shows that adopting maxims and adopting a practical identity are reciprocal concepts. Her key claim is that an agent is only the author 108 109 110

MSTL 6:411; VAMS 23:389. MSTL 6:411; GMS 4:432. See Christine M. Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1996), 311–31; The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 120–30; and her Self-Constitution. For a good account of Korsgaard’s constructivism, see Laura Papish, “The Changing Shape of Korsgaard’s Understanding of Constructivism,” Journal of Value Inquiry 45(4) (2011): 451–63.

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of her actions as the possessor of a specific personal identity.111 This is so because agency is expressive of principles, and principles are ways in which an agent identifies herself. A practical identity is an agent’s self-conception as a rational agent, in virtue of which it becomes possible for an agent to ascribe actions to herself. There is no autonomy in action without some selfconception, that is, some local identity. This is true also for an agent who is self-deceived about what maxims she acts on. Even an agent with a deluded sense of her practical identity, for example, one who rationalizes the unconditional status of moral reasons, has a local self-conception, because she acts on considerations that she convinces herself to be reasons. Insofar as an agent fails to live up to her practical roles—and the obligations these generate—she has no reasons to act.112 For example, if a fishmonger has adopted the maxim to protect endangered species, and then purchases fish that is endangered because of the profit that trading this particular kind promises, she acts inconsistently with herself. Now, depending on what authors mean by “adopting a maxim,” one could object that buying the endangered species just shows that the person did not in fact sincerely adopt the maxim to protect the species. A maxim is not just a thought or wish but a commitment to act. In this sense, the fishmonger might have a deluded self-conception, or he might be the type of frail person that Kant describes in the Religion.113 My point here is that, regardless of the degree of sincerity of an agent, organization of maxims into a coherent whole is a mandatory requirement for full-fledged personhood. The constitution of an agent as one person requires a coherent web of maxims. Consistency is a necessary condition for having one unitary practical identity. In everyday life, this is not an all-ornothing matter. The more consistent a web of maxims, the more perfect, and less deficient, is the realization of inner freedom. Virtue allows for degrees of realized autonomy—how else could we make sense of the idea of moral progress and striving toward self-perfection?114 Although the particular identity of an agent is contingent—subject to an agent’s biological, social, and personal history—the fact that every agent must be governed by some conception of a practical identity is something universal.115 111 112 113 114

115

Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 125ff.; Sources of Normativity, 120ff. Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, 121. RGV 6:29. Cf. Engstrom, Inner Freedom of Virtue; Grenberg, “What is the Enemy of Virtue?” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, ed. Lara Denis (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2010), 163. Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, 121.

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The fact that only identities give us reasons to do one thing rather than another does not spring from an agent’s particular identity, but is something that is common to all rational agents simply as human beings. This means, from the necessary condition for agency as such—namely, to act from reasons at all, that is, reasons that flow from the local identity an agent has adopted—it follows a universal constraint on rational agency. For any agent, agency is grounded in the same capacity of adopting principles: practical reason. A consistently acting rational agent is compelled to endorse a universal moral identity just in virtue of her having adopted a contingent practical identity. Thus, Korsgaard concludes, “Not every form of practical identity is contingent or relative after all:  moral identity is necessary.”116 Now, one would assume that the normative force of the reasons, which springs from an agent’s local identity, would ultimately stem from the universal value of autonomy, because this is what Kant’s foundational perspective dictates. But this is not what Korsgaard argues. Rather, she interprets the distinction between local and universal identities in such a way that the latter imply generic moral duties that are valid for everyone in virtue of their “rational inescapability,” and then, on top of it, there are more mundane particular obligations whose source of normativity is not morality proper, but an agent’s local identity.117 This view assumes that moral obligations proper stem from our identity as moral agents and are unconditional—such as selfdevelopment, mutual cooperation, and freedom of external coercion, because the elective function of the human faculty of choice depends on them— whereas other obligations are derived from our more contingent identities and are not unconditionally valid. I think that this reading misunderstands what the term “unconditional” means for Kant. Normal life is full with obligations that agents have in their various social roles. These roles depend on contingent circumstances and conditions and do not, at least immediately, imply any inescapable ends valid for all human beings in general. Yet the obligations that agents meet in everyday life are, and must be, unconditionally binding, if they are obligations. The unconditionality of obligations is Kant’s key insight already in the 1762 Prize Essay, and, as the Groundwork argues, what makes duties unconditional is that they are grounded in the idea of autonomy. This means, the incorporation of ends into one’s maxims is free, but the ends themselves are never ends of pure reason; rather, they are always ends

116 117

Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, 122. Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, 120–30, 251–8; Self-Constitution, 32, 83.

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that we pursue as embodied agents.118 This is also true of Korsgaard’s “inescapable” ends, which, however general, cannot be determined a priori. Instead of arguing for two sets of obligations, one expressive of inescapable human projects and one bound up with local identities, I suggest to read Kant as being committed to the view that autonomy, or universal identity, is the foundation of any obligation whatsoever. The empirical variety of duties, which itself always needs to be determined in specific circumstances, is grounded in autonomy. Every obligation is unconditional in the sense that its obligatory force stems from a rule expressing autonomous agency. If, for example, I have adopted the role as a team captain, then my responsibilities are binding independently of competing nonrational desires; and if I do not act on my responsibilities then I thwart my own purposes—which is the basic form of Korsgaard’s notion of practical irrationality. A practical contradiction is a contradiction where a rational agent contradicts her own maxims and thus undermines her rational self-determination.119 Whenever an agent adopts a maxim, she hereby assumes that her practical reason will determine her actions,120 and if an agent acts inconsistently with her web of maxims she undermines her practical self-determination. An imperative expresses a practical necessitation that aims at consistency of human volition, disregarding intervening inclinations and conflicting maxims. Consistency is a constitutive principle of rational agency as such. For example, Kant says: But a human being’s duty to himself as a moral being only . . . consists in what is formal in the consistency of the maxims of his will with the dignity of humanity in his person. It consists, therefore, in a prohibition against depriving himself of the prerogative of a moral being, that of acting in accordance with principles, that is, inner freedom, and so making himself a plaything of the mere inclinations and hence a thing.—The vices contrary to this duty are lying, avarice, and false humility (servility).121

The first part of this quotation describes what it means to be a rational agent. The last sentence then plugs in empirical vices that can be seen to express bad maxims because they undermine rational self-determination. A list of such bad maxims is, of course, open-ended, and cannot yield anything like an a priori system

118

119 120

121

Cf. Jerome B. Schneewind, “Kant and Stoic Ethics,” in Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics:  Rethinking Happiness and Duty, ed. Stephen Engstrom et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 285–301. Korsgaard, Kingdom of Ends, 93, 96. Cf. Konstantin Pollok, “ ‘Wenn Vernunft volle Gewalt über das Begehrungsvermögen hätte’—Über die gemeinsame Wurzel der Kantischen Imperative,” Kant-Studien 98(1) (2007): 57–80. MSTL 6:420.

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of duties. For example, servility can serve an agent’s career hopes and prudential self-interest very well. However, it also undermines the faculty of giving the law to oneself, that is, the dignity of a human person. A servile agent makes it her “basic principle to have no principle.”122 The prohibition on servility is an example of a duty that can be derived from Kant’s conception of inner freedom under empirical anthropological conditions: a servile person does not act from her own reasons. However, from the idea of autonomy alone, the prohibition on servility can certainly not be derived. That a maxim of servility makes rational self-determination impossible, and what kind of behavior in particular counts as servile, can only be known empirically. What specific empirical actions are morally prohibited requires knowledge of the phenomenon of servility, which is embedded in an anthropological, social, historical, natural, and personal context. What we can know a priori is that personhood is bound to the idea of being the first cause of one’s own actions, and that any “self-determination” undermining that capacity will be self-destructive. The prohibition on servility thus holds a priori, that is, in virtue of the principle of autonomy. The idea of autonomy makes a moral prohibition possible in the first place, but it does not generate obligations independently of local maxims. For Kant, the question underlying moral philosophy is:  “What should I do?”123 Accordingly, Korsgaard rightly stresses that maxims are directed at the quite particular actions an agent proposes to perform, which includes the specification of all relevant particular features. Maxims are always specific to the situation at hand; reasons always require a high level of specificity, because otherwise they could not guide conduct.124 Duties arise for a specific person that attempts to solve specific problems in specific circumstances. Maxims specify particular features that an individual agent takes to be relevant in a specific situation. This means maxims always include empirical considerations regarding time, place, and social role. A web of maxims does not exist independently of specific social roles and continually changing specific circumstances, to which virtuous agency must respond. Herein lies the dynamical character of Kant’s conception of ethical duties. This means, for example, that the general duty of beneficence does not provide a reason for action until it is manifested in an agent’s specific role as a neighbor. By caring for my neighbor, I am acting on an unconditional ground,

122

123 124

Ibid. Cf. Esser, Ethik für Endliche, 366–70; Jens Timmermann, “Kantian Duties to the Self, Explained and Defended,” Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 81(3) (2006): 527. KrV A805/B833, my emphasis. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 73ff.

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even though the forms of caring for neighbors differ from culture to culture. Kant’s concept of autonomy requires us to think of the relationship between universal and particular identities of agents as continuous, that is, in terms of a foundational relationship. The value of autonomy grounds any particular local identity. Because there is only one moral foundation—autonomy—there cannot be two qualitatively different sets of duties. All duties must derive their normative force from autonomy. The gap between universal and local identity, and the role of judgment that this necessitates, is also captured through Kant’s conception of the wideness or indeterminacy of ethical duties. Kant capitalizes on the exposition of ethical duties as wide duties in the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue. In three consecutive sections, Kant elaborates on the distinction between wide (duties of virtue) and narrow duties (duties of right). Section VI bears the title “Ethics does not give laws for actions (ius does that) but only for maxims of actions.”125 Section VII is titled “Ethical duties are of wide obligation, whereas duties of right are of narrow obligation.”126 The subsequent section VIII discusses “One’s own perfection as an end that is also a duty” and “The happiness of others as an end that is also a duty” under the title “Exposition of duties of virtue as wide duties.”127 Ethical laws are of wide obligation because they merely prescribe the adoption of obligatory ends: For if the law can only prescribe the maxim of actions, not actions themselves, this is a sign that it leaves a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the law, that is, that the law cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty.128

Because ethical duties are wide duties, ethics cannot determine a priori what specific act is required in the infinite variety of specific situations. Kant’s account of ethics as a doctrine of wide duties is thus designed to deal with the empirical variety of “the different situations in which human beings may find themselves.”129 This dynamic aspect of Kant’s ethics is expressed in his emphasis that virtue must be equipped to deal with changing circumstances. If virtue was not flexible, it could not adapt to varying situations, and, in this case, “like any

125 126 127 128 129

MSTL 6:388. MSTL 6:390. MSTL 6:391–4. MSTL 6:390. Cf. MSRL 6:233; VAMS 23:391, 419. MSTL 6:392.

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other mechanism of technically practical reason, it is neither armed for all situations nor adequately secured against the changes that new temptations could bring about.”130 Kant explicitly conceives of action from duty in opposition to mechanically predictable habit.131 Any kind of habitual response undermines autonomous reflection. Here blind “moral” rigorism is not better than habitual sensuous appetite. In contrast, moral agency is the expression of a moral mode of thought (sittliche Denkungsart), that is, a moral character, which is why the question of how to form a moral character is so central for Kant’s theory of morality.132 Kant emphasizes the endless situations in which agents need to solve practical problems, to which virtuous action must respond. For this reason, Kant makes the casuistry an essential part of the doctrine of virtue.133 Casuistry is not guided by technical and prudential reasoning. Rather, through casuistry agents practice their moral judgment. It is a moral casuistry that provides “practice in how to seek truth.”134 The practice of moral judgment in specific circumstances plays an indispensable role for morality.135 Accordingly, Kant says in the Groundwork that ethical principles “no doubt still require a judgment sharpened by experience . . . to distinguish in what cases they are applicable.”136 The practice of moral judgment enters Kant’s ethical theory in the context of assessing how to apply the pure principles of morality [Anwendung]. The function Kant assigns to a “judgment sharpened by experience” is one separated from the pure part of the metaphysics of morals, but it is still a moral function. For example, during the discussion of the duty against suicide, Kant makes the following remark: I must here pass over a closer determination of this principle [duty against suicide] that would prevent any misinterpretation [zur Vermeidung alles Mißverstandes], e.g., as to having limbs amputated in order to preserve myself, or putting my life in danger in order to preserve my life, and so forth; that belongs to morals proper.137 130 131 132

133 134 135

136 137

MSTL 6:383–4. VAMS 23:289; MSTL 6:383; VAnth 25:1498–9. MSTL 6:387; Anth 7:294–5. See Chapter 3, “Attitudinal function of moral feelings, self-deception, and moral progress” under the head “Implications.” MSTL 6:413. MSTL 6:411. Cf. Herman, Practice of Moral Judgment, 73–93, 132–58; Barbara Herman, Moral Literacy (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 2007), 230–53; Baron, Kantian Ethics, 194–226; Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 141–86; Louden, Impure Ethics, 50. GMS 4:389. GMS 4:429. Cf. GMS 4:404: The function of “morals proper” is “to present the system of morals all the more completely and apprehensibly and to present its rules in a form more convenient for use.”

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Kant here points to the possibility of misinterpretation of the duty against suicide and to the need of a closer determination of this principle. “Morals proper” thus essentially involves a hermeneutical reflection about what morality requires in specific circumstances. Whether “having limbs amputated in order to preserve myself, or putting my life into danger in order to preserve myself, and so forth”138 is a practical rule falling under the duty against suicide is a question that has to be decided by moral judgment. The same systematic point holds with respect to all other cases of the application of duties in specific circumstance. For example, to say that there is an unconditional prohibition on lying means to say that, regardless of the beneficial consequences of an untruthful statement, any person A must not make an untruthful declarative statement (i.e., a statement that A believes to be false) to any other particular person B with the intention to create a false belief in B (i.e., with the intention that B takes the statement to be true). 139 Thus, “between truthfulness and lying . . . there is no mean.”140 However, “there is indeed a mean between candor and reticence . . . Duties of virtue have a latitude in their application ( latitudinem).”141 Whether an agent chooses reticence or candor to instantiate her duty of truthfulness is a question of how to apply the principle of truthfulness. On Kant’s account, someone who is being reticent is being truthful, and someone who is candid is being truthful. A might not be frank, but nevertheless truthful. There is no duty of candor, but a duty of truthfulness: What the honest but reticent man says is true but not the whole truth. What the dishonest man says is, in contrast, something he knows to be false. Such an assertion is called a lie, in the doctrine of virtue.142

The point that I want to emphasize is that Kant clearly distinguishes between the morality of a rule itself (lying vs. truthfulness) and the manner of its application under empirical circumstances (candor vs. reticence), which is ultimately guided by moral concerns:

138 139

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GMS 4:429. I am here indebted to James Edwin Mahon, “The Truth about Kant on Lies,” in The Philosophy of Deception, ed. Clancy Martin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 201–24; and his “Kant and Maria von Herbert: Reticence vs. Deception,” Philosophy 81(3) (2006): 417–44. MSTL 6:433n. Ibid. Br 11:332. Cf. RGV 6:190n.

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Uprightness, and that in its greatest purity, i.e. integrity . . . are natural obligations of man, and so everyone must frame only such utterances as can coexist and agree with the greatest consciousness of truth and the total absence of any consciousness of the opposite. Openheartedness, on the other hand, is subject . . . to those limits beyond which it might bring our worth into contempt . . . Hence concealment, reservation . . . is approved of in ethics.143

Note that Kant’s defense of reticence about one’s private thoughts and feelings is guided by moral concerns (not personal idiosyncrasies): the limits of candor are set by our worth that we ought not bring into contempt. This means, reticence is not necessarily a form of impermissible deception. Quite to the contrary, as Kant’s discussion of defamation, that is, bringing the worth of another person into contempt, makes further clear: here Kant again argues that an all too candid statement is ethically prohibited, “even if what is said is true,” namely, when it “diminishes respect for humanity as such,” and thus we should rather “throw the veil of philanthropy over [other’s] faults,” because the “respect that we give others can arouse their striving to deserve it.”144 Kant gives many examples of simulating respect and benevolence with the intention to eventually promote virtuous agency. This means, also pretense, that is, giving the appearance of what we know is not the case, can be a form of ethically permissible reticence.145 Another such case occurs in Kant’s casuistical questions, where it is again clear that the choice between reticence and candor is a moral choice of how to apply the duty of truthfulness. Consider how Kant phrases this case: “An author asks one of his readers ‘How do you like my work?’ . . . The author will take the slightest hesitation as an insult.”146 What guides the implementation of an ethical maxim is moral concern for the other person as a person, whom we do not want to offend.147 This means, autonomous agency must always take into consideration individual features of the situation. Hence, the role of moral judgment: A moral casuistic would be very useful, and it would be an undertaking much to the sharpening of our judgment, if the limits were defined, as to how far we may be authorized to conceal the truth without detriment to morality.148 143 144 145

146 147

148

VE 27:699. MSTL 6:466. Anth 7:151–2; Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 324–5. Cf. Mahon on permissible deception (Reticence vs. Deception, 425–6). MSTL 6:431. Cf. MSTL 6:433n. On this point, see also Amelie Rorty, “Kant on Two Modalities of Friendship,” in Rethinking Kant, vol. 3, ed. Oliver Thorndike (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 33–51. VE 27:701.

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Some agents are better than others in living an autonomous life, and the reason for this does not lie at the level of principle, but at the level of practicing moral judgment, for which agents are responsible. Thus, if A is truthful to B by telling her in an all too candid way what she thinks about her latest book, she makes a moral mistake, because being too candid conflicts with other obligations. It is for moral reasons that A  should hold back on making certain truthful statements that would be relevant to B’s question.149 At the level of principle, there is no mean between lying and being truthful. But there are, Kant holds, different degrees of candor and reticence in the application of the ethical duty of truthfulness. Thus, even though Kant distinguishes between principle and its implementation, we should not take him to be denying that there is a moral connection between the two. The capacity of moral assessment of duties in specific circumstances needs to be developed through moral training. The evaluation of various options for realizing a principle is a moral evaluation. What matters in such moral evaluations are the reasons that agents provide for their actions. Being truthful (candid) for no good reason is ethically impermissible if it is insensitive to other grounds of obligation, such that truthfulness would better be implemented through reticence. Ethics prescribes wide duties. As one author has formulated it: Although Kant’s ethics are ultimately based on an absolute and exceptionless “categorical imperative” . . . Kant does not derive any absolute prohibitions . . . considered in abstraction from the reasons for which they might be performed . . . In principle Kantian duties can be as fine-grained as our own deliberations about what to do . . . By seriously considering these [casuistical] questions, [Kant] intimates that there are real difficulties here, such that the correct answer cannot be immediately read off of the moral law. If Kant were really a rigorist, there should be little room for any interesting sort of casuistry or practical judgment.150

Because ethical duties are wide duties, ethics requires moral judgment regarding what specific act is required in the infinite variety of specific situations.

149

150

For a similar reading, see Mahon, Reticence vs. Deception, 437; Kant on Lies, 204. For a different reading, see Jens Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience, ‘Indirect’ Duty, and Moral Error,” International Philosophical Quarterly 46(3) (2006): 307; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 80. David Sussman, “On the Supposed Duty of Truthfulness: Kant on Lying in Self-Defense,” in The Philosophy of Deception, ed. Clancy Martin (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2009), 226–7, my emphasis.

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Casuistry and ethical conflict The latitude inherent in the conception of wide duties requires a casuistry, which Kant assigns to empirical judgment. Because the doctrine of virtue contains only wide duties, which are directed toward the maxim of the action but do not determine the action, as is the case in the doctrine of right, there will be a dialectic of practical reason. This occasions a contradiction [Widerstreit] of maxims, which, however, cannot be called an antinomy (for there is no contradiction of laws), but rather a casuistry, i.e., a canon [Inbegriff] of tasks for the power of judgment in order to decide what in cases in concreto [in vorkommenden Fällen] is ethical–permissible or not.151

Kant’s mentioning of the term antinomy is a direct response to Baumgarten, who calls the collisions of moral laws “antinomia.”152 Baumgarten holds that a collision of duties proper must be understood as strictly antinomical such that both a prescriptive and a prohibitive law apply to one and the same action. This is possible within Baumgarten’s theory of morality because Baumgarten conceives of obligation in terms of the “more powerful motivating grounds.”153 In cases of an equilibrium of motivating grounds, an agent is obliged to an action and its opposite equally. Thus, obligations proper can conflict among each other. Since obligation is defined by Baumgarten in terms of the relative strength of motivating grounds, which comes in various degrees, Baumgarten’s system permits of prioritizing various obligations by weighing motivating grounds, and it allows to resolve conflicts between conflicting obligations by adding motivating grounds to break the equilibrium.154 Kant dismisses this account because a moral motivating ground is not quantitatively but qualitatively different from nonmoral motivating grounds.155 Thus Kant corrects the terminology of his author Baumgarten: the contradiction of maxims cannot be called an antinomy. Moral commands are based on reason, and there is no contradiction of reason with itself. At the level of principle, a collision of duties is thus inconceivable (obligationes non colliduntur).156 Neither 151 152

153 154

155 156

VAMS 23:389. Cf. MSTL 6:411. Baumgarten, Initia, §85. Cf. Ibid., §§142–4, and Kant’s commentary in Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 35, 76. See also VE 27:508; Meier, Allgemeine Practische Weltweisheit, §137. Baumgarten, Initia, §§15, 23, 85. Regarding the balance of pleasure and displeasure, and an equilibrium between desire and aversion, see: Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §§656, 661, 670, 674. On this point, see also Dieter Henrich, “Hutcheson und Kant,” Kant-Studien 49(1–4) (1957/58): 53. MSRL 6:224.

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do moral principles contradict themselves nor do they allow for exceptions. It is completely obvious why this must be the case: agents can only distinguish their agency from physical causation insofar as agency is expressive of principles that agents have adopted. To the extent that principles contradict themselves, that is, to the extent that agents cannot rationally justify how to prioritize among various conflicting grounds of obligations, agents cannot conceive of themselves as autonomous. A  conflict of grounds of obligations that cannot in principle be resolved morally undermines the notion of autonomy. Consistency of divers practical principles thus leads to the requirement of systematicity. Agents need to coherently organize their empirical maxims in order to understand themselves as persons. The latitude in the application of duties must be determinable on rational grounds. The problem of contradicting maxims arises at the level of the application of moral principles to specific circumstances. An individual agent might err with respect to which ground of obligation issues a token obligation in a particular situation, but this cannot be called an antinomy between ethical laws themselves. In order to get from principle to action, Kant thus assigns to casuistry a systematic place within the “Doctrine of Elements,”157 which makes casuistry an essential part of Kant’s theory of moral agency. However, casuistry is “neither a science nor a part of a science . . . [it] is not so much a doctrine about how to find something as rather a practice in how to seek truth.”158 The next question is thus: How does empirical judgment decide what is ethical–permissible in specific circumstances? What guides empirical judgment? The question is quite parallel to the question of the Opus postumum: How do scientists search for a true rational coherence of empirical phenomena? In both cases, humans are engaged in a process of discovery and progress. For Kant, the regulative principles that guide this process have to be tied to the constitutive a priori principles. This is where the necessary role of mediating concepts emerges. Kant’s fundamental distinction between heteronomy and autonomy in the Groundwork leads to a theory of moral motivation that is essentially onedimensional (because it is composed in opposition to theories that attempt to ground morality on empirical motivating grounds). This makes it easy for Kant to decide those cases, in which prudential motives collide with moral motives. Kant’s cases in the Groundwork are clear enough: we can be absolutely certain that the maxims of “lying in order to satisfy a contingent desire” and

157 158

MSTL 6:413. MSTL 6:411.

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“committing suicide out of fear” are heteronomous principles, and thus unethical. Kant’s motivational dualism clearly structures his discussion of moral duties in the Groundwork. In all of the four famous cases, an agent attempts to justify the adoption of a maxim by reference to contingent motivating grounds, and Kant’s point is always the same, namely, that duties are unconditionally valid, and their violation cannot be justified by reference to contingent motivating grounds. Whether and how Kant’s moral theory can also account for conflicting moral motives is a different question. The urgency of this question could not surface in the foundational writings of the 1780s, which were written from the perspective of curbing the pretensions of prudentially determined practical reason. These writings led to the motivational dualism at hand, that is, action either done from duty or not. But this dualism is not sufficient to resolve Kant’s casuistic questions of the Doctrine of Virtue, where he asks, for example, whether it would be a case of suicide “to hurl oneself to certain death (like Curtius) in order to save one’s country.”159 Here, two ethical precepts seem to collide: the prohibition on suicide and the promotion of the public good. Thus, Kant asks whether Cato’s suicide could be defended because it seems to rest on a “noble motivating ground,” which he opposes to cases exemplifying “pragmatic motivating grounds” such as intending to prevent pain.160 The case of Cato’s suicide was widely discussed in the peaking philosophical debate on the permissibility of suicide in the eighteenth century.161 In Cicero’s De Officiis, which was translated and commented on by Garve—a work with which Kant was intimately familiar—Cicero reflects on the application of the general prohibition on suicide as follows: Differences of natures have such a great force that sometimes one man ought to choose death for himself, while another ought not. For surely the case of Marcus Cato was different from that of the others who gave themselves up to Caesar in Africa? . . . But since nature had assigned to Cato an extraordinary seriousness, which he himself had consolidated by his unfailing constancy, abiding always by 159

160

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MSTL 6:423–4. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 218, 222. Cf. Michael J. Seidler, “Kant and the Stoics on Suicide,” Journal of the History of Ideas 44(3) (1983):  446–7; Guyer, Nature and Freedom, 268–9. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 218–19, 222, and editor’s note No.144–5; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 75–6; Reinhard Brandt, Die Bestimmung des Menschen bei Kant (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2007), 92–4, 373; Meier, Sittenlehre, §671. See, for example, Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohns Frühschriften zur Metaphysik (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1969), 138–64; Johann David Michaelis, Moral, Part I, Part II, ed. Carl Fridrich Stäudlin (Göttingen: Im Bandenhock und Ruprechtschen Verlage, 1792), Part II, Section 2:48ff., §56.

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his adopted purpose and policy, he had to die rather than look upon the face of a tyrant.162

Cicero argues that Cato’s extraordinary character and the specific circumstances of his suicide, namely, the intention to resist Caesar, make it legitimate (“ought to choose”) for Cato “to choose death for himself.” The same act, suicide, would have been a vice for someone with a different character, who can more easily adjust to new political leadership. The external circumstances are here the same for various agents. However, the particular decision by Cato is justified by the specific differences of his individual nature and the maxims that he has adopted based on them, which set him apart from “the others who gave themselves up to Caesar.”163 Selfdetermination is here individuated self-construction, which is guided by the value of self-consistency: When, therefore, someone has adopted a plan of life entirely in accordance with his nature . . . let him then maintain constancy.164 Orderliness must, then, be imposed upon our actions in such a way that all the parts of our life . . . are fitted to one another and in agreement.165

Consistency is a necessary requirement for unified agency. Kant clearly grasps this aspect of personal consistency when he comments on Cato: “His thought was:  since you can no longer live as Cato, you cannot go on living at all.”166 Since Cato could not “escape falling into Caesar’s hands,” he “could no longer live in accordance with virtue,” and thus “put an end to his life from honorable motives.”167 Kant clearly sees that it is not a nonmoral consideration that leads to Cato’s suicide. Neither does Cicero consider Cato’s free choice as a case of subordinating moral responsibilities to self-love, nor does Kant read Cicero this way. Cato’s problem is not that he is overcome by weakness of will and that he is falling away from his commitment to morality because of selflove. Rather, Cato needs to decide which of his various commitments deserve precedence. It seems that Kant’s moral theory would be incapable of accommodating such a case of individuated self-legislation because it sacrifices the universal status of 162

163 164 165 166 167

Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, ed. and trans. Christian Garve, in Christian Garve, Gesammelte Werke, vols. 9–10, ed. Kurt Wölfel (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1987), 1.112. References to Cicero list book and section number. Cf. Andrew R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 282. Cf. Dyck, Commentary, 282. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.120. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.144. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 218–9, my emphasis. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 218, my emphasis.

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moral commands. For Kant, morally permissible conduct must follow from the universal nature of agency. It cannot be determined by an agent’s peculiar characteristics, “because a rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without the contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another.”168 Moral agency cannot be determined by local peculiarities, such that specific obligations undermine the basis of all obligations. If local identities could generate true obligations that are in conflict with an agent’s universal identity, moral rules would become uncertain. An agent may give up her life if she cannot avoid it (think of Kant’s gallows example, where an agent needs to choose to either “give false testimony against an honorable man” or face execution169), but she may not kill herself. Kant insists that amid “all torments, I can still live morally, and must endure them all, even death itself, before ever I perform a disreputable act.”170 In this vein, Kant claims that Cato should rather have suffered all martyrdoms done to him by Caesar: If Cato, under all the tortures that Caesar might have inflicted on him, had still adhered to his resolve with steadfast mind, that would have been noble; but not when he laid hands upon himself.171

From a Kantian perspective, genuine self-determination is not individuated self-construction that is determined by personal and contextual peculiarities.172 Cicero’s conception of a specific personal nature of an agent173 is diametrically opposed to Kant’s usage of nature in the natural law formula in the Groundwork. Kant’s purpose is to show that what is ethically permissible must be determined with certainty and universality. Any Kantian who wants to argue that the notion of latitude makes it merely an empirical matter of how to apply moral principles, and anyone who wants to allow for conventionally determined exceptions, should be aware that she opens the door to uncertainty in ethics, which Kant thought to be unacceptable. While Kant is quite aware that empirical circumstances affect our common judgment about the moral worth of an act—think of Kant’s vivid descriptions of particularly trying circumstances174—it is also clear that, on Kant’s account, there must not be any motivational contingency when it comes to the assessment 168 169 170 171 172 173 174

KpV 5:21. KpV 5:30. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 228. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 224. On this point, see Rorty, “Two Modalities of Friendship,” 33–51. See Cicero, De Officiis, 1.97, 107, 114–5. GMS 4:398; KpV 5:155–6, 158. Cf. editor’s note No.146 in Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 219.

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of moral worth.175 What counts as a noble motivating ground must not be determined by an assessment of contingent circumstances. What counts as a noble motivating ground is unambiguously clear within Kant’s theory of freedom: only actions done from duty (as opposed to those done from inclination) possess moral worth.176 There is simply no room for motivational contingency in Kant’s account of morality. For this reason, Kant’s Anthropology discusses the variety of empirical motives leading to suicide—such as desperateness, sadness, rage, and courage—as “psychological question[s]” but not as morally relevant.177 The method of distinguishing motivating grounds in order to solve cases of genuine ethical conflict is a nonstarter precisely because there is only one moral motivation. This means that Kant’s distinction between autonomous and heteronomous motivating grounds resolves one type of moral conflict with ease, namely, when heteronomous motivating grounds undermine autonomy, but it also means that Kant’s theory has no genuine tool for resolving conflicts between ethical maxims. The dilemma then is that although moral agency cannot be determined by contingent circumstances, it must still respond to them on rational grounds.178 As was the case with respect to Kant’s Transition Project in the Opus postumum, it is here again worth inquiring into why other competing theories do not have such a transition problem.179 Since both Cicero and Baumgarten are in the immediate background of Kant’s intellectual thought, it is worth taking a particular look at these authors, in order to see why their approach to resolving cases of colliding precepts is not an option for Kant. In Cicero’s moral system, various grounds of obligation are modifications of what is constitutive for moral agency: the value of communal life. For example, Cicero suggests that, in case of competing obligations, as to who ought most to receive our dutiful services, our country and our parents would be foremost . . . Next would be our children and our whole household, which looks to us alone and can have no other refuge. Then our relations, who are congenial to us and with whom even our fortunes are generally shared.180

175 176 177 178 179 180

Cf. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 113. GMS 4:398. Anth 7:258. Cf. VAnth 25:243–4. Cf. 6:217. See Introduction and Chapter 1, “Kant’s philosophia naturalis.” Cicero, De Officiis, 1.58. The following discussion of Cicero is indebted to Dyck, Commentary, and Martha Nussbaum, “Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero’s Problematic Legacy,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 8(2) (2000):176–206.

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This prioritization is not arbitrary, because, unlike in a Hobbesian system, human fellowship is not a project that humans pursue for nonmoral reasons. For Cicero, agents do not embark upon communal life in order to provide for life’s necessities. Rather, by nature, social associations are constitutive of humanity. The various grounds of obligation, that is, the various social responsibilities of agents, are modifications of the supreme value of human fellowship. Through the natural law formula, convenientiam conservationeque naturae,181 Cicero shows that duties of justice and beneficence are rooted in (or can be derived from) the core value of human sociability. Both iustitia and beneficentia are equally constitutive aspects of what binds society together.182 There are some rather striking similarities between Cicero’s and Kant’s theories. For Cicero, for example, an agent who commits an injustice, and thus undermines “the fellowship of the human race” in order to secure some advantage to himself, contradicts himself: “He takes all the ‘human’ out of the human.”183 Committing an injustice is “more contrary to nature than death and pain or anything else of the type [of the expedient].”184 Since all obligations are derived from the “law of human fellowship,”185 morality (honestum) must be fundamentally distinguished from prudential, that is, nonmoral, interests (utile). Like Kant, Cicero claims that conflicts between virtue and expediency can never be resolved in favor of the expedient, no matter how much it appears to quantitatively outweigh the honorable.186 Cicero’s “rule of procedure” [Latin:  formula] distinguishes categorically between honestum and utile, and thus allows agents to “pronounce judgment without error” [Latin:  diiudicare] in cases where the beneficial seems to conflict with virtue.187 Compare this to Kant’s moral formula, which can be used as a “compass” that allows “how to distinguish in every case that comes up what is good and what is evil.”188 Cases of conflict between virtue (honestum) and expediency (utile) can be easily resolved. Kant’s thesis that there is no “supposed right to do wrong when in extreme (physical) need,” likewise emphasizes the qualitative difference between morality and prudence.189 What merely concerns the condition of a human being, utile (prudential reasoning), must never undermine what is essential to human agency, honestum 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189

Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.11–14, 50, 100, 110; 3.13, 25, 26, 30, 32. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.28–9. Cf. 1.12, 20–5, 97, 100–2, 153–60; 3.21, 23, 27–8. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.21, 22, 26, 29–30. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.24. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.21. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.90, 99–111. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.19. Cf. ibid., 1.9–10. GMS 4:404. Compare Kant’s TP 8:300 with Cicero, De Officiis, 3.29–30.

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(moral reasoning). There is a qualitative difference between an action oriented at moral concerns and one guided by the empirical condition of a person. Cicero’s distinction between honestum and utile can be seen as a predecessor to Kant’s distinction between autonomy and heteronomy. Kant explicitly comments on the Ciceronian distinction in his lectures,190 and Kant’s four examples in the Groundwork also insist on the qualitative difference between actions done from duty and those motivated by empirical considerations. The parallel between Cicero and Kant goes only a certain way, of course. Kant does not base his moral principle on the value of community, and precisely herein lies the reason why Kant’s distinctions between various social grounds of obligation must be considered as lying outside the domain of morality proper, as Kant conceives of it. When Kant suggests a hierarchical order of maxims by limiting “one maxim of duty by another (e.g., love of one’s neighbor in general [allgemeine Nächstenliebe] by love of one’s parents),”191 then it is generally speaking unclear how specific social conditions such as ties between friends, family members, and citizens can be used legitimately to prioritize ethical conduct. A hierarchy of grounds of obligation [Verbindlichkeitsgründe] is a hierarchy of reasons for action along the lines of: I adopt this maxim because it is my obligation as a citizen, because it is my obligation as a father, because it is my obligation as a neighbor. Cicero, on the contrary, legitimately prioritizes among moral actions by restricting the single “law of human fellowship”192 through a hierarchy of grounds of obligation, because he can show how particular grounds of obligation are modifications of what is essential to humanity, that is, serving the common advantage: there are degrees of duties within social life itself; consequently, we can understand which takes precedence over which.193 Various grounds of obligation reflect various degrees of shared human association, and thus provide a transition from the rule of procedure (formula) to agency in specific circumstances, such that “we can become good calculators of our duties.”194 What guides practical deliberation are considerations regarding the type of communal relationship, the gratitude we owe, how much and in what respect a person depends on us, and the specific need of an agent, that is, criteria regarding the functioning of human affiliations. It is critical to see that the application

190 191 192 193 194

E.g., VE 27:1330. MSTL 6:390. Cicero, De Officiis, 1:21, 29. Cf. ibid., 3.27. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.160. Cf. ibid., 1.149, 152ff. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.59.

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of Ciceronian duties does not require meta-ethical commitments, because the various grounds of obligation are modifications of the supreme value of human affiliation. The more important the shared association is, the more we should provide benefit in this respect, because this most furthers the community.195 Note that Cicero’s rule of procedure (i.e., the analogue to Kant’s categorical imperative) only distinguishes between honestum and utile. It does not guide an agent to prioritize ethical maxims. Rather, the application of duties to specific circumstances is mediated by a hierarchy of grounds of obligation that prioritizes according to the benefit a maxim bestows on the community.196 This implies, for example, that if you have made the promise to function for someone as advocate in the near future, and your son has seriously fallen ill in the meantime, it is not contrary to duty to break your promise.197 The illness of a son is the stronger ground of obligation because of the degree of association: family duties have priority over duties toward neighbors.198 Or, consider Cicero’s discussion of a case involving a conflict between obligations toward a parent and toward the state: Do we have to denounce our father if he should try to impose a tyranny? Yes, Cicero says, the safety of the homeland has to be put before that of one’s father.199 In other sections, Cicero asks whether agreements and promises that have been made without force or malicious fraud should always be kept.200 If a man who has deposited money with you plans to make war on your country, you are not obligated to return it. You would be acting contrary to the republic, which ought to be the dearest thing to you.201 In this way, Cicero says, many things that seem honorable by nature are not so due to circumstances if what is truly beneficial changes.202 What act a duty requires “alters” with the circumstances and is not “invariable.”203 This means, the acts that instantiate the general rules of justice and beneficence alter with different circumstances. For example, in some cases it is “just to set aside such requirements as the returning of a deposit, or the carrying out of a promise, or other things that relate to truth and keeping faith, and not to observe them.”204 What Cicero has in mind in the first case is the deposit of a sword, with which a madman could do himself or

195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204

Cicero, De Officiis, 1.58. Cf. ibid., 1.49–59. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.30-1. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.32. Cf. ibid., 1.58; 2.66. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.58. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.90. Cf. ibid., 3.19; 1.58. Cf. Kant’s treatment of this case at TP 8:301n. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.92. Cf. ibid., 1.31–2, 40. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.95. Cf. ibid., 1.57–8, 160; 3.89. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.96. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.31. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.31.

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someone else mischief if the borrower returned it to him.205 Thus, “occasions often arise when the actions that seem most worthy of a just man, of him whom we call good, undergo a change, and the opposite becomes the case.”206 In all of these cases, practical deliberation is guided by the value of community. This means, any “exception” to a general rule is always justified by a moral reason. There cannot be an exception based on considerations regarding what would be expedient. In this respect, Cicero is a rigorist. But he is no rigorist when it comes to the specific act that instantiates the supreme value of morality. For example, the act of killing is prohibited when done from the motive of self-love, but it is commanded when done from the motive of benefitting the community, as in the case of the tyrannicide of Caesar, which restores the human fellowship.207 My point is that the various grounds of obligation are modifications of what is constitutive for moral agency in the Ciceronian system: communal life. Social identities (local identities) give rise to justifying reasons and obligations, and these are essentially connected to the foundation of morality (universal identity). The hierarchy of grounds of obligation is couched in terms of the value of human affiliation, which adjudicates conflicting obligations. The practice of becoming a good calculator of one’s duties in order to do justice to one’s various responsibilities is guided by what is internal to Cicero’s supreme principle of morality. Because of this continuity or homogeneity, there is no transition problem in Cicero’s theory. The same systematic point holds for Baumgarten. He also determines various grounds of obligation in terms of what is constitutive of agency in his system: the quantitative strength of motivating grounds. As we have seen, for Baumgarten, obligations can be stronger or weaker, that is, their normative force comes in various degrees. Accordingly, Baumgarten hierarchically determines exceptions to obligations in terms of superior laws outweighing weaker laws.208 In the cases of colliding duties, the agent is required to make an exception from the inferior obligation.209 For example, moral laws regarding eternal happiness have a stronger motivating ground than laws with respect to finite happiness. The martyr is justified in violating her natural duty to preserve her life, because the religious duty to promote eternal happiness is superior to the former. Moral 205

206 207 208 209

Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.95. The case of returning a deposit to a madman has a long history, because Plato has already discussed it. See Plato, Republic, 331c. Cf. Dyck, Commentary, 617–8; Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 15f. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.31. Cf. ibid., 3.19. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.19, 30–2. Cf. Dyck, Commentary, 518–9. Baumgarten, Initia, §86. Cf. Meier, Allgemeine Practische Weltweisheit, §§116–8, 137–8.

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laws are laws of perfection,210 and agents perceive more perfection in eternal happiness than in finite happiness. Thus, they are obliged to choose the former. Collisions of moral laws are resolved by making an “exception,” such that “the law, which must be fulfilled, is said to be victorious, the opposing law, which must be withdrawn, is said to yield to the victorious one.”211 In other words, one obligation is rendered invalid by another obligation. The tool for prioritizing grounds of obligation is determined in terms of what is constitutive of agency in the Baumgartian system: the strength of motivating grounds. As we have seen, Kant rejects Baumgarten’s attempt to understand obligation via a theory of motivating grounds. This makes all contemporary readings of Kant obsolete, which claim that “the maxim incorporating the motivationally stronger incentive” prevails in cases of conflict.212 Such readings of Kant fall back into Baumgarten’s model of weighing motivating grounds. Kant is at pains to emphasize against Baumgarten that the restriction of a general duty is not tantamount to making an exception to an obligation.213 An obligation does not allow for exceptions. For Kant, an obligation is the necessity of an action from duty. Moral commands are grounded in reason, and reason does not contradict itself. Thus, the task is to determine when and which one of the divergent grounds of obligation is sufficient to actually put an agent under obligation. However, in Kant’s moral philosophy, a moral reason for resolving conflicts among ethical obligations is missing, because neither the quantitative strength of motivating grounds nor the various thickness of social relationships are modifications of what is constitutive of agency in the Kantian system—autonomy. So, how does Kant deal with colliding grounds of obligation? Kant either discusses colliding grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi) as clear-cut cases of conflict between a duty of right and a duty of virtue, where duties of right are said to always trump ethical duties (a), or he assigns cases of conflicting ethical duties to casuistic reasoning (b). I begin with the former. (a) Duties of right always prevail over ethical duties.214 A collision of duties is here inconceivable. Accordingly, in the introduction to the Metaphysics of

210 211 212 213 214

Baumgarten, Initia, §86. Baumgarten, Initia, §85. Cf. Baumgarten, Metaphysica, §97. McCarty, Kant’s Theory of Action, 182. E.g., MSTL 6:390. Cf. VE 27:282, 493; Päd 9:490; Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 35–6, 78. See on this point also Schmucker, Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants, 297, 340–50; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 71; Jens Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas? Moral Conflict in Kant’s Ethical Theory,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 95(1) (2013): 43ff.

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Morals, which comprises both the Doctrine of Right and Doctrine of Virtue, it makes sense to say that “the stronger [juridical] ground of obligation prevails.” When two such grounds conflict with each other, practical philosophy says, not that the stronger obligation takes precedence . . . but that the stronger ground of obligation prevails.215

Kant refers to “practical philosophy,” and hereby means the Praktische Weltweisheit of the Wolff/Baumgarten school. Contrary to this school, Kant does not distinguish between the strength of obligations. An obligation is an obligation. Obligations do not come in different degrees of motivating grounds. Thus Kant comments on Baumgarten: “The statement that, on collision, causa moralis potior vincit [the stronger moral cause wins] means only that the ground of obligation that is not sufficient . . . yields no obligation.”216 For example, grounds of obligation that are derived from the relationship of gratitude toward a benefactor or from the filial relationship toward a father, that is, ethical duties, do not prevail over the stronger juridical ground of obligation of truth-telling in court.217 “If testifying is injurious to a father or benefactor,” then “these relationships, of filial duty, and of gratitude,” are “rationes obligandi” “running counter to the duty of truth-telling.”218 Kant’s point is that ethical grounds of obligation are not sufficient to bring about an obligation when they conflict with juridical grounds of obligation. Truth-telling in court prevails over beneficence toward one’s father or neighbor. To provide another example, the ground of obligation that provides a reason to give money to charity is not sufficient to put an agent under obligation if that money is necessary to repay debts. There are two grounds of obligation, beneficence and a duty of right, but only one issues an actual token obligation in these specific circumstances. So here Kant discusses colliding grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi) as clear-cut cases of conflict between a duty of right and a duty of virtue. Generally speaking, he prefers examples elucidating that the permissibility of acts instantiating ethical duties is conditional on the juridical permissibility of these acts. In this context, Kant picks up Cicero’s example where “it is a matter of preventing some catastrophe to the state by betraying a man who might stand in the relationship to another of father and son.”219 Duties of right (“preventing some catastrophe to the state”) 215 216 217 218

219

MSRL 6:224. Cf. MSTL 6:390, 393; VE 27:537–8. VE 27:508; VE 27:537–8. VE 27:508. Ibid. Kant makes the same point regarding the conflict between ethical and juridical rationes obligandi in the second Critique, KpV 5:159. TP 8:300n. Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 3:90.

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outweigh duties of virtue (“preventing misfortune” to the father).220 Thus we are compelled by “moral necessity” to report the plans of a relative to overthrow the state.221 Supporting one’s father is a wide duty that is conditional on the legal and ethical permissibility of one’s father’s ends. Kant uses the same method for resolving what he calls a casus necessitatis: in order to preserve her own life, an agent is not ethically permitted to push another survivor of a shipwreck from her plank. There is no “supposed right to do wrong when in extreme (physical) need.”222 “For to preserve my life is only a conditional duty (if it can be done without a crime).”223 It is worth pointing out that the shipwreck example is also taken from Cicero. It can hardly be a coincidence that both Cicero and Kant discuss the same two examples together in one passage.224 The superiority of legal obligations over ethical grounds of obligation and extreme physical need could also be defended in the Kantian system, although I will not try to do this here. In other words, Kant might legitimately help himself to Cicero’s examples. But how does Kant plan to deal with conflicts among ethical duties? For, cases of conflict between duties of right and ethics are not the only types of collision that occur.225 (b) Cases of conflict among ethical grounds of obligation are referred to casuistry. Kant says, Because ethical duties cannot be determined with precision (as is the case with duties of right) it becomes often difficult for moral judgment to decide in actual cases of the collision of grounds of obligation [Verbindlichkeitsgründe] what our duty is. For this reason ethics will also provide a casuistry, which sharpens the understanding in the assessment of duties.226

Note that Kant says it is “difficult” to make this decision. We are thus not dealing here with the Groundwork perspective any more, where moral and nonmoral considerations collide, the categorical imperative providing the tool to resolve such cases with ease. Rather, here agents need to choose among various moral considerations. Since this is a task for “moral judgment,” Kant proposes to limit ethical maxims on moral grounds, that is, one ethical maxim by another ethical maxim, in order to prioritize action.227 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227

TP 8:300n. Ibid. TP 8:300. TP 8:300n. Cf. Kant’s gallows case at KpV 5:30. TP 8:300n. Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 3:90. On this point, see also Guyer, Nature and Freedom, 267–74. VAMS 23:419. Cf. VRML 8:430; VAMS 23:397. MSTL 6:390, 411.

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Kant maintains that grounds of obligation are defeasible, but it is unclear how some grounds of obligation can be shown to be stronger than others.228 For example, should gratitude toward a neighbor take precedence over helping a stranger, or vice versa? From the perspective of Kant’s moral theory, the thickness of social relationships is an external constraint, a meta-ethical commitment, as it were. In Kant’s system, there is no connection between the universal identity of a human being, from which the two universal ends that are also duties originate, and the various local identities of agents, from which specific duties arise. Different grounds of obligation would need to be expressed as modifications of the single motivating ground of autonomy. Otherwise it cannot be morally justified why charity to foreigners should be limited by the need of one’s own family, or why several imperfect duties should outweigh a single one.229 Both Baumgarten and Cicero make these claims,230 but what justifies Kant making them? Cholbi has rightly emphasized that the literature “fails to provide a credible picture of when and how we may violate otherwise binding . . . duties.”231 If there are exceptions to otherwise binding ethical duties, then the Kantian needs to show, in a way that is not simply ad hoc, that we are obligated to follow second-order norms through which particular responses . . . turn out to be uniquely justified or obligatory because other responses . . . are wrong.232

Cholbi makes a very important point here, because only if an agent can morally justify which ground of obligation produces an actual token obligation can she act autonomously. Either an agent can morally determine what her duty is in particular circumstances, or she must feel loss of autonomy when “resolving” conflicts. The categorical imperative resolves conflicts between maxims of prudence and maxims of morality, but it does not by itself prioritize among ethical maxims. This is the systematic function of a theory of grounds of obligation. But how do agents choose between them? Some authors believe that general obligations can only be limited by other moral considerations (a), whereas others have tried to defend the view that general obligations could be limited by nonmoral considerations of self-interest (b). Both camps have in common that they do 228

229 230 231

232

Cf. MSRL 6:224. Cf. Jens Timmermann, “Acting From Duty:  Inclination, Reason and Moral Worth,” in Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, ed. Jens Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 48–53. VE 27:537. Cicero, De Officiis, 1.45, 50ff.; Baumgarten, Initia, §§15ff. Michael Cholbi, “The Constitutive Approach to Kantian Rigorism,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16(3) (2013): 444. Cholbi, “Kantian Rigorism,” 446.

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not sufficiently address the indeterminacy problem, because they do not offer an account of how particular priorities can be justified. Briefly sketching these views will show how pressing the transition problem really is. (a) Timmermann has rightly noticed that selectively applying principles requires moral grounds. He stresses that agents may have multiple grounds of obligation but only one token duty in any given instance.233 This is an important insight, because the distinction between conflicting grounds of obligation and conflicting obligations allows us to account for Kant’s claim that there cannot be conflicts of duties in ethics. I agree with Timmermann on this point. However, as I see it, already conflicting grounds of obligation are sufficient to undermine an agent’s autonomy if, in principle, it cannot be shown on what moral grounds an agent may choose between them. How do agents remain in control of their agency if there is no rational procedure for deciding which ground of obligation shall issue a token obligation? For Timmermann, there appear to be certain general rules of thumb that can serve to decide practical conflicts . . . If one action falls under several imperfect duties this outweighs the ground of just a single one. Debts of gratitude break ties when claims of charity conflict . . . But beyond these generalities there seems to be nothing Kantian ethics can tell us about how to resolve conflicts of obligating reasons.234

On my reading, even these alleged rules of thumb are not morally justified. For, how precisely does “pure practical reason” determine that “parents are morally more important” than a “benefactor” who also deserves an agent’s support?235 How precisely does reason decide “that a ground is strong enough to constitute a token obligation?”236 Esser writes that “conflicts can easily be resolved in that the Categorical Imperative either proves one of the reasons of obligation not to be binding, or simply requires us to follow the stronger one.”237 But how does the categorical imperative do that in a noncontingent way? Korsgaard argues that a practical principle is provisionally universal in the sense that it applies to every case of a certain sort unless there is a good reason why not.238 But how does judgment

233

234 235 236 237

238

Timmermann, “Good but not Required?—Assessing the Demands of Kantian Ethics,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 2(1) (2005): 14–15. Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas,” 53. Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas,” 57. Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas,” 58. Andrea Esser, “Kant on Solving Moral Conflicts,” in Kant’s Ethics of Virtue, ed. Monika Betzler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 279. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 73.

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decide this? Korsgaard argues that an agent resolves ethical conflicts by giving up one of the local identities that bring about conflicting obligations. “Conflicts that arise between identities, if sufficiently pervasive or severe, may force you to give one of them up.”239 But how precisely can a hierarchy of maxims be brought about such that an agent can morally justify her choice? How does an agent choose among the empirical reasons stemming from her various local identities? What provides moral guidance as to why agents are permitted to limit the scope of maxims?240 In order to address such questions, Gregor has suggested to conceptually define the scope of moral laws. She discusses the general prohibition of murder, and claims that a precise definition of murder would have to be such that “soldiers in time of war, executioners, etc.” do not fall under it.241 On such a reading, there would not be any exception to the universal prohibition on murder. Instead the general prohibition would be systematically limited with respect to contingent circumstances. I quote Gregor at length: Under certain conditions a man may commit suicide because he thinks that his ground of obligation not to destroy himself is in conflict with a stronger ground of obligation (e.g. the benevolence to others). Such cases must be given casuistical treatment to determine which ground of obligation is stronger and hence really obligatory. If the opposing ground of obligation turns out to be stronger, then the man has a moral title to kill himself because he has an indirect duty to do so. The prohibition against suicide permits no arbitrary exceptions, but when we descend into contingent circumstances it does admit morally necessary exceptions.242

Gregor clearly sees that a conventionally defined exception would not fit Kant’s bill. That is why she wants to allow for exceptions “on moral grounds,” that is, make “morally necessary exceptions.”243 This is an important insight, because it aims to hold on to certainty and objectivity in ethics; it aims at providing a principled way of identifying which among several maxims is, morally speaking, more salient. However, the question that Gregor faces is how 239 240

241

242 243

Korsgaard, Sources of Normativity, 120. For an answer to these questions, see Chapter 3. Here I only want to show that the problem is more severe than commentators assume. Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 101. For a similar strategy, see Esser, “Moral Conflicts,” 293–4: “There cannot be a general ‘right to lie,’ but in some situations—which, however are to be carefully [prudentially? morally?] specified by the ruling law—one is not obliged to make true statements. Therefore, the statement made in such situations must not be referred to as ‘lie,’ either.” Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 102. Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 153. Cf. Sally Sedgwick, “On Lying and the Role of Content in Kant’s Ethics,” Kant-Studien 82(1) (1991): 54.

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empirical judgment can determine morally necessary exceptions. Because empirical concepts cannot be defined,244 an exposition of empirical concepts like suicide, murder, or war is always contingent. Therefore, a noncontingent hierarchy of maxims guided by the definition of empirical concepts is not possible. (b) Hill has argued that the latitude in Kant’s conception of wide ethical duties would allow for exceptions based on nonmoral preferences. Ethical duties require agents to adopt ends, which agents can realize in a variety of ways, thereby retaining discretion as to how and when to instantiate the duty. This position permits an agent to fulfill a wide duty only from time to time, and to an extent that is subject to individual discretion.245 Although such discretion presupposes the moral commitment to fulfilling that end sometimes, to some extent, the zone of discretion itself is determined by nonmoral considerations. Moral agents may pursue an inclination, thereby forego an opportunity to fulfill an ethical duty, and still be committed to the moral end in question. Timmerman has convincingly objected to this view that an “action correctly judged to be morally good cannot rationally be rejected in favour of one that is not.”246 An agent can never rank the pursuit of an inclination above the fulfillment of an ethical duty.247 Since this view seems to fall into the other extreme of a too-demanding Kantian ethics, Timmermann suggests that some duties toward oneself may have priority over duties toward others, such that the general obligation to aid does not overwhelm agents in a world of sheer infinite need and suffering. However, Timmermann does not specify how the moral ordering of conflicting ethical grounds of obligation could be decided in a Kantian framework.248 Neither side of the debate specifies a moral basis on which to determine when, how, and to what extent obligatory ends should be promoted. Timmermann takes it to be a “rule of thumb” to prefer the near and dear because debts of gratitude trump charity. Hill considers it to be “common sense” that “basic needs for life and functioning . . . are clearly more important than doing pleasing favors for someone well off.”249 Rules of thumb and common sense are not philosophical arguments, and thus some authors have rightly questioned their validity.250 For 244 245

246 247 248 249 250

Cf. KrV A727-728/B755–6. See Hill, Human Welfare, 202ff. Cf. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 332–50; Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 14ff. Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 14. For a similar position, see Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 55–6, 57n50, 59. Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 24–7. Hill, Human Welfare, 212–3. See Nussbaum, “Duties of Justice,” 178; Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 341; Herman, Moral Literacy, 226ff.

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example, why is it so obvious that we should help neighbors before we help strangers? The question is not whether helping others is always morally demanded or always morally optional, but, rather, how to determine when it is optional and when it is demanded, and to what extent. I  think this debate brings out how pressing the problem of a Transition Project in practical philosophy really is. It must be in terms of autonomy that agents determine the latitude of ethical duties and prioritize among them in cases of conflict. As I will show in the next chapter, Kant’s theory of mediating concepts does just that. Note that these kinds of indeterminacy problems are immune to whether we talk about “narrow” ethical duties that aim at promoting the basic capacity to self-determination (e.g., the prohibition on servility), or wide ethical duties concerning the effective exercise of moral agency more generally (e.g., cultivating one’s talents). Even narrow duties are not “self-deploying,” as Louden has rightly stressed:  “Judgment is also needed to know how and when to apply them.”251 None of the indeterminacy problems that Kant’s ethics faces can be solved unless a moral transition connects the supreme value of autonomy with its manifold implementations in specific circumstances. Autonomous agency requires that agents provide reasons for their actions, and only to the extent that they can do so, can they conceive of themselves as the authors of their conduct. From this follows that the indeterminacy of wide duties (latitude for choice) must not imply arbitrariness. The Kantian agent cannot give up the project of rationally justifying her agency. This means, the problems of specifying the scope of obligations and of providing reasons for a hierarchical ordering of grounds of obligation cannot be resolved by extra-moral considerations. Even though it is important to separate metaphysical considerations regarding the structure of duties in general from their application to specific circumstances, a coherent moral theory also needs to provide an account of the latter. A moral theory must provide a tool for prioritizing moral considerations. How else could agents understand their moral priorities? To sum up, the problem of providing reasons for a hierarchical ordering of grounds of obligation cannot be resolved by pointing out that ethical duties only prescribe the maxim to adopt a moral end, and thus leave playroom as to when, whether, and how this should be done in specific circumstances. The decision to fulfill an ethical duty here and now must be morally justifiable. This does not mean that philosophy should decide moral dilemmas from its armchair, but it does mean that it needs to provide a theory that allows making general rules 251

Louden, Impure Ethics, 197n40.

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applicable to specific circumstances. Kant’s suggestion that empirical judgment has to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, “and indeed in such a way that judgment provides another (subordinate) maxim (and one can always ask for yet another principle for applying this maxim to cases that may arise)” requires a first-person perspective of autonomy that limits “one maxim of duty by another (e.g., love of one’s neighbor in general by love of one’s parents).”252 Since the universal necessity thought in the concept of duty requires a lawful limitation of one maxim of duty by another maxim of duty, the transition from principle to casuistry cannot be conventional, because this would replace universality with subjectivity in applied ethics. This would contradict Kant’s notion of science and lawfulness, and eliminate what is most distinctive about Kantian morality. Moral conflict must be capable of a philosophical solution. Otherwise agents cannot rationally justify their agency and feel inescapable regret when “resolving” conflicts. Autonomy would have reached its practical limit, just as Kant’s principles of the understanding would reach their limits if the dynamic account of matter could not in principle explain empirical phenomena.253 Solving ethical problems is the very substance that moral agency is made of. What else would the virtuous agent try to figure out to do, if not solve problems? After all, Kant phrases the question of moral philosophy as “What should I do?”254 In the case of conflicting obligations, an agent feels that her autonomy is violated. Kantian agency is based on reason, and reason does not contradict itself. There are no antinomies between duties; there is no such thing as an irresolvable ethical conflict in Kant’s moral philosophy. Divers practical principles are subject to a systematicity requirement. Agents must assume that ethical conflicts are resolvable, despite the fact that human beings are historically situated, imperfect, vulnerable, and plagued by inevitable shortcomings. Empirical agents always miss information and overlook alternative perspectives. It is precisely in light of human imperfection that agents need to resolve ethical conflicts so as to preserve their dignity as agents. This cannot be done on arbitrary grounds as, for example, Hill has suggested: Conscientious people . . . confront situations in which . . . moral considerations seem to demand incompatible courses of action, condemning all their options, and they see no reasonable way to resolve the conflict . . . Principles . . . that they assumed could never be compromised pull at them from opposite directions . . . 252 253

254

MSTL 6:390. See Introduction and Chapter 1, “Friedman’s account of the necessity of a Transition” under the head “Alternative accounts of the Transition Project.” KrV A805/B833, my emphasis.

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The problem is that . . . given the facts as we see them, the moral . . . principles to which we are committed . . . draw us strongly to opposing conclusions without offering any non-arbitrary way to choose between them.255

For Hill, agents “must make an arbitrary choice” of sorts in such circumstances, because “sometimes . . . one cannot fully respect the value of humanity in one person without violating it in another.”256 This “opens a gap in Kantian theory.”257 I agree with Hill’s description of moral dilemmas and his terminology of a gap. However, Kant’s theory of agency forces us to go another route, because agents cannot give up the project of rationally justifying their conduct. Given Kant’s theory of autonomy, the next question ought to be the following: If in order to maintain a meaningful notion of autonomous agency it is necessary that ethical conflicts be resolvable, how can casuistry (which is empirical) resolve ethical conflicts, and, further, how can it do so in such a way that we can uphold the universality of moral judgment that is pivotal to a Kantian conception of morality? One could label this problem a paradox of subjective universality if this phrase would not have been already reserved for Kant’s discussion of pure judgments of taste, with which the problem outlined here has a striking similarity. Let me briefly elaborate on this parallel: A pure judgment of taste is disinterested, that is, it can neither be based on sense pleasure nor on intellectual interest.258 For this reason, we can settle disputes about particular cases of beauty when agents do not make a pure judgment of taste, for example, when they base their judgment on charming qualities of an object. Disagreements and disputes in taste can thus sometimes be resolved by determining whether aesthetic evaluation is based on dependent beauty or not.259 The distinction between absolute and dependent beauty is as clear as the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy. But not all controversies in aesthetics are resolvable. Judgments of taste are singular judgments. There is no science or doctrine of aesthetics. There can also be no doctrine of method teaching us how to become good judges in taste.260 The disinterestedness of taste is a necessary condition for the legitimacy of judgments of taste, and this is where the critical investigation of taste ends. Kant’s deduction of the principle of taste does not provide a guide for how to judge 255

256 257 258 259 260

Hill, Human Welfare, 363–4. Timmermann suggests that in some “dilemmatic situations” agents “should toss a coin” (“Good but not Required,” 21). Hill, Human Welfare, 365, 371. Hill, Human Welfare, 384. KU 5:278. KU 5:231. KU 5:304–5, 309, 354–5.

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particular cases correctly.261 Aesthetics only provides the principle but no rules for judging specific cases. We may all agree about the metaphysics of aesthetics, as it were, and yet disagree about particular works of art. The principle of pure taste retains its validity even though one can never determine with certainty that a given judgment accords with it. Kant focuses on a judgment type, not particular judgments. A  science of beauty is impossible, because whether something is beautiful or not cannot be determined by a proof. Thus, there can only be a critique, but there is no transition from principle to application. On this point, Kant follows Hutcheson, who concludes that even though there is just one and the same principle of beauty, particular judgments differ vastly due to education, custom, and experiences.262 The question is whether moral judgments are like pure judgments of taste. Can Kantian morality accommodate that acts following from an ethical principle vary vastly, depending on the cultural or personal background of agents? There is a current trend in Kantian scholarship of embracing contingency regarding ethical judgment. For example, Timmermann writes that “moral conflict is not capable of philosophical treatment;”263 Esser leaves the application of ethical principles to rules of prudence;264 and Wood says that “there will always be questions about how far the requirements of morality can be brought under stable rules and how far they must be left to individual judgments about particular circumstances.”265 Thus it seems there is no certainty in moral conduct after all. But, surely, there is an important difference between ethics and aesthetics. Contrary to aesthetics, ethics is conceived of as a science. It does have a doctrine. It is not just critique.266 Whereas we cannot settle disputes between two art critics who both take themselves to make disinterested judgments, autonomy requires that we can settle moral disputes. As I have argued, these disputes can neither be resolved through a third-personal hierarchy of grounds of obligation (historical: Cicero; contemporary: Gregor) nor through the relative strength of subjective motivating grounds (historical: Baumgarten; contemporary: McCarty), let alone through individuated self-construction that is determined by personal and contextual peculiarities (historically: Cicero; contemporary: Korsgaard). 261 262

263 264 265 266

KU 5:282–3, 284, 290n, 291. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue in Two Treatises, ed. Wolfgang Leidhold (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), Treatise 1, Section 6. Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas,” 54. Esser, “Moral Conflicts,” 296. Wood, Kantian Ethics, 64. Refl 15:269.

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Kant’s alleged rigorism Kant’s essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy” is written shortly after the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue,267 that is, during the time period in which Kant works on the Transition Project of the Opus postumum. The essay is typically regarded as a paradigm case for Kant’s alleged rigorism, and thus it seems to contradict the thesis that a transition in practical philosophy is required. The charge is that Kant’s moral philosophy issues absolute prohibitions, which do not require an agent’s context-sensitive deliberations about what to do in specific circumstances. The goal of this section is to show that Kant’s “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay does not only not support the view of Kant’s alleged rigorism in ethics, but that, quite to the contrary, it provides historical evidence for Kant’s work on the Transition Project. Benjamin Constant argues that mediating concepts are needed in order to apply the prohibition on lying to specific cases. Indeed, without such mediating concepts, Constant claims, society would become impossible. Constant famously argues that the agent who attempts to murder “a friend of ours . . . [who] has taken refuge in our house”268 forsakes his right to truthfulness and that we may legitimately lie to him. He argues that every time that a principle proved to be true seems inapplicable, this is because we don’t know the intermediary principle, which contains the means of application.269

The first point that should be noted is that Kant explicitly approves Constant’s point that metaphysical principles require “intermediary principles” for “the closer determination of their application to cases that come up.”270 This is, of course, an allusion to the problem of the Transition Project. Kant’s point of contention in the “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay is that such principles of application must not undermine the principle itself. Practical principles do not allow for exceptions. The principle of right must “never be accommodated to” empirical circumstances.271 This means, whether lying is wrong or not cannot depend on the person to whom we are lying, or on the utility of a lie in specific 267

268 269 270 271

The Doctrine of Virtue was finished by February 1797 (and published before the end of August 1797). Cf. Ludwig, Introduction Rechtslehre, xxii–xxiii. VRML 8:425. VRML 8:427. VRML 8:430. VRML 8:429.

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circumstances. Thus, “the unconditional principle of truthfulness” is incompatible with intermediary principles of expediency determining exceptions (e.g., “to prevent . . . danger”).272 Kant vehemently rejects the notion of such conventional exceptions insofar as “exceptions would nullify the universality” of practical principles.273 A moral principle makes no distinction between persons to whom one has this duty and those to whom one can exempt oneself from it, since it is, instead, an unconditional duty, which holds in all relations.274

For this reason “the so-called intermediary principles can contain only the closer determination of their application to cases that come up . . . but never exceptions from those principles.”275 Intermediary principles are indeed required “in order to progress from a metaphysics of right (which abstracts from all conditions of experience) to a principle of politics (which applies these concepts to cases of experience),” but these intermediary principles cannot be principles of expediency undermining the unconditionality of duty.276 Responding to Constant’s specific understanding of intermediary principles of expediency, Kant responds that “there is actually no such principle to be inserted.”277 Kant rejects Constant’s claim that empirical considerations regarding harm and benefit can be put at the basis of moral obligations. Constant confuses “an action by which someone harms (nocet) another by telling a truth he cannot avoid admitting with an action by which he wrongs (laedit) another.”278 The notion of justice is independent of harm and benefit. To “lie to one’s advantage” is “opposed to all lawfulness.”279 What constrains A’s freedom to lie to B is not the harm that ensues from the lie. No contingent interest or need, not even one that we may attribute to the well-being of society as a whole, can justify a lie. Right does not derive its justification from some further end it intends to achieve. It is unconditional. “Justice ceases to be justice if it can be bought for any price whatsoever.”280

272 273 274 275 276 277

278 279 280

VRML 8:428. VRML 8:430. VRML 8:429. VRML 8:430. VRML 8:429. VRML 8:428, my emphasis. For a different reading of this passage, see Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 61–2. Cf. Sussman’s discussion of Sedgwick: “Supposed Duty,” 234ff. VRML 8:428. Ibid. MSRL 6:332.

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As Ripstein has convincingly shown,281 right protects an agent’s innate right to act on her own reasons from arbitrary interference by others. At the bottom of Kant’s conception of right lies freedom as independence from another’s choice.282 No person is allowed to compel another person to use her powers to a purpose she has not set for herself. Lying is a case in point. If A lies to B, then she misrepresents the situation in order to manipulate B. A makes an untruthful statement to B with the intention that B believes the statement to be true. This is unjust, independently of the harm or benefit that A’s lying entails. Herein lies the unconditional character of moral principles. Right is a constraint on the conduct of persons imposed by the moral fact that each person is entitled to independence. Exceptions would destroy that unconditional entitlement. It is precisely only through the imperative of right283 that each agent can think of her freedom as not being arbitrarily disrupted, that is, she can make rightful claims at all. As in ethics, here is a systematicity requirement. The consistent exercise of the right to independence by a plurality of persons presupposes a system of equal freedom.284 To have a right to lie would mean to undermine the very notion of such a system of equal freedom. Conventional exceptions would be a leap within the lawfulness of a system of right. The answer to the question “Is there a right to lie?” is thus fairly easy, once it is clear that harm and benefit are irrelevant to the notion of right. Regardless of its good or bad consequences, a lie makes the source of right unusable . . . for truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on contract, the law of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted.”285

In other words, Kant turns Constant’s point that society would become impossible unless there were exceptions of expediency against Constant. Insofar as the civil condition presupposes rights based on contracts untruthful statements violate “the most essential part of duty in general.”286 For, I bring it about, as far as I can, that statements (declarations) in general are not believed, and so too that all rights which are based on contracts come 281

282 283

284 285

286

Arthur Ripstein, Force and Freedom:  Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 2009). This paragraph is indebted to Ripstein’s work. MSRL 6:237. “So act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law” (MSRL 6:231). See on this point again Ripstein, Force and Freedom. VRML 8:426–7. Cf. MSRL 6:238n; Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 323–36; Baumgarten, Ethica, §§338–47. VRML 8:426.

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to nothing and lose their force; and this is a wrong inflicted upon humanity generally.287

Truthfulness is an unconditional duty in the sense that it commands independently of contingent interests of advantage or disadvantage. Thus a lie, defined merely as an intentionally untrue declaration to another, does not require what jurists insist upon adding for their definition, that it must harm another.288

So, the first point is that Kant acknowledges Constant’s demand for intermediary principles, and that he provides an explanation of why intermediary principles must not undermine the foundation of right. The second point to note is that Kant’s response to Constant explicitly argues for the duty against lying as “a duty of right” and not as a duty of virtue.289 This is commonly acknowledged in the literature.290 What is not so well known is that Kant’s distinction between a juridical and ethical meaning of lying picks up a standard enlightenment distinction between mendacium and falsiloquium.291 A mendacium is an intentional untruth that violates another person’s right and is universally prohibited. A falsiloquium, on the other hand, is an untruth that does not violate another person’s right. This distinction is well known in the philosophical literature of Kant’s time. For instance, Wolff distinguishes between lie (mendacium), which wrongs another person, and falsifications, that is, untruthful declarations (falsiloquium), which are permissible under specific circumstances, namely, insofar as they do not wrong the right of another person. The latter are not only permitted, rather, according to the standard enlightenment position, we are obliged to intentionally tell the untruth in order to prevent harm or further a good if this can be done without unjustly wronging a third party.292 In this context, Wolff explicitly mentions the case of providing untrue information to an enemy who is chasing someone else with a drawn sword.293 A  falsiloquium thus takes specific

287 288 289

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292 293

VRML 8:426. Ibid. “I here prefer to sharpen this principle to the point of saying: ‘Untruthfulness is a violation of duty to oneself.’ For this belongs to ethics, but what is under discussion here is a duty of right” (VRML 8:426n). Cf. Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 43; Esser, “Moral Conflicts,” 291; Wood, Kantian Ethics, 244, 327n16; Mahon, “Kant on Lies,” 221–2; Helga Varden, “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis,” Journal of Social Philosophy 41(4) (2010): 406. The following remarks are indebted to Georg Geismann and Hariolf Oberer, eds., Kant und das Recht der Lüge (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1986). Wolff, Deutsche Ethik, §§ 983ff. Wolff, Deutsche Ethik, §§ 987.

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circumstances into consideration. It aims at preventing harm or promoting utility without wronging a third person. In his lectures, Kant elucidates this Wolffian position as follows: If an enemy, for example, takes me by the throat and demands to know where my money is kept, I can hide the information here, since he means to misuse the truth. That is still no mendacium, for the other knows that I shall withhold the information, and that he also has no right whatever to demand the truth from me . . . Not every untruth is a lie; it is so only if there is an express declaration of my willingness to inform the other of my thought.294

The case of protecting a human life through telling an untruth, which Constant approvingly picks up in order to show that a universally valid prohibition on lying is against common sense, is such a common position in the literature of Kant’s time that the editor of the Philosophische Lexikon, Walch, writes, If a drunkard chases someone else, who is hiding in my house, with a drawn sword, then I am obliged to answer with “No” if the drunkard asks me whether the person he chases is hiding in my house, even if I know that the opposite is true.295

Now, as the lecture notes and Kant’s “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay show, Kant does not subscribe to this standard enlightenment distinction between mendacium and falsiloquium, which permits false declarations (falsiloquium) in cases where an agent is unjustly compelled to speak. For, an important nuance of the “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay is Kant’s claim that, from a juridical point of view, lying to the murderer at the door does not violate the right of that particular person, but it is nevertheless prohibited because it is a formal wrong that is incompatible with the foundation of right. Kant is unambiguously clear on this point: “Although I indeed do no wrong to him who unjustly compels me to make the declaration if I falsify it, I nevertheless do wrong in the most essential part of duty in general by such falsification.”296 If A  unjustly requires a declaration from B, then A does not wrong B by falsifying her declaration.297 However—and this is the nuance of Kant’s essay—even though I do not violate the right of the

294 295

296 297

Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 327–9. Cf. VE 27:700. Johann Georg Walch, Philosophisches Lexikon, ed. Justus Christian Hennings, vol. 1, fourth edition (Leipzig: Gleditschens Buchhandlung, 1775), 2318. Geismann/Oberer show that this example can also be found in Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius, and Baumeister (Recht der Lüge, 6–8). VRML 8:426. Cf. “Where the declaration is wrung from me, and I am also convinced that the other means to make a wrongful use of it.” Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 330. Cf. Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 45ff.; Wood, Kantian Ethics, 246, 327n13.

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murderer at the door (i.e., a particular other person), my untruthful statement would wrong humanity in general.298 From the perspective of the Transition Project, this means that the particular instantiation of an obligation cannot undermine its a priori foundation. This rules out various ways in which the literature has dealt with the connection between a priori principle and empirical agency. For example, Sedgwick sees a hiatus between principle and action when she concludes her study of Kant’s “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay by saying that “a right to lie . . . may be granted only at the level of deciding actual cases . . . never at the level of . . . metaphysics.”299 Drawing the fundamental distinction between a metaphysical and an empirical level of moral agency in these terms ultimately destroys autonomy, because it becomes impossible to rationally justify how and when exceptions shall be granted. Because the source of all morality in the Kantian system is independent of contingent human ends, there cannot be exceptions based on utility at the practical level of agency. It is of course correct to say that moral theory by itself cannot fill the role of moral judgment in empirical circumstances, because what duty requires can only be determined once all factual content is accounted for in a particular maxim.300 However, it neither follows from this that prudential reasoning can legitimately manage the latitude in the application of principles, nor that there are exceptions under empirical circumstances from otherwise universally valid principles. Rather, what follows is the need of a Transition Project:  if there are exceptions on moral grounds, then there needs to be an intermediate principle guiding the prioritization of moral principles. It is not only Kant who opposes the standard enlightenment position of conventional exceptions, but also the German philosopher and theologian Michaelis, who argues in his 1750  “Von der Verpflichtung des Menschen die Wahrheit zu reden” (On the Obligation of Man to Speak the Truth) that any kind of untruth is prohibited. Michaelis only exempts the Scherzlüge (telling untruth with the purpose of mere entertainment), and the Höflichkeitslüge (telling untruth from politeness), both of which Kant also discusses in his casuistical questions.301 298

299 300 301

Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 327–9; VE 27:447–9. For illuminating discussions of Kant’s claim that an untruthful statement is impermissible with respect to “humanity in general” even though it does not violate another person’s right, see Varden, “Kant and Lying,” 409, 414; Mahon, “Kant on Lies,” 212–3; Sussman, “Supposed Duty,” 230ff.; Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 47ff. Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 61. E.g., Esser, “Moral Conflicts,” 296; Wood, Kantian Ethics, 64; Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 56. Michaelis, Moral, Part II, Section 3:162ff., §71). MSTL 6:431. Cf. VE 27:701. Kant’s mentioning of the Scherzlüge and Höflichkeitslüge can hardly be an accident but suggests that Kant was studying Michaelis’s 1792 Moral in preparation for his own Metaphysics of Morals. A precise study of the

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Kant, who was quite familiar with Michaelis’s work,302 argues, like Michaelis, that any untruthful statement intended to deceive must be considered a lie.303 Walch’s Philosophische Lexikon extensively discusses Michaelis’s 1750 essay (in its 1773 edition), which holds that if telling an untruth were not universally prohibited then the obligation of contracts would be undermined.304 In his 1792 Moral, Michaelis repeats his argument for the universal scope of the duty of truthfulness.305 Again, Michaelis’s argument explicitly refers to the extreme case of an agent who is in rage and “asks me where someone ran whom she wants to murder.”306 Michaelis argues that we are obliged to tell the truth in this case. In other words, Constant’s “German philosopher, who goes so far as to maintain that it would be a crime to lie to a murderer who asked us whether a friend of ours whom he is pursuing has taken refuge in our house”307 is more likely Michaelis, not Kant. Geismann/Oberer deserve full credit for pointing this out.308 The editor of the German translation of Constant’s essay, Cramer, also mentions Michaelis in this context as the philosopher who has defended this “extraordinary opinion earlier than Kant.” Cramer maintains, however, that Constant had Kant in mind. Allegedly, Constant explicitly told him so. Kant himself, however, “cannot . . . recall where” he ever defended this view.309 Nevertheless, Kant accepts the challenge, and shows why there cannot be a right to lie from a juridical point of view, explicitly bracketing the ethical dimension of the controversy. But what about the ethical dimension of lying? Can the values of “life, philanthropy and friendship”310 justify a lie?

302 303 304

305 306 307 308 309 310

influence of Michaelis’s 1792 Moral on Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals would be desirable but lies beyond the scope of this book. There are many other examples, phrases, and topics in Michaelis’s 1792 Moral that seem to have had some influence on Kant’s thoughts. Such topics include, for example, the problem of inoculation in regard to the impermissibility of suicide (Moral, Part II, Section 2:313ff., §43; Part II, Section 2:33ff., §55); the justification of the prohibition on cruelty toward animals (Moral, Part II, Section 3:340, §104); the specification of the universal duty of love with respect to particular relationships (Moral, Part II, Section 3:169ff., §74; Part II, Section 2:296f., §41); and the distinction between moral shame and unpleasant feelings (Moral, Part I:84ff., §11). Although Kant never simply aligns his position with Michaelis, the latter seems to be providing key points of reference for Kant’s own reflections. See, for example, RGV 6:13, 110; SF 7:8; VARGV 23:94, 102, 114. See MSTL 6:429. Cf. Anth 7:152, VE 27:62. Walch, Lexikon, 2319. Within the juridical context of his reply to Constant, Kant defends this aspect of Michaelis’s argument, namely, that untruthfulness undermines the basis of contracts. (VRML 8:426) Michaelis, Moral, Part II, Section 3:159ff., §71. Cf. Michaelis, Moral, Part II, Section 1:255f., §32. Michaelis, Moral, Part II, Section 3:160–1, §71. VRML 8:425. Geismann/Oberer, Recht der Lüge, 10. VRML 8:425. Esser, “Moral Conflicts,” 290.

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Kant’s justification of the prohibition on lying in its ethical meaning likewise abstracts from the good or bad consequences of the lie. Any untruthful statement with the intention to deceive is a lie:  “In ethics . . . every falsiloquium, every knowing deception, is impermissible, even though it be not immediately coupled with an injury.”311 The prohibition on lying is a moral prohibition, but not one determined by prudential considerations.312 This makes it rather easy to decide one case of lying, namely, when an agent wants to promote her contingent interest by violating a moral command. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant discusses the ethical prohibition on lying together with servility and avarice. For Kant, what these vices have in common is that they share a heteronomous motivating ground, which undermines the faculty of giving the law to oneself, that is, the dignity of a human person. As Kant presents the ethical prohibition on lying, the liar is a plaything of her desires. The liar commits “a crime of a human being against his own person and a worthlessness that must make him contemptible in his own eyes.”313 Considered as an ethical duty, truthfulness is a duty toward oneself as a rational being. As Kant points out in his reply to Constant: Untruthfulness is a violation of duty to oneself . . . The doctrine of virtue looks, in this transgression, only to worthlessness, reproach for which a liar draws upon himself.314

This ethical dimension of lying presupposes that an agent intentionally undermines her rationality by choosing to act on a heterogeneous principle. The proposed maxim in the case of the murderer at the door, however, does not seem to contain a heterogeneous motivating ground. Rather, what motivates the act of lying are considerations regarding the preservation of life (a), philanthropy (b), and—since the person seeking refuge in our house is “a friend of ours”—also friendship (c).315 These considerations do not seem to be heterogeneous interests conflicting with moral motivation, but are rather moral interests themselves. In this case, prudential calculations of benefit do not threaten to undermine the status of A  as a rational being. Rather, what threatens to undermine A’s inner freedom is the fact that she faces irreconcilable moral demands, or so it seems. 311 312 313 314 315

VE 27:700. MSTL 6:429–30. MSTL 6:429–30. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 172; KpV 5:87–8. VRML 8:427. VRML 8:425.

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(a) For Kant, the value of human life is not an absolute moral value. “Thus the preservation of life is not the highest duty; rather, one often has to give up life, merely in order to have lived in an honorable way.”316 Accordingly, no necessity, not even the physical necessity of saving one’s own or another’s life, can “make what is wrong conform with law.”317 Kant here reiterates Cicero’s well-known claim that an immoral action is more contrary to nature than death, than poverty, than pain and than anything else that may happen to [one’s] body or external possessions.318

The classic example, which Cicero discusses at length, is the one of Regulus, who chooses to be tortured to death rather than failing to live up to his moral responsibilities.319 Kant comments on such positions as follows: If I cannot preserve [my life] other than by violating the duties to myself, then I am bound to sacrifice it, rather than violate those duties . . . It is better to sacrifice life than to forfeit morality.320

This implies that attempting to save a life by violating a duty would mean to act on a maxim of heteronomy after all, because the value of human life is not by itself a moral value. (b) The same systematic point holds for the empirical feeling of philanthropy (Menschenliebe), if it is taken to determine the agent’s maxim. An agent must not violate a duty for nonmoral reasons. Kant’s moral principle prohibits one to make an “exception in favor of inclination.”321 (c) This leaves us with the conflict between saving a friend and telling the truth. Kant clearly acknowledges both truthfulness and friendship as moral grounds of obligation. In contrast to the two previously mentioned scenarios, which involved the values of human life and the empirical feeling of philanthropy, here no contingent interest is threatening to undermine an agent’s identity. The problem is not that the agent is guided by a principle of heteronomy. It is not the case that, for example, she judges it to be too unpleasant to be honest

316

317 318

319 320 321

Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 229. Cf. “If a man can preserve his life no otherwise than by dishonoring his humanity, he ought rather to sacrifice it.” Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 228. Cf. ibid., 220, 221, 222, 226. MSRL 6:236. Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.21. This passage was well known in the literature of Kant’s time. Adam Smith also cites it approvingly in his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments. On this point, see Nussbaum, “Duties of Justice,” 179n8. Cicero, De Officiis, 3.99–111. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 221–2. Compare again Kant’s gallows example at KpV 5:30. GMS 4:421n. Cf. Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 54.

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in these particular circumstances. Rather, the agent faces a true conflict of moral grounds of obligation. Shall I be truthful or shall I live up to the obligations of friendship? One could argue that truthfulness is a duty of right and friendship a duty of beneficence, which would resolve the conflict for Kant.322 There cannot be a legal permission to lie in order to help a friend. So what about the conflict between truthfulness and friendship considered as two ethical grounds of obligation? Unfortunately, Kant chooses to bypass the problem of how to hierarchically order ethical grounds of obligation in his “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay. As Sedgwick rightly puts it, Kant can exclude as impermissible exceptions in the name of prudence or expediency as a class, simply by reflecting on the nature of duty as he has defined it. Whether duty may on some occasions be excepted to on other grounds (on moral grounds), whether Kant is able to provide us some objective means of arbitrating among duties when they conflict—these are questions that belong outside that domain of inquiry which has as its task the determination of the foundation of duty.323

Kant addresses the question whether there can be a right to lie, but not the question of the Transition Project of how to order conflicting ethical grounds of obligation. To conclude, Kant’s famous debate with Constant does not argue that ethics prescribes duties that hold absolutely in all cases that come up. Kant strictly distinguishes between a juridical meaning of a lie (mendacium), in which case an agent violates another person’s right, and the ethical meaning, in which an agent undermines her self-determination. In its ethical meaning, what specific empirical acts are prohibited requires knowledge of the phenomena of lying, which are embedded in an anthropological, social, and also personal context. Ethics considers maxims, and maxims include the various grounds of obligation that give rise to reasons for action. Kant’s “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay does not argue for a rigorist position in the sense that duties hold absolutely over all cases that come up. Rigorism for Kant means that maxims must express autonomy as opposed to heteronomy. When maxims conflict, as in the case of the colliding grounds of obligation of truthfulness and friendship, agents lose their autonomy, unless there is a moral transition from principle to application.

322 323

See my discussion of rationes obligandi in this section above, and, e.g., VE 27:493. Cf. Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 51.

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Conclusion The strength of Kant’s account of morality lies in its formalism, because human freedom can only be secured from contingent infringements by unconditionally binding principles. The unconditional normative force of moral rules lies in their independence from personal peculiarities and interests. What makes principles moral is their universal, unconditional basis: the idea of autonomy. Because morality is independent of contingent human ends, there cannot be exceptions based on utility at the practical level of agency. This is what Kant’s famous examples in the Groundwork and the “Supposed-Right-to-Lie” essay are meant to elucidate. Scholars who interpret the notion of latitude regarding the application of moral principles in terms of individualistic lenience, and who argue for exceptions to moral principles on contingent grounds, undermine the essence of Kantian morality. Self-identification as an autonomous agent requires a law-governed progress from the a priori foundation of morality to empirical agency. What constitutes the a priori foundation of moral agency is, to begin with, the idea of autonomy. The categorical imperative, which is a formal rule, applies this idea to sensibility in general. Beings whose will is not necessarily in accord with the pure moral law but who are also subject to sensible grounds of motivation are bound by the categorical imperative. Besides this formal restriction on human volition, Kant presents two ends that are also duties as the material first principles of all empirical duties. These ends, promoting an agent’s own moral perfection and other agents’ happiness, are not ends of nature but moral ends (i.e., objects of pure practical reason).324 Principles such as the prohibition on lying are unconditionally valid in the sense that their violation based on prudential interests would imply heteronomy (i.e., their violation is incompatible with an agent’s striving for moral self-perfection). All of this is part of the a priori foundation of morality. It constitutes the universal identity of human beings. However, the formulation of particular duties requires the formulation of maxims, which are the result of an agent’s context-sensitive deliberations about what to do in specific circumstances. The principle of virtue, in accordance with which the human being is an end for himself as well as for others, does not determine how specifically an agent has to act under contingent circumstances. Yet, in order to understand a material maxim as morally justified it must be possible to show how it is based on the formal principle of morality. Agents can only distinguish their agency 324

See Chapter 3, “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum.”

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from physical causation insofar as agency is expressive of principles that agents have adopted. This implies that agents need to aim at coherently organizing their maxims in order to understand themselves as persons. To the extent that agents cannot justify how they prioritize among various grounds of obligations they cannot conceive of themselves as agents. Neither proponents of inclination-based specification of moral duties nor their opponents provide a moral guide for solving indeterminacy problems. Kant’s influential predecessors, Cicero and Baumgarten, provide such a moral guide by conceiving of various grounds of obligation as modifications of what is constitutive for moral agency in their respective moral systems. Cicero prioritizes between moral obligations with respect to the thickness of social relations, because in his system moral agency derives its normative force from the value of communal life. Baumgarten hierarchically orders obligations as superior laws outweighing weaker laws in terms of their obligatory strength. In his system, moral agency derives its normative force from the quantitative strength of motivating grounds. In Kant’s moral philosophy, however, a moral reason for ordering ethical maxims is missing, because neither the quantitative strength of motivating grounds nor the various thickness of social relationships are modifications of what is constitutive of agency in the Kantian system: autonomy. In Kant’s system, prioritization of ethical maxims would need to be couched in terms of the single motivating ground of autonomy. Thus, there is a gap between the a priori part of morality and embodied agency, because Kant’s ethical theory cannot determine—in principle—the latitude of choice on nonarbitrary grounds. It must be in terms of autonomy that agents determine the latitude of ethical duties and prioritize among them in cases of conflict. It is in this context of application that §45 demands a moral transition from principle to application, which would “schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use.”325 There are two precursors to §45, which confirm that the context of Kant’s idea of a Transition is the application of general duties to empirical cases for the sake of connecting universal and local identities of agents. Whether there is a collision of virtues. Duties of virtue for human beings in general [Menschen überhaupt]; for the sex, age, rank; and how the latter must not contradict the former. For these are only different cases of applying one and the same virtue.326 325 326

MSTL 6:468–9. VAMS 23:397, my emphasis.

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We see Kant here pondering duties, which are not common to all men, but presuppose particular conditions such as ties between friends, family members, and citizens. Since these duties are “only different cases of applying one and the same virtue,” it is clear that an agent’s obligations arising from her specific local identities are only modifications of her universal identity. In his preliminary works to the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant notes: Doctrine of Virtue with respect to the sexes, age, rank, and society. Everything a priori [Alles blos a priori].327

Because all specific duties are only cases of applying one and the same a priori value of autonomy, it must be possible to show how particular obligations (whatever they may be) are modifications of the universal ground of all normativity. This is the task of the Transition. In §45 of the published Doctrine of Virtue, Kant commences from the question of how duties with respect to a manifold of specific conditions such as age, health, social status, and gender can be incorporated into the system of ethics. These (duties of virtue) . . . are only rules modified in accordance with differences of the subjects to whom the principle of virtue (in terms of what is formal) is applied in cases that come up in experience (the material) . . .—Yet even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.328

An autonomous self-conception requires that an agent has one coherent notion of her practical identity, and this is why even the application of moral principles belongs to the complete presentation of the system of morality.

327 328

VAMS 23:404. MSTL 6:468–9, my emphasis.

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Introduction The previous chapter has argued that there is a pervasive gap problem in Kant’s moral theory, which originates in the strict separation of formal from material aspects of agency. Kant’s theory of obligation lacks the resources for determining the latitude of moral principles on nonarbitrary grounds. Thus, Kant demands a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use.1

A schema is the condition of sensibility under which an a priori principle can be applied to empirical objects. As such schemata, Kant presents four moral feelings in the brief section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, published in 1797. It is a rough and unfinished draft. Section XII presents four moral feelings under the title “CONCEPTS OF WHAT IS PRESUPPOSED ON THE PART OF FEELING BY THE MIND’S RECEPTIVITY TO CONCEPTS OF DUTY AS SUCH.”2 These concepts are a. b. c. d.

moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings, and respect for oneself (self-esteem).3

Moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings (beneficence), and self-respect are topics that have individually occupied Kant’s attention throughout his career in various contexts. However, never before has Kant presented these four 1 2

3

MSTL 6:468. “ÄSTHETISCHE VORBEGRIFFE DER EMPFÄNGLICHKEIT DES GEMÜTS FÜR PFLICHTBEGRIFFE ÜBERHAUPT.” I will refer to this section as Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals.” MSTL 6:399.

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aesthetic concepts combined in one section. The question thus arises whether Kant here simply enumerates leftovers from his lectures on ethics (which somehow should be part of a moral theory, but which do not really fit into his particular account of a priori morality) or whether he assigns a specific, unitary function to the four aesthetic concepts. My claim is that Kant’s attempt to specify four a priori feelings in section XII has the systematic purpose of building a bridge from the metaphysical account of practical rationality to embodied agency, which parallels Kant’s idea of the Transition Project in the “Octaventwurf.” Already the outer appearance of section XII duplicates Kant’s many attempts of the “Octaventwurf.” There is a clear systematic implication of Kant’s design of section XII. Kant’s classificatory scheme of ordering the four mediating concepts under four headings in the “Octaventwurf ” is either labeled a, b, c, d, as Kant does in section XII, or it explicitly uses the headings of quantity, quality, relation, and modality.4 The clue of the categories is supposed to exhaustively enumerate the mediating concepts of the Transition. As I will show, the fact that Kant presents exactly four moral feelings, and the order of their presentation, are hardly coincidental. All four moral feelings are the product of moral judgment. As such, they are rooted in the elementary forms of practical judgment, that is, the “table of the categories of freedom with respect to the concepts of the good and evil.”5 Thus, Kant attempts to use the table of the categories of freedom as the clue for the arrangement of the four aesthetic concepts. I will show that all four moral feelings are aesthetic affective responses to the unconditionality of the moral law. They are the product of moral judgment, and they have the double nature of schemata insofar as each of them has both a metaphysical and a phenomenal aspect. The rational–sensible hybrid character that Kant ascribes to moral feelings can already be seen from the general description of the “aesthetic of morals” as “a subjective exhibition of the metaphysics [of morals].”6 XII. CONCEPTS OF WHAT IS PRESUPPOSED [ÄSTHETISCHE VORBEGRIFFE] ON THE PART OF FEELING BY THE MIND’S RECEPTIVITY TO CONCEPTS OF DUTY AS SUCH. There are certain moral endowments such that anyone lacking them could have no duty to acquire them.—They are

4 5 6

E.g., Op 21:394f. KpV 5:66. “—Daher ist eine Ästhetik der Sitten zwar nicht ein Teil, aber doch eine subjective Darstellung der Metaphysik derselben; wo die Gefühle, welche die nötigende Kraft des moralischen Gesetzes begleiten, jener ihre Wirksamkeit empfindbar machen.” (—So an aesthetic of morals, while not indeed part of a metaphysics of morals, is still a subjective presentation of it in which the feelings that accompany the constraining power of the moral law . . . make its efficacy felt.) (MSTL 6:406) Cf. VAMS 23:396; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 56.

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moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbor, and respect for oneself (selfesteem). There is no obligation to have these because they lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty . . . antecedent predispositions on the side of feeling . . . Every human being has them, and it is by virtue of them that he can be put under obligation.—Consciousness of them is not of empirical origin; it can, instead, only follow from consciousness of a moral law, as the effect this has on the mind.7

The general conception of moral feelings as the effect of pure practical reason is, as was shown in the previous chapter, not new. The critical project of connecting autonomy to empirical agency through a theory of a priori feelings reaches back to the 1785 Groundwork. The deduction of transcendental freedom through the feeling of respect for the moral law establishes that agents have access to the rationality of their own conduct through an affective aesthetic response. Moral feeling is a subjective affective state produced by an agent’s commitment to an objective practical principle. And so respect for the law is not the incentive to morality; instead it is morality itself subjectively considered . . . inasmuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the claims of self-love in opposition with its own, supplies authority to the law.8

Thus, Kant holds that the feeling of respect involves both a negative feeling, because the moral law restrains our self-love, and a positive feeling of selfapprobation.9 Kant further elaborates on this double movement of displeasure and pleasure in the Critique of the Power of Judgment in the context of the feeling of the sublime: The object of a pure and unconditioned intellectual satisfaction is the moral law in all its power, which it exercises in us over each and every incentive of the mind antecedent to it; and, since this power actually makes itself aesthetically knowable only through sacrifices (which is a deprivation, although on behalf of inner freedom, but also reveals in us an unfathomable depth of this supersensible faculty together with its consequences reaching beyond what can be seen), the satisfaction on the aesthetic side (in relation to sensibility) is negative, i.e., contrary to this interest, but considered from the intellectual side it is positive, and combined with an interest. From this it follows that the intellectual,

7 8 9

MSTL 6:399. Cf. VAMS 23:396–7. KpV 5:76, my emphases. KpV 5:72–3.

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intrinsically purposive (moral) good, judged aesthetically, must . . . be represented . . . as sublime, so that it arouses . . . the feeling of respect.10

This double movement of displeasure and pleasure is characteristic of all four mediating concepts of section XII.11 There is a continuous trajectory from the Critique of Practical Reason, which presents moral feeling as the affective response to moral reason, to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, which argues that the “feeling of the sublime in nature is respect for our own vocation” expressed in aesthetic terms,12 to, finally, section XII, where Kant argues that conscience is practical reason, namely pure practical reason in aesthetic terms, just as self-respect is practical reason in aesthetic terms, and so on. Kant’s conception of moral feeling in the Critique of Practical Reason (as an aesthetic affective response of beings who are rational and sensible) sets the precedence: the supersensible ground of the will is disclosed to the subject in form of a feeling. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant comes to see this aesthetic responsiveness as the systematic middle term between objective and subjective morality. I say “systematic” because this affective moral responsiveness is now ascribed to the faculty of reflective (aesthetic) judgment: But the determinability of the subject by means of this idea [freedom], and indeed of a subject that can sense in itself obstacles in sensibility but at the same time superiority over them through overcoming them as a modification of its condition, i.e., the moral feeling, is nevertheless related to the aesthetic power of judgment and its formal conditions to the extent that it can serve to make the lawfulness of action out of duty representable at the same time as aesthetic.13

10 11

12

13

KU 5:271, second emphasis is mine. I am indebted here to Munzel, Moral Character, 118–32, 297–313; and her “ ‘Doctrine of Method’ and ‘Closing’ (151–63),” in Immanuel Kant:  Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, vol. 26, Klassiker Auslegen, ed. Otfried Höffe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 216f. KU 5:257, my emphasis. Cf. Louden, Impure Ethics, 122ff.; Munzel, Moral Character, 128; Zammito, Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 280. KU 5:267. For further passages emphasizing that a priori feelings are sensible expressions of the state of the subject who is affected by an act of judgment, see: EEKU 20:229, 223. Cf. Annemarie Pieper, “Zweites Hauptstück (57–71),” in Immanuel Kant: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, vol. 26, Klassiker Auslegen, ed. Otfried Höffe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 129n8: “Mir scheint, dass man . . . eine ästhetische Variante der praktischen Urteilskraft qua reflektierende Urteilskraft annehmen kann . . . Man könnte . . . den Vergleichspunkt bei der “Erhabenheit” ansetzen (“bestirnter Himmel”—“moralisches Gesetz”).” (It seems to me that . . . one can assume an aesthetic variant of the practical faculty of judgment via the reflective faculty of judgment . . . One could . . . begin with the sublime as a point of comparison [“starry heavens”—“moral law”]). Similarly, Munzel, Moral Character, 312: “The moral law in its subjectively practical form ‘allows us to perceive’ (or more literally, ‘get a sense, feel, or taste of,’ spüren] the ‘sublimity of our own supersensible existence.’ (KpV 88)” (first and last emphases are mine). The feeling of the sublime makes us aesthetically “feel an appreciation for who and what we are, to feel the very dignity of our essential nature” (Munzel, Moral Character, 129). Cf. Zammito, Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 278: “A correct estimation of the role of the “Analytic of the

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There are several characteristics that Kant develops in the context of the feeling of the sublime, which are clearly carried over to section XII. 1. The feeling of the sublime has its foundation in a “natural” predisposition, namely, “in the predisposition to the feeling for (practical) ideas.”14 2. It is a “necessary” feeling, which is not produced by culture (i.e., based on convention), although it requires cultivation of moral ideas.15 This means, “the feeling for the sublime” both “presupposes and cultivates a certain liberality in the manner of thinking [Denkungsart].”16 3. The feeling of the sublime is a “schema” for intellectual ideas in two senses: its essence consists in the relation between the sensible and supersensible, and it allows reflective judgment to apply intellectual ideas to particular objects in nature.17 4. Finally, the feeling of the sublime commences in a feeling of discomfort, succeeded by a feeling of intellectual gratification.18 As we will see in this chapter, all of these aspects are picked up in section XII with respect to each of the four moral feelings: 1. They are “natural” predispositions; not a matter of convention. 2. They are necessary expressions of rationality; there can be no duty to acquire them: their possession is already presupposed insofar as they are the indispensable media through which agents are attentive to the moral worth of their conduct. They are “self-wrought” products of moral judgment and must be cultivated. 3. They are conceived of as schemata in two senses: they connect the noumenal and phenomenal sides of the human agent, and make moral ideas applicable to particular phenomena. 4. They involve the double movement of displeasure and pleasure.

14

15

16 17

18

Sublime” in the Third Critique must find its function . . . in demonstrating a connection between aesthetic experience in general and the ultimate nature of the self.” KU 5:265, my emphasis. “But just because the judgment on the sublime in nature requires culture . . . it is not therefore first generated by culture and so to speak introduced into society merely as a matter of convention; rather it has its foundation in human nature . . . namely in the predisposition to the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e., to that which is moral.” (Ibid.) Cf. KU 5:256. KU 5:265f. Cf. KU 5:356: “But since taste is at bottom a faculty for the judging of the sensible rendering of moral ideas . . . it is evident that the true propaedeutic for the grounding of taste is the development of moral ideas and the cultivation of the moral feeling.” KU 5:268, first two emphases are mine. Cf. Munzel, Moral Character, 300. KU 5:257, 265, 269ff. Cf. Zammito, Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, 273ff., 283; Allison, Theory of Taste, 324ff. E.g., KU 5:260ff. Cf. Allison, Theory of Taste, 318; Louden, Impure Ethics, 121–2.

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The term “aesthetic precondition” [Ästhetische Vorbegriffe] in the title of section XII clearly points toward the third Critique’s discussion of the sublime as an aesthetic judgment of reflection. Precisely for this reason, it is important to point out that Kant’s moral feelings of section XII are aesthetic affective responses to practical reflection. These feelings are purely aesthetic in nature, that is, neither do they provide motivating force nor do they aid in cognition.19 The point of the Transition is to develop principles that are “necessary insofar as that without them no experience regarding specific appearances would be possible.”20 Kant says repeatedly that moral feelings are basic for moral agency, such that a person lacking these affective responses could not act in the sensible world as an autonomous agent. They are indispensable from the perspective of the empirical agent. Moral feeling, conscience, love of human beings, and self-respect first make autonomy sensible, and, in this mediating sense, all aesthetic preconditions are “at the basis of morality.”21 To be clear, the pure moral law, which holds independently of sensible nature, does not need the support of moral feelings. However, from the perspective of an agent involved in moral deliberation, reflective judgment “serve[s] to make the lawfulness of action out of duty representable at the same time as aesthetic,” and thus applicable to particular circumstances. My thesis is that the connection between §45 of the Doctrine of Virtue (i.e., the problem of how the normativity of particular moral commands can be shown to originate in the a priori universal restriction of morality) and section XII of the introduction (i.e., the conception of moral feelings as the product of reflective judgment) can only be grasped against the background of Kant’s Transition Project in the 1796–1798 fascicles of the Opus postumum. If read in this context, which interpreters have entirely missed, it will become clear that Kant’s aesthetics of morals is supposed to play the role of schemata analogous to the schemata of the Transition Project of the Opus postumum. More precisely, I will show that for the application of the universal intellectual moral law to particular sensible agents, aesthetic moral responsiveness is indispensable. I will suggest two ways in which moral feelings can be said to be indispensable for moral agency under empirical circumstances. First, moral feelings are indispensable for moral development: moral progress requires one to be attentive to the moral law. But what are we attentive to? Since the moral law itself is an unschematized idea of reason, 19

20 21

For a different reading on the analogy between aesthetic and moral feeling, see Allison, Theory of Taste, 326–7, 331–2, 341–4. Op 21:331. Cf. Op 21:378. MSTL 6:399.

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agents cannot be directly attentive to it. I argue that to be attentive to the moral law means, for example, to be attentive to our conscience and self-respect insofar as these are sensible expressions of the moral law. Second, moral feelings translate impartial moral concern for humanity in general into partial concern for specific individuals. This relates to the main point of the previous chapter, so it is worth repeating: by recognizing that a maxim is justified, an agent affirms that a maxim can be consistently located within the web of other maxims that constitute the agent as a person. Because the Kantian agent cannot give up the project of rationally justifying her agency, the problems of specifying the scope of obligations and of providing reasons for prioritizing among obligations cannot be resolved by extra-moral considerations. Yet, this is what the literature attributes to Kant, and I think the Transition Project provides historical evidence that Kant thought otherwise. The content of ethical duties must be determined at the empirical level, by an agent’s local web of maxims, which takes into account what kind of relationships we are committed to, and so on, that is, in short, what kind of persons we think we are. My thesis is that Kant’s theory of the fourfold schemata of aesthetic responsiveness allows us to translate the a priori concern for autonomy into context-sensitive local self-conceptions.

The four mediating concepts in the “Aesthetics of Morals” Moral feeling Moral feeling is the way in which rational beings that are also sensible are affected by the unconditional necessitation of moral commands. Recall Kant’s gallows example: an agent reflects upon an action as the possible effect of her will. The process of moral reflection consists in determining whether the maxim under which this action would be performed shall be judged as good or evil. The maxim could be formulated as follows: in order to prevent harm to myself and save my life, I judge it as good to make a false statement against an innocent person. In this process of moral reflection, the “irrepressible” voice of reason is disclosed to an individual agent through a mode of moral sensitivity. An agent judges and perceives that a proposed maxim in a given situation threatens to undermine her standing as an autonomous agent.22 Accordingly, Kant says in

22

KpV 5:30, 35, 36. Cf. my discussion of the fact of reason in Chapter 2 “Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis.”

18

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section XII that “any consciousness of obligation depends upon moral feeling to make us aware of the constraint present in the thought of duty” and that moral feeling is “the susceptibility to feel pleasure or displeasure merely from being aware that our actions are consistent with or contrary to the law of duty.”23 Kant defines moral feeling as “the susceptibility [Empfänglichkeit] on the part of free choice to be moved by pure practical reason (and its law).”24 Moral feeling is thus not an arbitrary feeling of empirical origin. Rather, it expresses the objective law of pure practical reason—in specific circumstances—in subjective (aesthetic) terms. Because any attentiveness to the unconditional authority of the moral law presupposes moral feeling (denn alles Bewusstsein der Verbindlichkeit legt dieses Gefühl zum Grunde), “there can be no duty to have moral feeling or to acquire it.”25 Moral feeling expresses the unconditional normative force of rational principles in aesthetic terms. Moral feeling is an original predisposition, that is, a necessary prerequisite, on the side of the subject regarding the consciousness of duty.26 Agents can thus only further cultivate their original predisposition through the practice of rational deliberation. Obligation with regard to moral feeling can be only to cultivate it and strengthen it . . . No human being is entirely without moral feeling, for were he completely lacking in receptivity to it he would be morally dead; and if (to speak in medical terms) the moral vital force could no longer excite this feeling, then humanity would dissolve (by chemical laws, as it were) into mere animality.27

Since the commitment to the moral law is ineliminable, there is no human being without some degree of moral feeling.28 Moral feeling is an agent’s “moral vital force” [moralische Lebenskraft]. In its absence, autonomous agency would be dissolved, and the human faculty of desire would turn into mere “animal inclination.”29 To elucidate this, imagine Kant’s agent in the gallows example lacked moral feeling. In this case, preservation of his life, sensible pleasure and

23 24 25

26

27 28 29

MSTL 6:399. MSTL 6:400. MSTL 6:399. Cf. “Certainly, the will must have motives; but these are . . . nothing other than the unconditional law itself; and the will’s receptivity to finding itself subject to the law as unconditional necessitation is called moral feeling, which is therefore not the cause but the effect of the determination of the will, and we would not have the least perception of it within ourselves if that necessitation were not already present in us” (TP 8:283f.). Cf. “Respect for the law”, which in its subjective aspect is called moral feeling, is identical with consciousness of one’s duty” (MSTL 6:464). MSTL 6:399–400. See Chapter 2, “Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis.” See VAMS 23:397.

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displeasure, would be the only determining ground of his will. He literally could not be receptive to “concepts of duty as such,”30 because he would lack awareness of their unconditionality. Moral feeling is the vehicle that makes agents susceptible to the difference between moral and prudential reasoning. Lacking moral feeling, an agent could not adopt a maxim for moral reasons, but only for heteronomous ones. This is why Kant says in pedagogical contexts that every kind of moral education requires moral feeling.31 Because the ground of moral feeling is intellectual and its mode of existence empirical, it has a hybrid structure. Moral feeling is neither entirely a priori nor entirely empirical, and this is why it can bridge morality and nature. It “can be read” from both the phenomenal and noumenal sides of the human being. Note how Kant presents the hybrid character of moral feeling: “every human being (as a moral being) has [it] . . . in him originally.”32 Moral feeling expresses the law of pure practical reason in aesthetic terms. Since it is only in specific empirical contexts of moral reflection that the feeling of respect affects a particular self, we can say that the moral feeling of respect connects the universal foundation of agency with quite particular empirical agents. The feeling of respect is located at the intersection of the metaphysical and empirical levels of agency, and it involves the double movement of displeasure and pleasure: as I have pointed out in the previous chapter, in the gallows example it is clear that the Kantian virtuous agent is strongly inclined to save her life in such circumstances. She experiences the fact of reason as a constraint imposed on her. She also recognizes that she is the author of that constraint. Thus, Kant holds that the feeling of respect involves both a negative feeling, because the moral law restrains our self-love, and a positive feeling of self-approbation. It should be noted that Kant insists that moral feeling “yields no cognition.”33 This means, moral feeling is not meant to be an epistemic tool that discloses how we ought to act. It is not a tool for determining the content of maxims. For example, what counts as servile behavior is not disclosed to me “emotionally,” but first cognized through a judgment. The moral feeling of worthlessness is the product of my judgment. Moral feeling only discloses the unconditional status of moral laws. Finally, note that Kant does not mention any direct motivational role of moral feeling either. Moral feeling is a mode of consciousness (susceptibility),

30 31

32 33

MSTL 6:399. See “Attitudinal function of moral feelings, self-deception, and moral progress” under the head “Implications” below for further discussion. MSTL 6:400, my emphases. MSTL 6:400. Pleasure and emotion are not a faculty of cognition. Cf. Anth 7:239–40; VAnth 25:1499.

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which indicates that free choice can be “moved by pure practical reason,” but nowhere does Kant say in section XII that moral feeling itself moves agents.34 Moral feeling discloses an agent’s autonomy, which cannot be deduced, rationally comprehended or explained otherwise, because autonomy is unconditional. “For, how a law can be of itself and immediately a determining ground of the will (though this is what is essential in all morality) is for human reason an insoluble problem.”35 This remark is important because by attributing an epistemic or motivational function to the moral feelings of section XII, the recent literature overlooks the systematic place of the aesthetics of morals within Kant’s critical conception of morality.36

Conscience Likewise, conscience has neither a direct epistemic nor motivational role. Rather, section XII discusses conscience as an affective response to an agent’s own moral reflection. To use Kant’s legal metaphor, conscience is merely the court in which maxims are submitted to practical deliberation.37 Thus Kant says that when we say to someone, “But don’t you have any conscience,” we mean that he either has not developed his capacity to be attentive to his rational deliberation or that he is not heeding it. For, if he really had no conscience . . . he would neither impute anything to himself as conforming to duty nor reproach himself with anything as contrary to duty . . . Unconscientiousness is not lack of conscience but rather the propensity to pay no heed to its judgment . . . The duty here is only to cultivate one’s conscience.38

Reason affects an agent moral-aesthetically through conscience: we “unavoidably” hear its voice, because as agents we always already are committed to rationality.39 For this reason, conscience cannot be acquired, but only cultivated: So too, conscience is not something that can be acquired . . . rather every human being, as a moral being, has a conscience within him originally. To be under obligation to have a conscience would be tantamount to having a duty to recognize duties.40 34 35

36 37 38 39 40

MSTL 6:400. KpV 5:72. Cf. “Now reason’s ability to become master over all the inclinations striving against it through the mere idea of a law is absolutely inexplicable” (RGV 6:59n). For further discussion, see “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum” below. MSTL 6:437ff. MSTL 6:401. Cf. Timmermann, Kant on Conscience, 293–308. MSTL 6:401. MSTL 6:400, first emphasis is mine.

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The parallel between moral feeling and conscience is obvious. In both cases, an agent has the duty to “sharpen” her “attentiveness” to her practical reason.41 To make moral progress means to provide a hearing for one’s moral feeling and to be conscientious. Conscience is a prerequisite for moral development, but it does not determine for us a substantial ethical maxim, that is, it does not take the place of moral judgment. Conscience does not objectively determine the solution to ethical conflicts. It “is not directed to an object but merely to the subject.”42 For while I can indeed be mistaken at times in my objective judgment as to whether something is a duty or not, I cannot be mistaken in my subjective judgment as to whether I have submitted it to my practical reason (here in its role as judge) for such a judgment; for if I could be mistaken in that, I would have made no practical judgment at all.43

Kant asserts that an individual agent may err as to whether an action is ethically permissible. Conscience can fail in this objective respect. Conscience errs when it proceeds from “false moral principles,” or when it falsely subsumes a deed under a principle: “error facti and error legis.”44 However, conscience cannot err with respect to whether an agent has scrutinized her maxims, and whether she has taken alternative reasons into consideration. Conscience cannot err with respect to whether an agent acts under the subjective consciousness that her action is ethically permissible.45 An agent cannot be mistaken about whether she takes her maxim to be justified. Thus, an erring conscience is inconceivable. In the Religion, Kant had already presented a similar view: Conscience does not pass judgment upon actions as cases that stand under the law, for this is what reason does so far as it is subjectively practical (whence the casus conscientiae and casuistry, as a kind of dialectic of conscience). Rather, here reason judges itself, whether it has actually undertaken, with all diligence, the examination of actions (whether they are right or wrong).46

41 42 43 44 45

46

MSTL 6:401. MSTL 6:400. MSTL 6:401, my emphases. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 193–4. Baumgarten, Ethica, §§175ff. Cf. Thomas Sören Hoffman, “Gewissen als praktische Apperzeption: Zur Lehre vom Gewissen in Kants Ethik-Vorlesungen,” Kant-Studien 93(4) (2002): 438–9. RGV 6:186. Cf.: “One cannot always stand by the truth of what one says to oneself or to another (for one can be mistaken); however, one can and must stand by the truthfulness of one’s declaration or confession, because one has immediate consciousness of this. For in the first instance we compare what we say with the object in a logical judgment (through the understanding), whereas in the second instance, where we declare what we hold as true, we compare what we say with the subject (before conscience)” (MpVT 8:267).

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Although Kant also uses the notion “casibus conscientiae” in the context of “cases where conscience is the sole judge,”47 in section XII Kant is clearly not interested in specifying conscience’s role as a tool in determining ethical maxims. Rather, the feeling of conscience is an affective state, produced by moral reflective judgment. Conscience expresses whether or not an agent takes herself to be responsive to her own reasons in the context of competing motivating grounds in particular circumstances. For, Kantian duties are also performance obligations. Every duty essentially relates to an act and is apprehended with reference to a concrete act possible as an effect of the agent. It is a fundamental aspect of Kant’s conception of ethics that with “respect to the authorization [Befugnis] one has to be absolutely certain.”48 Consider the following passage: And as for what concerns in particular the objects of practical cognition by reason in morals, rights and duties, there can just as little be mere belief in regard to them. One must be fully certain whether something is right or wrong, in accordance with duty or contrary to duty, allowed or not allowed. In moral things one cannot risk anything on the uncertain, one cannot decide anything on the danger of trespass against the law.49

If there are circumstances in which agents are uncertain with respect to the permissibility of an act, the agent is not permitted to act on her maxim. With respect to the action I want to undertake, however, I must not only judge, and be of the opinion, that it is right; I must also be certain that it is. And this is a requirement of conscience to which is opposed probabilism, i.e., the principle that the mere opinion that an action may well be right is itself sufficient for undertaking it.50

Kant is unequivocally clear on his rejection of epistemic risk taking in ethics. Throughout his career, Kant is committed to a certainty requirement in ethics.51 47

48 49 50 51

MSTL 6:440. Cf. VE 27:619; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 31, 51; Baumgarten, Ethica, §190; Initia, §§85, 142–4; Christian August Crusius, Anweisung Vernünftig zu Leben, in Die Philosophischen Hauptwerke, vol.1, ed. Giorgio Tonelli (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1969), §§404–37; Gottfried Achenwall and Johann Stephan Pütter, Anfangsgründe des Naturrechts (Elementa Iuris Naturae), ed. and trans. Jan Schröder, vol. 5, Bibliothek des Deutschen Staatsdenkens, ed. Hans Maier et  al. (Frankfurt, Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1995), §§202–6. Refl 19:68. Cf. VASF 23:436; 24:734; VE 27:128, 359, 564, 1495. RGV 9:69–70. Cf. KrV A476/B504, A823/B851; VE 27:615; RGV 9:67; Refl 19:296; VE 29:633. RGV 6:186. See, for example, Kant’s 1770s lecture Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 329–30, and his discussion of the life-threatening risk of smallpox vaccination in the Opus postumum and the casuistical questions of the Metaphysics of Morals (MSTL 6:424. Cf. Br 13:498, 518; Br 12:314; Refl 15:971–6; Op 22:295–7, 302–5).

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It is precisely here that the role of moral judgment to build the transition from the a priori moral law to particular cases of application emerges.52 I showed in the previous chapter that progressing from Kant’s a priori foundation of morality to empirical agency is not as unproblematic as most commentators think it is. I asked: How does empirical judgment decide what is ethical–permissible in specific circumstances? In response to this question, I showed that what guides empirical judgment has to be connected to the a priori foundation of morality; just as there has to be a continuous connection between the rational and empirical studies of nature if critical philosophy is supposed to provide secure foundations for empirical knowledge. Now, the experience of loss of autonomy in our attempts to coherently organize our various commitments under the moral law might very well be an empirical fact of human agency (“damned if you do, damned if you don’t”).53 Resolving ethical dilemmas requires that empirical agents work toward prioritizing their obligations. As in the case of virtue, this involves a process of empirical discovery. I tried to show that the notions of latitude and playroom do not help explaining how this project of making progress might work in a Kantian framework because they cannot address the arbitrariness problem. The indeterminacy within Kant’s conception of ethics demands a specification of the exact relationship between the a priori foundation of morality and its open-ended application, because otherwise it is impossible to comprehend particular moral rules as necessary. I take it that this is what Kant means by “certainty” in ethics. Moral agency is developed over the course of a life, in which we learn to better understand what morality requires of us in particular situations. I suggest that, for Kant, this process of discovery is guided by reflective judgment and its mediating concepts. The practice of searching for truth is just as indispensable in science as it is in morality. In both cases, humans are engaged in a process of discovery and making progress. Within the Kantian system, the regulative principles that guide this process have to be tied to the a priori principles that are constitutive of the domains of nature and freedom in which our respective activities of empirical discovery take place. The Kantian agent cannot give up the project of rationally justifying her agency, just as she cannot give up the attempt to coherently explain empirical laws by providing insight into their a priori foundation. It is at the intersection of constitutive principles and regulative

52 53

See the head “Casuistry and ethical conflict” in this book, Chapter 2. I am here indebted to Krista Thomason with whom I dicussed this point.

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judgment that the need of Kant’s Transition Project and the necessary role of mediating concepts emerge. The hybrid character of conscience becomes clear in Kant’s claim that every “human being” (empirical) has a conscience qua being a “moral being” (a priori).54 Conscience thus connects the noumenal and phenomenal sides of “the dual personality” of the human being.55 Neither does the moral feeling of conscience belong exclusively to the a priori part of Kant’s theory of morality, nor to applied ethics. Rather, it mediates between both parts. Autonomy (a priori); feeling of conscience (mediating concept); casibus conscientiae (empirical agency, applied ethics). Kant’s clear distinction between the casuistical role of conscience as a tool for moral fine-tuning in empirical cases (applied ethics) and conscience as a moral predisposition in general, presents conscience as a bridge figure between reason and empirical agency. Conscience has the status of a schema: “conscience is practical reason” made sensible.56 In other words, what it means to judge in accordance with the moral law is to judge conscientiously. In order to elucidate this, consider Kant’s shopkeeper example, in which an agent may perform the same act from either moral concern or prudential interest.57 The same act of not overcharging an inexperienced customer can be part of two very different maxims.58 In the first case, an agent represents it as good to treat customers in a fair manner because the moral law requires this. In the latter case, an agent represents it as good to treat customers in a fair manner in order to make a profit in the long term. This latter maxim is of course heteronomous insofar as it is based on a contingent desire. The shopkeeper’s moral reflection regarding the practical rule that underlies her action is now expressed through the moral feeling of conscience. If a maxim violates the idea of autonomy in herself or another person, that is, if a maxim is inconsistent with an agent’s own web of reasons, conscience sensibly expresses the need to reexamine the adoption of her maxim.59 Of course, agents can either heed the voice of reason or not. Moral

54 55

56 57 58

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MSTL 6:400, my emphasis. MSTL 6:438. “But the human being as the subject of the moral lawgiving which proceeds from the concept of freedom and in which he is subject to a law that he gives himself (homo noumenon) is to be regarded as another (specie diversus) from the human being as a sensible being endowed with reason, though only in a practical respect—for there is no theory about the causal relation of the intelligible to the sensible” (MSTL 6:438n). MSTL 6:400, my emphasis. GMS 4:397–8. I assume that maxims include (1) an act-a, and (2) an end-e for the sake of which act-a is done. Cf. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 119f.; Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 11ff. In one of the examples of the Groundwork, Kant’s agent “still has enough conscience to ask himself ” whether he can will to make a lying promise in order to borrow money (GMS 4:422). I owe the reference to this passage to Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience.”

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feeling only expresses the need of a meta-reflection of moral consciousness on its own judgment, but it neither decides moral dilemmas by itself nor does it motivate to carry out such a reexamination.60

Benevolence The third mediating concept, love of human beings [Menschenliebe] is likewise the product of moral judgment and also involves the double movement of displeasure (self-love, heteronomy) and pleasure (autonomy). For example, naturally I do not feel inclined to help my elderly mother organize her personal correspondence. However, the practical judgment that I ought to help her—because I judge that she is struggling to accomplish this project of hers and I am in a unique position to work through her personal papers—produces the feeling of Menschenliebe. This feeling is based on the rational acknowledgment that another person struggles in her project of being a person and that I ought to support her, despite other competing motivating grounds. It is neither the bad condition as such nor my subjective connection to my mother that grounds this feeling of love. Rather, Menschenliebe is a rational feeling. Kant distinguishes between pathological and true love. True love of human beings is opposed to an agent’s direct sensible inclination or natural impulse to be benevolent. “So the saying ‘you ought to love your neighbor as yourself ’ does not mean that you ought immediately (first) to love him and (afterwards) by means of this love do good to him.”61 For this would be heteronomy. Rather, the feeling of true love is based on moral concern for the other agent. The rational principle to make the human being as such one’s end lies at the basis of the feeling of Menschenliebe.62 In the context of other competing motivating grounds, moral reflection judges a maxim as good, and this judgment produces the aesthetic affect of true love. The schematic or “bridge building” character of this moral feeling becomes clear in Kant’s claim that the rational feeling of love of human beings is the basis of the “aptitude of the inclination to beneficence.”63 In other words, an individual

60

61 62 63

Cf. Felicitas G. Munzel, “What does his Religion contribute to Kant’s conception of practical reason?” in Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason:  A  Critical Guide, ed. Gordon E. Michalson (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2014), 230–1; Dean Moyar, “Unstable Autonomy: Conscience and Judgment in Kant’s Moral Philosophy,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5(3) (2008):327–60; Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience,” 295; Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 43. MSTL 6:402. MSTL 6:393. MSTL 6:402, my emphasis.

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agent’s empirical inclination to help specific individuals in particular contexts can be seen as based on moral considerations. True love is autonomy made sensible. As a schema it provides sense and meaning to the abstract imperative of the moral law to make the human being as such one’s end. To love my mother means that I have made the rational judgment to adopt the maxim of making her ends my own. Based on my local identity, I can thus legitimately be partial toward loved ones. In his 1794 “The End of All Things,” Kant writes that “true love . . . [is the] free assumption of the will of another into one’s maxims.”64 Incorporating another’s will into one’s maxim means to judge that I ought to support another person’s projects. True love is based on “respect for a person.” “Respect is without doubt what is primary.”65 True love is the sensible product of moral deliberation. It is how an agent is affected by her moral judgment. Kant makes a related point in his 1793 Religion, where he says that the “aesthetic” expression “of having incorporated the good into one’s maxim is “love for the good.”66 At a phenomenological level, the “aesthetic constitution . . . of virtue” is experienced as the feeling of true love.67 Note that because moral feelings are self-wrought, they are not accidentally connected to moral agency. In order to act benevolently, we need to incorporate another agent’s maxims into our own willing, and since this moral concern produces a moral/sensible affection—true love of other human beings—we can say that true love is an essential part of moral agency. Adopting another person’s will into one’s maxim is necessarily accompanied by the moral feeling of love.68 Therefore, Kant says, love “is the sign of genuineness of virtuous disposition.”69 Without this “aesthetic constitution” of virtue, “one is never certain . . . of having incorporated the good into one’s maxim.”70 In other words, the aesthetic expression of virtue is the ratio cognoscendi of an agent’s moral state. We saw Kant making the same point with respect to moral feeling and conscience. Since the moral feeling of philanthropy is the sensible mode in which an agent experiences her autonomous agency with respect to other agents, it is the indispensable medium through which agents can make moral progress. The 64 65 66 67

68 69 70

EaD 8:338, my emphasis. I owe this reference to Pollok, “Kant und Habermas,” 208. EaD 8:337–8. RGV 6:23–4n. RGV 6:23n. Cf. The cheerful heart in the observance of one’s duty “constitutes an indispensable and notably aesthetic quality of the morally good comportment of mind” (Munzel, Moral Character, 304–5). MSTL 6:448, 454, 406, 399ff. Cf. Baxley, Theory of Virtue, 153, 156. RGV 6:23–4n, my emphasis. Ibid., my emphasis.

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more an agent is attentive to her moral feelings, the more she succeeds in acting autonomously. Because true love is a sensible expression of autonomy, it can be seen as a bridge figure between the impartiality of autonomy and the partiality of empirically situated agents: To love a person means, of course, to value that particular person. The empirical person that we love is unique. When I love a particular person—quite discriminatively, as opposed to another person—then I am attentive to her specific life projects, which I share to the degree that I have incorporated her maxims into my will. True love is directed at the true self of the beloved, her rational self, which is instantiated in specific life projects, that is, her maxims. True love is thus a way to value the universal personhood in specific persons. It is a schema of morality. We love this person and these characteristics of her. However, although true love is directed at the uniqueness of the person we love, it is not based on her uniqueness, but rather on her personhood. Moral feelings translate impartial concern for personhood into partial moral concern. Thus, Kant says, “without violating the universality of the maxim [of beneficence]” I can legitimately prioritize my beneficent acts “in accordance with the variety of loved-ones [Verschiedenheit der Geliebten] (one of whom concerns me more closely than another).”71 What it means in specific circumstances to make the dignity of humanity in another person one’s end (prohibition on arrogance, defamation, ridicule; and duty of beneficence, gratitude, sympathy) needs to be determined empirically. Neither the command of pure practical reason to promote the happiness of other human beings nor the mediating concept of love of human beings by themselves provide the context-sensitive content of maxims: dignity of humanity in another person (a priori); feeling of love for human beings (mediating concept); cases of application, that is, local conceptions of beneficence (applied ethics).

Self-respect As the fourth aesthetic precondition for autonomous embodied agency, Kant presents respect for one’s own status as a person, that is, self-esteem. Just as Kant has distinguished between the heteronomous feeling of pathological love (or love from inclination) and the autonomous feeling of practical love, so he distinguishes here between the heteronomous desire of the honor-seeker to glitter 71

MSTL 6:452, my translation.

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in the eyes of others and true honor or self-esteem.72 Kant thus distinguishes between a rational and an empirical feeling of self-esteem. The feeling of moral self-esteem originates in the respect for the humanity in one’s own person. Like all other mediating concepts, it is the affective aesthetic response of sensible agents to the command of pure practical reason. It is a feeling of a “special kind,” that is, a self-wrought feeling.73 Any violation of a duty toward oneself— prohibition on lying, avarice, servility, suicide, carnal self-degradation, excessive use of food and drink—disavows an agent’s own status as a person. This throwing away of one’s autonomy is accompanied by an affective response that expresses that an agent is contemptible “in his own eyes.”74 Self-esteem is the aesthetic product of moral judgment. Kant says: Accordingly it is not correct to say that a human being has a duty of self-esteem; it must rather be said that the law within him unavoidably forces from him respect for his own being, and this feeling (which is of a special kind) is the basis of certain duties, that is, of certain actions that are consistent with his duty to himself.75

Moral agency, as well as the vices opposed to it, are necessarily accompanied by a sense of self-esteem, or a lack thereof. Self-esteem is a moral feeling, in virtue of which an agent distinguishes between x as “being merely unpleasant” and “undermining her personhood.” The feeling associated with the judgment that an action was imprudent differs qualitatively from the feeling that follows upon the judgment that an action was immoral. The former type of feeling is experienced as unpleasant, whereas the latter type is experienced as shameful. For example, if I violate a maxim that is essential to my personal identity, such as acting inconsistently with my marriage commitment, then, regardless of whether my partner finds out or not, the feeling that I experience is not merely unpleasant. Rather, I feel moral shame. The perception of x as contrary to self-esteem presupposes a moral lens, which is qualitatively unique in that it differs from other feelings of pleasure or displeasure. Expressions such as “I owe it to myself ”76 or “I am letting myself down” indicate that an agent’s moral conception of honor is based on her rational judgment. Moral contentment and discontent are qualitatively different from all other pleasures and displeasures caused by imprudence.77 72

73 74

75 76 77

See also Kant’s Vigilantius lecture that was given in preparation for the composition of the Metaphysics of Morals: VE 27:666ff. MSTL 6:402. KpV 5:38. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 215. See also Timmermann, “Kantian Duties to the Self,” 505–30. MSTL 6:402–3, last two emphases are mine. MSTL 6:418n. For other passages, see, e.g., KpV 5:37; TP 8:288.

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What it is that we owe to ourselves, and where we lose our self-esteem cannot be determined a priori. Again, moral feelings do not determine the content of maxims. Which features of the world morally affect an agent depends on her empirical character, her quite specific maxims that are shaped by her local identity. That an individual agent perceives some specific x as undermining her status as a person is an expression of her specific maxims. Since these are assessable by practical judgment, we are entitled to say that agents should feel one way rather than another. The Transition from autonomy to agency does not replace empirical judgment, just as the Transition of the “Octaventwurf ” does not replace physics. Moral sensibility is a lens, as it were, through which agents look at the world. This lens is subject to rational deliberation. It expresses aesthetically that an agent takes some aspects of her agency as constitutive of her rational self-conception. The mediating concept of self-esteem makes it possible to say that the specific conception of self-respect that an agent entertains as part of her empirical local self-conception is embedded in universal respect for humanity in her own person. As Kant has done with respect to all previous mediating concepts, he also argues here that there cannot be a duty of respect toward oneself, because respect “regarded as a duty, could be represented to us only through the respect we have for it.”78 There cannot be a duty to have self-esteem, but only the duty to cultivate it. The feeling of self-esteem is a necessary precondition for autonomous agency, “for he must have respect for the law within himself in order even to think of any duty whatsoever.”79 Self-esteem mediates between the respect for the moral law and ethical duties toward oneself under specific circumstances. Thus, Kant remarks that self-respect lies at “the basis of certain duties”:80 dignity of humanity in my own person (a priori); feeling of self-esteem (mediating concept); cases of application, that is, local conceptions of honor (applied ethics).

Moral feelings as based on the table of the categories of freedom The “Aesthetics of Morals” emphasizes that the four moral feelings are original presuppositions for being susceptible to any duty whatsoever, and that, therefore, to “have these predispositions cannot be considered a duty.” Kant insists on this point with respect to all four mediating concepts:

78 79 80

MSTL 6:402. MSTL 6:403. MSTL 6:403.

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(a) “There can be no duty to have moral feeling or to acquire it,” (b) “Conscience is not something that can be acquired, and we have no duty to provide ourselves with one,” (c) “A duty to love is an absurdity,” and (d) Self-respect “is again . . . not . . . a duty to bring about or promote . . . for he must have [self]-respect . . . in order to think of any duty whatsoever.”81 The fourfold schemata of aesthetic responsiveness to the unconditional ground of moral obligation are the effect of the unconditional imperative of practical reason on an agent’s sensibility. What allows for the transition from the noumenal law of freedom to embodied agency is the faculty of moral judgment, because all mediating concepts are the product of moral reflection.82 The reflective act of comparing a particular maxim with the moral law, which, of course, involves an a priori normative relationship, produces an aesthetic affect, that is, a state that can be sensed. The fact that Kant presents exactly four moral feelings, and the order of their presentation, are hardly coincidental. All four moral feelings are the product of moral judgment. As such they are rooted in the elementary forms of practical judgment, that is, the “table of the categories of freedom with respect to the concepts of the good and evil.”83 Although a detailed reconstruction of the table of the categories of freedom is beyond the scope of this study,84 we can gain a good grasp of the connection between the table of the 81 82

83 84

MSTL 6:399–403. What I mean by moral reflection is reflection in its practical meaning, i.e., reflection on whether a maxim must be judged as good or evil. Judgment proceeds from a particular action as the possible effect of an agent’s will and reflects on the universal rule under which this action is performed. I follow here Longuenesse’s account of the capacity to judge (Human Standpoint, 18ff., 237–9). “Forms of judgment are forms of reflection” (Ibid., 232). Cf. KU 5:179. KpV 5:66. For a detailed discussion of the categories of freedom, see: Ralf M. Bader, “Kant and the Categories of Freedom,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17(4) (2009): 799–820; Jürgen Stolzenberg, “The Pure ‘I will’ Must Be Able to Accompany All of My Desires: The Problem of a Deduction of the Categories of Freedom in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason,” in Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Proceedings of the Tenth International Kant Congress, ed. Valerio Rohden et al. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 435–45; Claudia Graband, “Das Vermögen der Freiheit: Kants Kategorien der praktischen Vernunft,” Kant-Studien 96(1) (2005): 41–65; Susanne Bobzien, “Die Kategorien der Freiheit bei Kant,” in Kant: Analysen, Probleme, Kritik, ed. Hariolf Oberer et al. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1988), 193–220; Lewis White Beck, A commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 144–63; Erich Adickes, Kants Systematik als systembildender Faktor (Berlin: Mayer und Müller, 1887). Historically, the categories of freedom concerned Kant already in the late 1770s (cf. Refl 19:180, 192–4, 211, 278) and they continued to occupy his attention after the second Critique (KpV 5:65–7) in the preliminary works to the Metaphysics of Morals (VAMS 23:382, 218). For other attempts by Kant to use categories in practical philosophy, see: GMS 4:415–6, 436; KU 5:266; RGV 6:101–2; MSRL 6:247–8; VM 28:257. See also the letter to Jung-Stilling of March 1, 1789 (Br 23:494–5). Cf. Kant’s note on the organization of the “Analytic of Aesthetic Judgments”: “In seeking the moments to which this power of judgment attends in its reflection, I have been guided by the logical functions of judging” (KU 5:203n, my emphases).

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categories and section XII by noting that Kant claims that “these categories . . . proceed in their order from those which are morally still undetermined and sensibly conditioned to those which, being sensibly unconditioned, are determined only by the moral law.”85 This means it is always the third category in each of the four classes that is determined by the moral law alone.86 Accordingly, it is always the third category of each class that Kant uses to bestow logical force to the mediating concepts of the Transition. Because the table of the categories of freedom contains “the whole plan of what has to be done, every question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order that is to be followed,”87 Kant attempts to use this table as the clue for the arrangement of the four aesthetic concepts. Under quantity, Kant presents: 1. Of quantity Subjective, in accordance with maxims (intentions of the will of the individual) Objective, in accordance with principles (precepts) A priori objective as well as subjective principles of freedom (laws)88 Kant’s general thought is that maxims express the formal determination of something as good for an individual; precepts express the formal determination of something as good for a plurality of individuals; and laws express something as good for the totality of individuals.89 Thus, Kant takes as his clue the categories of the understanding, that is, unity, plurality, totality. In the gallows example, the agent reflects in the context of competing motivating grounds on an action as a possible effect of her causality and its basis in a practical rule. She judges that the maxim of bearing false witness in order to save her life cannot be considered as good. Thus “(a) moral feeling” can be understood in terms of the last category of quantity: “A priori objective as well as subjective principles of freedom.”90 This means the aesthetic affect corresponding to the categorical determination of moral judgment (under quantity) is moral feeling, because the unconditional objective bindingness of a moral judgment is experienced subjectively as moral

85 86

87 88 89

90

KpV 5:66. Thus, this table contains the “logical characterizations of the maxims under which a good will acts” (Longuenesse, Human Standpoint, 239n5). Cf. Bader, “Categories of Freedom,” 800. KpV 5:67. KpV 5:66. “Practical principles are propositions that contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules. They are subjective, or maxims, when the condition is regarded by the subject as holding only for his will; but they are objective, or practical laws, when the condition is cognized as objective, that is, as holding for the will of every rational being” (KpV 5:19). KpV 5:66.

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feeling. This is, of course, true for all of the fourfold aesthetic responses, so that the systematic significance of the table of the categories can be seen as providing a rational progression of these four moments. Under quality, Kant presents rules of commission, omission, and exceptions. 2. Of quality Practical Rules of Commission (praeceptivae) Practical Rules of Omission (prohibitivae) Practical Rules of Exceptions (exceptivae)91 Moral laws (quantity) are now further specified with respect to ”quality” as being rules of exceptions.92 What this means can be brought out by reference to the categories of the understanding (reality, negation, limitation), and Kant’s preliminary works to the Metaphysics of Morals, where Kant considers as a variation the notions “permission,” “prohibition” and “collision (in collisione).”93 The aesthetic affect corresponding to the categorical determination of moral judgment (under quality) is conscience, because moral reflection indicates the necessity to limit one moral maxim by another moral maxim, or to override a practical rule based on prudential considerations that conflicts with the moral law through a practical rule based on moral concerns. In both cases, there is a conflict of rules.94 I elucidated this conflict through the shopkeeper example above: what it means to judge in accordance with the moral law is to judge conscientiously in the light of conflicting grounds of obligation or motivation. Moral reflection with respect to quality produces a feeling that expresses the struggle for autonomous agency: “(b) conscience” is thus related to the last category of quality: “Practical Rules of Exceptions (exceptivae).” Under the heading of the categories of relation, Kant notes: 3. Of relation To Personality To the Condition of the Person Reciprocally, of one person to the condition of others.95 91 92

93 94

95

Ibid. The status of ‘rules of exception’ has been discussed controversially in the literature. See Pieper, “Zweites Hauptstück,”132; Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 74, 100–108; and Chapter 2, “Casuistry and ethical conflict” and “Kant’s alleged rigorism” above. VAMS 23:382. As Bader comments on rules of exceptions: “rules that tell us to do x even though there is a rule to not do x, or not to do x even though there is a rule to do x” (“Categories of Freedom,” 809). KpV 5:66.

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Since it is only the third category in each of the four classes that is determined by the moral law alone, it is not surprising to find “(c) love of human beings” in section XII, because this mediating concept can be linked to the last category of relation: “Reciprocally, of one person to the condition of others.” So, the aesthetic affect corresponding to the categorical determination of moral judgment (under relation) is the feeling of beneficence. It is a feeling directed toward the community (third category of relation) of humanity. Under the heading of modality, Kant distinguishes between problematic, assertoric and apodictic determining grounds. 4. Of modality The permitted and the forbidden Duty and what is contrary to duty Perfect and imperfect duty96 Thus, for example it is forbidden to an orator, as such, to forge new words or constructions; this is to some extent permitted to a poet; in neither case is there any thought of duty. For if anyone is willing to forfeit his reputation as an orator, no one can prevent him. We have here to do only with the distinction of imperatives under problematic, assertoric, and apodictic determining grounds.97

Thus, both perfect and imperfect duties are apodictic. The modality of moral judgment is experienced always in terms of self-esteem, that is, respect for humanity in one’s own person. As I pointed out, expressions such as “I owe it to myself ” or “I am letting myself down” indicate that an agent’s moral feeling of self-respect is based on her rational judgment. The modality of a moral judgment, its normative claim, is apodictic and this is aesthetically experienced as the feeling of self-respect. This implies that any moral reflection, including pondering a duty toward others, ultimately also invokes an agent’s notion of self-respect. To conclude, there is a clear systematic implication of Kant’s design of section XII, which parallels Kant’s attempts in the “Octaventwurf.” Kant’s classificatory scheme of ordering the four mediating concepts under four headings in the “Octaventwurf ” is either labeled a, b, c, d, as Kant does in section XII, or it explicitly uses the headings of quantity, quality, relation, and modality.98 The 96 97 98

KpV 5:66. KpV 5:11n. E.g., Op 21:394f. See Chapter 1, “The ‘Octaventwurf ’ and the ‘Early Fascicles’ of the Opus postumum: The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition” above, and “The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum” below for further discussion.

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fact that Kant presents exactly four moral feelings, and the order of their presentation, are hardly coincidental. Kant attempts to use the table of the categories of freedom as the clue for the arrangement of the four aesthetic concepts. This is possible because moral aesthetic responsiveness is the product of the acts of moral reflection (which itself is based on the logical functions of the table of the categories of freedom). Note that the categorical structure of section XII is an important result—one that has eluded Kant scholars until now because they did not read the Opus postumum and the Metaphysics of Morals as parallel texts.

Summary All mediating concepts of section XII have those four features that Kant has outlined in the context of the feeling of respect (Critique of Practical Reason) and the feeling of the sublime (Critique of the Power of Judgment): they are original predispositions, require cultivation, have a schematic structure, and involve the double movement of displeasure and pleasure. Understanding the intermediate level, at which Kant’s conception of moral feelings operates, is critical: moral feelings have a hybrid structure. They are both subjective and universal. On the one hand, moral feelings are intensely personal feelings. For example, it is my selfrespect that is violated, it is my love for my mother. These personal feelings only occur as part of my local identity. Of course, there is a broad empirical variety of local identities. However, the particularity and selectivity of moral feelings is not based on subjective idiosyncrasies. For example, it does not matter that I was disrespected. Rather, my personhood was disrespected, that is, the moral status of me as a person that I share with everyone else. On the other hand, despite the individuality of moral feelings, moral feelings have a universal basis. In order to elucidate the universal basis of moral feelings, consider a parallel to Kant’s notion of right. What makes a lie right or wrong is neither the fact that it is me who someone lied to, nor the advantageous or disadvantageous consequences of a lie. Right is not based on the fact that some wrong was done to me, but rather on the universal fact that right was broken. Right is neither a tool to obtain some beneficial condition nor is it based on the needy conditions of particular human beings. Rather, right is based on, and meant to secure, an agent’s autonomy in her external relations to other human beings. Nevertheless, if right is broken, it is experienced as intensely personal. For example, it is me who got raped. It is my condition that has been disadvantageously affected. In the same sense, moral feelings are intensely personal feelings, despite the fact that their basis is universal.

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Personal feelings are thus morally justified insofar as they are expressions of universal moral concern. Conventional local identities and their associated moral feelings of self-respect, conscience, and so on can be seen as modifications of the universal law of autonomy. For example, (1) an agent’s particular motherly love is a modification of (2) the moral feeling of true love, which is (3) based on universal respect for humanity in another person. It matters that it is this individual person that I feel concerned about. However, the foundation of normativity is not the fact that it is this very person. In this sense does the hybrid nature of moral feelings build a continuous connection between the universal and local identities of agents. This implies, for example, that an agent acts from duty when he acts from the motive of true love in his specific role as a son, or from the motive of self-esteem in his specific role as a scholar. Consider the alternative:  if compassionately caring for my mother were an alternative motive in competition with the motive to act from duty, then the justification of ethical conduct (the motive of duty alone) could not also explain ethical action.99 Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals” thus provides the subjective preconditions for moral agency in their dependence on pure practical reason, because it fills the gap between reason’s single pure motive and various empirical motivating grounds located at the quite specific level of maxims. Acting from respect for the law is not a motive on top of the empirical motivation located within a maxim.100 Maxims specify particular features that an individual agent takes to be relevant in a specific situation (epistemic role) and contain a motivating ground (motivational role). Moral feelings connect this local identity of agents—including their history, social role, and personal preferences (everything that makes them the individual person they are)—to the purely rational identity of agents.101 A maxim involving the empirical motivating ground of compassionate care can be a moral maxim if the motive of compassionate care is based on the recognition that the recipient’s personhood makes valid claims on us. This transition from reason to embodied agency is possible because the mediating concept of true love is a schema for acknowledging the authoritative status of the moral law.

99 100

101

As I understand it, this is rightly one of the major concerns of McCarty, Kant’s Theory of Action. Cf. my discussion of Korsgaard in Chapter 2, “A priori foundation and empirical open-endedness of ethics.” The Transition Project can thus be seen along the lines of Herman’s project of showing how the a priori motive of duty is “dispersed” into an agent’s empirical self-conception. On this reading,

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Implications Attitudinal function of moral feelings, self-deception, and moral progress How do moral feelings work, and why do I think that they are central to Kant’s moral theory? I suggest we begin this discussion by looking at the topic of moral feelings through the lens of self-deception, which, on Kant’s account, lies at the foundation of moral corruption and radical evil in human nature. Scholars have rightly emphasized that the true enemy of virtue is self-deception,102 that is, “dishonesty, by which we throw dust in our own eyes and which hinders the establishment in us of a genuine moral disposition.”103 Self-deception, which Kant also calls “the foul stain of our species,”104 consists in rationalizing the universal propensity to subordinate the moral law to interests of self-love.105 My contribution consists in showing that without moral sensitivity, agents could not fight self-deception and make moral progress. What does it mean to make moral progress? What does it mean to be attentive to the moral law? What are we attentive to? Since the moral law itself is an unschematized idea of reason, agents cannot be directly attentive to it. To be attentive to the moral law means, for example, to be attentive to our conscience insofar as it is a sensible expression of the moral law. To cultivate one’s conscience means to “use every means to obtain a hearing for it.”106 Consider Kant’s depraved agent in the Religion, who is accustomed to her self-deceit because she habitually subordinates moral concerns to nonmoral incentives.107 Because all agents must be committed to the rationality of their conduct, any agent acting on a heteronomous principle “unavoidably” hears reason’s voice, which affects an agent through conscience.108 Thus, she needs to actively silence her conscience. A  depraved agent is willing to be moved by self-love; and yet, because moral feelings are ineliminable, even the depraved agent still desires to see herself as

102

103 104 105 106 107 108

compassionate feelings such as gratitude, kindness, or filial love can be seen as moral grounds of motivation, because they are reason-responsive desires. See Herman, “Making Room for Character,” in Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty, ed. Stephen Engstrom et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 48, 52. Grenberg, “Enemy of Virtue,” 152–69. I am indebted here to Mavis Biss and Laura Papish with whom I discussed this topic on various occasions. RGV 6:38. RGV 6:38. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 121. MSTL 6:401. RGV 6:30. MSTL 6:401.

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“justified before the law.”109 Heteronomous agents desire to be “conscientious in their own estimation” in order to “derive their peace of mind.”110 Even the “scoundrel” wants to be virtuous.111 This is so because moral feelings are moral predispositions that can be silenced but not completely eliminated. Agency is always accompanied by some degree of a felt moral state, on the basis of which it is first possible to be morally affected. It is worth repeating that, for Kant, “any consciousness of obligation depends on moral feeling.”112 To the degree that agents cultivate their moral feelings does reason have influence on them. The more an agent practices self-deception, that is, the more she takes inclinations as reasons for action, the less does reason have influence on her.113 This is why Kant says that agents are morally required to cultivate moral feelings. Moral cultivation is striving against the fundamentally human propensity to self-love; it is the struggle for autonomous agency in the phenomenal world. The more cultivated an agent’s moral feelings are, the more she provides a hearing for her moral judgment and the better she gets at realizing inner freedom (which is not an all-ornothing thing). Virtuous agency comes in degrees. Think again of Kant’s shopkeeper, who might pretend to act based on moral concerns, whereas in fact his interest is profit maximization. In light of the propensity to lie to oneself about the true incentive incorporated into a maxim, the authoritative status of reason is made sensible by a person’s moral feelings. The subordination of the idea of autonomy to empirical incentives is experienced in aesthetic terms. Every agent who subordinates moral concern to empirical selfinterest necessarily experiences reason’s demand through an affective response, as a sense of guilt, as loss of self-esteem. For Kant, there are different stages in silencing one’s own reason:  frailty, impurity, and depravity. The degree of the feeling of rational self-esteem declines as we move from frailty to depravity. A frail agent feels awful about her frailty because she intends to act on the good, but is too weak to actually act on it.114 The depraved agent is accustomed to his inconsistent personality and only feels a lingering state of discomfort. Virtuous agency and its corresponding affective states come in degrees. As human beings, we are both sensible and rational, and neither self-love nor the moral law can be eradicated. Moral cultivation is striving against the fundamentally human propensity to self-deception. This process requires moral feelings, through which 109 110 111 112 113 114

RGV 6:38. RGV 6:38. GMS 4:454–5. MSTL 6:399. Here I am indebted to Korsgaard, Self-Constitution. RGV 6:29.

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agents become attentive to their moral state, and which can be cultivated by practice because they are the product of rational deliberation. This is why Kant says, for example, that very young children do not yet have moral feelings, such as a sense of shame or honor.115 Very young children neither self-legislate principles, nor do they deceive themselves. Now I would like to distinguish between three different ways in which agents may deceive themselves. I might deceive myself about (1) the motivating ground underlying my action (motivational aspect), (2) what the situation requires, what its morally salient features are, and what my own capacities are with respect to them (i.e., what I actually can and cannot do) (epistemic aspect), and (3) my “emotional” attitude toward an act (e.g., I externally profess to care for something whereas in fact I do not) (attitudinal aspect). The terminology stems from Sherman who distinguishes between an epistemological, a motivational, and an attitudinal function of moral feelings.116 Here I want to focus on the latter. By the attitudinal function of moral feelings, Sherman means that a moral feeling “is not something apart from how we fulfill our other duties;” rather, “it informs the attitude by which we fulfill our duties.”117 Moral agents respond “with the right sort of emotional attitude;” moral feelings “express our morally required actions in a humanly engaged way.”118 Hill captures the same point when he writes that in human beings, as a matter of fact, our moral judgments and commitments are typically accompanied by corresponding feelings. Normally, we might add, we find these virtually inseparable: that is, we experience and express our judgments and commitments in an emotional way.119

Moral feelings are expressions of “morally relevant attitudes” such that “the defects signaled by the absence of the expected affective responses are moral defects.”120 Both Sherman and Hill capture something that is absolutely central to section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, namely, that there cannot be a duty to have moral feelings because moral feelings necessarily accompany moral agency; they are the product of moral judgment. Moral feelings are the mode, as it were, in which an agent fulfills her duties. Returning to my previous example, if I take myself to have adopted the ends of my ailing mother into 115 116 117 118 119 120

Päd 9:465. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 145–52. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 346. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 150, 154. Cf. Baxley, Theory of Virtue, 165–6. Hill, Human Welfare, 395. Ibid.

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my will, and as I am visiting her I express that I would rather not be there, I am deceiving myself about the maxim I have adopted. To put it differently, I deny the estrangement of my affection by sticking to routine habits that are typically expressive of true dedication; I hug her and pretend to listen carefully. I might be acting in accordance with duty, but not from duty. For, if I were acting from duty, then I would feel practical love for my mother, because practical love is the necessary aesthetic expression of moral concern. This necessity allows Kant to say that moral sensitivity is the ratio cognoscendi of our moral state: without the feeling of practical love “one is never certain . . . of having incorporated the good into one’s maxim.”121 If I really mean what I do, then I feel practical love for the other person. For Kant, moral sensitivity is thus an essential part of beneficent agency. Lack of affective attitude indicates lack of moral commitment, because moral feelings are necessary expressions of moral maxims. This has the following implications for the topics of self-deception and moral progress. (1) Self-deception. For Kant, practical judgments and feelings are inseparable. The acknowledgment of a maxim as binding is expressed in an affective attitude. For example, according to Kant’s theory of moral feelings outlined in section XII, we would have to say that an agent who takes himself to have adopted the maxim of beneficence but lacks moral feelings has not adopted the maxim she professes to act on. Here is a clear case of self-deception. Perhaps the benefactor’s motivation to help stems from his reveling in the “satisfaction he derives from his beneficence.”122 Perhaps he wants to relieve his own pain that seeing another person in need causes him. Perhaps he does it out of habit because “one has to help other human beings.” Whatever his motivation might be, it is not grounded in a reflective concern for the other person. Lacking the moral feeling of philanthropy means to lack true interest in the other person. In this case, the recipient is not treated as an end, but as a means to satisfy the impulses to beneficence, public reputation, or some other heteronomous motivating ground. In other words, adopting the happiness of others as an end on nonmoral grounds does not only mean to fall short on what duty requires, it means to not having adopted the happiness of others as an end at all. The cold-hearted “benefactor” who merely complies with the letter of the law fails morally because he does not act from duty. He has not actively incorporated the other person’s will into his maxim; he feigns an interest in dutiful action “that is not in his heart.”123 Acting from duty is always expressed in terms of moral feelings: “What is not 121 122 123

RGV 6:23–4n. MSTL 6:453. MSTL 6:484.

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done with pleasure but merely as compulsory service has no inner worth for one who attends to his duty in this way and such service is not loved by him.”124 Bare compliance with the law is not a substitute for true moral agency. This is why Kant says that acts of beneficence should be done as if the benefactor were “honored by it,” as if “the duty is merely something that he owes.”125 The beneficiary is a person of equal worth, and this is what true love expresses. Beneficent acts based on heteronomy (self-interest or mere interest in the condition of the other person) are not directed at another agent as an agent. Promoting another person’s condition without moral concern for his personhood is not a maxim of true beneficence. The feeling of concernment cannot be separated from genuine concern for the other person. Moral feelings are thus necessary for moral agency. They are the vehicles for treating other human beings as ends in themselves, and, therefore, without them there is no transition from the formal foundation of morality to material agency. That the moral character of an agent is flawed if his affective response is flawed, becomes also clear from the vices opposing the moral feeling of philanthropy, such as hate of mankind (misanthropy) or mere indifference to others. Imagine cases in which others get what you do not get: other couples get pregnant, others get jobs, others get nice vacations, others get nice partners, whereas you are less successful in these regards. Witnessing another’s failure to succeed in areas where you have fallen short might be experienced as a kind of relief, a kind of pleasant comfort. When you see others succeed, you might experience a feeling of envy and dismay. Clearly, these empirically caused emotions are at odds with true love for another human being. Because of the universal authoritative status of the moral law, every agent who experiences such emotions feels a degree of guilt for having them. Morality is necessarily expressed through feelings because moral feelings accompany the adoption of maxims. (2) Moral progress. Because moral feelings are rational–sensible hybrids, they are subject to normative evaluation. We can ask whether feeling pity for one specific agent is justified, that is, whether there is a good reason for her feeling. In this sense, an agent’s morally-affective response is voluntary. Moral feelings follow upon a principle that agents have adopted, and thus they can be objectively right or wrong. The cultivation of moral feelings is a rational process, which is subject to the formal requirement of the categorical imperative. Therefore, agents can, and ought to, cultivate their affective responsiveness. Although agents cannot

124 125

Ibid., my emphasis. MSTL 6:453.

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change how they feel right here and now, in the long run agents can change their moral affective responses because they are expressions of the maxims they have adopted. Agents are thus responsible for their feelings. For example, we may tell an agent that she ought to feel practical love for his mother because the feeling of practical love originates in the act of including another person’s will into one’s own maxim. Moral reflection and agency is the source of an affective attitude. It is a myth that the virtuous Kantian agent is required to take action to help regardless of whether she feels compassion or not. The truth is that the virtuous agent could not act ethically without feeling moral compassion. The myth, of course, originates in Kant’s attempts to show that morality cannot be based on empirical emotions. But this point is unrelated to the point I am making here: an agent who truly makes an obligatory end her end thereby cultivates a particular affective attitude. A central concern of section XII is to argue that agency always already has both a rational and a sensible aspect. Cultivating moral feelings is not a precondition for moral agency in the sense that, temporally speaking, we first need to have developed, say, the feeling of love toward others before we can act beneficently. Rather, we cultivate moral feelings by working on our maxims. Moral feelings are based on an agent’s self-conception, and only in this context can they be cultivated. Moral feelings are not antecedent to moral agency but are rather based upon it. Particular local conceptions of self-respect, for example, are of course contingent. But the very fact of having a sense of self-respect— understood as affective responsiveness to reasons—is a necessary prerequisite for any moral education. Thus, Kant says in his anthropology lecture that if an agent would lose all sense of “honor, then all is lost with him, then there is nothing more on which one can base the good.”126 This means that without moral feeling, agents could not be susceptible to the difference between moral and prudential reasoning. Lacking moral feeling, an agent could only adopt a maxim for heteronomous reasons, that is, act on pleasure and displeasure. This is why Kant says in pedagogical contexts that every kind of moral education requires moral feeling.127 Without a sense for morality (e.g., self-respect) agents could not work toward a justified conception of the good. On my reading of moral feelings as mediating concepts, moral feelings are based on an agent’s practical judgment regarding the morality (as opposed to prudence) of her conduct. For example, you will not feel shameful for an imprudent action unless you also judge it as immoral. The local feeling of

126 127

VAnth 25:652. Cf. KpV 5:154. E.g., KpV 5:38, 159ff.; Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 357. Cf. Munzel, Doctrine of Method, 204–8.

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shame is an empirical phenomenon based on an agent’s rational feeling of self-respect. So if you get reprimanded for doing something that others see as shameful, but if upon rational deliberation you find those reasons utterly non-justifiable, you will not experience a feeling of true shame. Getting reprimanded will be experienced as unpleasant, but not as shameful. The merely unpleasant feeling of getting reprimanded is based on a heterogeneous sense of honor, which aims at a comparative estimate of my person with other persons in society, whereas the moral feeling of shame is based on “true love of honor,” which is an expression of the inner worth of an agent, that is, an agent’s autonomy.128 The principles underlying our agency always shape an agent’s affective responsiveness. Even though every agent begins with an inherited conception of the good and its associated feelings, agents are free to cultivate their affective responses through rational deliberation. Kant mentions the “honor of one’s sex,” “military honor,” “the mother’s shame,” “the honor of his estate [Stand],” such as the honor of a scholar, to indicate the idiosyncratic level of moral feelings at the empirical level.129 Moral feelings are based on an agent’s self-conception, and they are essential for implementing morality, because only on their basis can agents be “affected by concepts of duty.”130 Moral development means to develop a moral character, which requires an agent to draw on her own natural predispositions to morality, that is, moral feelings. The development of moral character requires the practice of judgment, which uses the fourfold aesthetic responsiveness for providing access for the pure moral law to the human mind.131

The role of moral feelings in the determination of wide duties Autonomous agency requires that agents provide reasons for their actions, and only to the extent that they can do so, can they conceive of themselves as the authors of their conduct. Autonomy reaches its limit where agents cannot justify their agency. Reflecting on a maxim means to ask whether the maxim can provide a reason for action. That reason for action cannot contradict another reason for action. By recognizing that a maxim is justified, an agent affirms that a maxim can be consistently located within the web of other maxims that 128 129 130 131

E.g., VE 27:666, 695. MSRL 6:336. Cf. MSTL 6:469. MSTL 6:399, my emphasis. Cf. KpV 5:151ff.; Munzel, Doctrine of Method, 203–17; Kant’s Conception of Pedagogy, 261–76.

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constitute the agent as a person. Agency requires “volitional unity.”132 Because the Kantian agent cannot give up the project of rationally justifying her agency, the problems of specifying the scope of obligations and of providing reasons for prioritizing among obligations cannot be resolved by extra-moral considerations. The decision to fulfill a duty here and now must be justifiable. There must be a reason why this specific action is appropriate to these specific circumstances. The indeterminacy of wide duties (latitude for choice) must not imply arbitrariness. Yet, this is what the literature suggests with respect to the determination of the content of wide duties in general, and in cases of moral dilemmas in particular. Two general strategies to determine the latitude of obligatory ends can be found in the literature. On Hill’s reading, we may choose to pass up opportunities to promote obligatory ends, “even if we are not doing so to fulfill another duty,” because imperfect duties “allow some ‘exception in the interest of inclination.’ ”133 Particular acts instantiating wide duties can be “permissibly omitted, even for the sake of pursuing a nonmoral project of our own.”134 On this reading, inclination may determine on which imperfect duty to act, and to what extent. Further, there are inclination-based exceptions to promoting obligatory ends. For Hill, the latitude of free choice should be interpreted as “Sometimes, to some extent, do what promotes X.” “No-one . . . disputes that imperfect duties imply act principles of this form, as a minimum; the controversy is about what more they imply.”135 Hill’s opponents have argued that no inclination-based exceptions to obligatory ends are permissible.136 On these readings, questions of indeterminacy and moral conflict cannot be decided based on inclination, but must reflect the core value of autonomous agency. Exceptions are only permissible on moral grounds. This reading implies that the determination of the latitude of choice requires agents to “always, whenever you can, promote X unless you act on another principle of duty.” Note that the quantitative terminology (“minimum,” “always,” “more than the minimum”) used in this debate is surprisingly widespread in the literature.137

132

133 134 135 136 137

Christine M. Korsgaard, The Constitution of Agency:  Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 119. Hill, Human Welfare, 207, 214, 216. Hill, Human Welfare, 237. Hill, Human Welfare, 204, my emphasis. Cf. ibid., 209, 214n, 219, 221. E.g., Herman, Moral Literacy, 213–4; Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 16ff. E.g., “Even if it is not the case that one is required to do as much as possible to promote the happiness of others, the virtuous person will certainly endeavor to do more than the minimum” (Allison, Theory of Freedom, 123, my emphasis).

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Couching Kant’s theory of morality in terms of quantity is a very questionable project to begin with. While there is a morally relevant more and less in utilitarian systems, morality is not quantifiable for Kant. The autonomy of an agent is independent of how often an agent is acting on an obligatory end. Agents need a reason for foregoing or not foregoing an opportunity to act on a morally required end. Yet, neither a “minimalist” nor “a most-possible” account specifies the basis on which to determine when, how, and to what extent obligatory ends should be promoted. The question is not whether helping others is always morally optional or always morally demanded, but rather how to rationally determine when it is optional and when it is demanded, and to what extent. As was discussed in the previous chapter, the problem is that the moral law and its derivative two obligatory ends do not by themselves disclose morally salient features. Normative standards of virtue do not by themselves specify the scope of duty: reason alone “cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty.”138 Individual agents need to assess with respect to whom, to what degree, when, and how they judge it as good to act on an obligatory end. This can certainly not be decided by reason alone. Rather, the content of wide ethical duties must be determined, at the empirical level, by an agent’s local web of maxims, which takes into account the kind of relationships we are committed to, the needs and interests of those with whom we engage, our own capacities, and so on. Hill has rightly emphasized the role of moral judgment in this regard: “Some may devote more effort to caring for an ailing parent than to doing public charity work, but others may do the opposite.”139 The question is how these decisions can be morally justified? How can agents justify the scope of promoting obligatory ends? As Longuenesse has forcefully put it, “even supposing Kant succeeded in his ambition to formulate ‘the supreme principle of morality’ . . . did he not remain helpless when it came to grounding on this principle the indisputable validity of any moral judgment at all?”140 How does my proposed account of moral feelings help here? Kant says that the closer determination of moral principles under empirical circumstances call[s] upon judgment to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, and indeed in such a way that judgment provides another (subordinate) maxim

138 139 140

MSTL 6:390. Hill, Human Welfare, 221. Longuenesse, Human Standpoint, 237.

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(and one can always ask for yet another principle for applying this maxim to cases that may arise). So ethics falls into a casuistry.141

A hierarchy of maxims envisions (as a regulative idea of the faculty of judgment) the possibility of a systematic limitation (under empirical conditions) upon the general prohibitions and commands of ethics. This regulative idea is connected to the constitutive moral law through Kant’s theory of mediating concepts. This means that moral discovery and progress are guided by an agent’s moral selfrespect, and so on. Empirical agents work toward coherently organizing their various maxims under the moral law through a process of moral reflection. Moral feelings are the media through which any kind of moral cultivation is bound to work. Let me sketch what, I think, Kant has in mind. Kant’s theory of the fourfold schemata of aesthetic responsiveness allows to translate the motive from duty (e.g., the respect for humanity in another person) into a specific empirical motivation with all its local background knowledge regarding bonds of intimacy and attachment, which “allow us to help in substantive and deep ways often unavailable to others less well placed,”142 (e.g., because she is my mother). Moral feelings establish a continuity between universal and local identities, because they translate impartial moral concern into partial moral concern. As we have seen, the feeling of practical love originates in the act of including another person’s will into one’s own maxim. Insofar as practical love is responsive to reason, it is a moral sensitivity as opposed to blind loyalty based on impulse. An agent feels obliged on the basis that she understands the reasons that make the rule normative for her. I have argued that, given the core value of autonomy, neither inclination nor other nonmoral concerns (such as my finances) can determine when and how to support, for example, a friend. Rather, I will need to reflect on my web of maxims. What justifies agency is the web of maxims that an agent adopts, based on her moral deliberation. The local web of maxims, that is, my local identity, determines which relationships and interests deserve priority. In cases of conflict, I will ultimately ask: What person am I? Which aspect of my identity is most pivotal to my self-conception? Which ends of my friend are central to her self-conception? What is my relationship to the person in need? Am I the right person to help? Have I judged this case conscientiously?143 I suggest that it is an 141 142

143

MSTL 6:411. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 341. Cf. Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 24; Nussbaum, “Duties of Justice,” 186–7; Herman, Moral Literacy, 222. Herman has suggested such a “relationship-sensitive” account of obligations. While her project is to determine limits to the duty of beneficence by bringing concerns of “own-happiness into the space of moral reasons,” and by exploring how “the obligatory end of one’s own perfection limits actions for the end of others’ happiness,” the Transition Project shows with respect to agency in general

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agent’s moral aesthetic responsiveness that provides logical (moral) force to this type of moral reflection, that is, the fact that an agent reflects on a dilemma in terms of self-respect, and so on. Consider Kant’s duties toward oneself, which are expressed in terms of the feeling of self-respect. For example, Kant writes that whether an agent chooses “a trade, commerce, or a learned profession” is a matter “left for him to choose in accordance with his own rational reflection about what sort of life he would like [Lust] to lead.”144 Now, many authors have thought that Kant’s term Lust (pleasure) would indicate that contingent personal choice shall determine the latitude of agency. On this reading, nonmoral interests that agents care about shape their maxims such that one person chooses to build her life around x while another person makes y her life-defining commitment. For Sherman, for example, “subjective preference and natural ability” of each agent “lead the way” in choosing a life’s profession.145 But how can subjectivity “lead the way” in a theory of autonomy? What is left of Kant’s idea of autonomy, if self-determination at the empirical level is determined by personal and contextual peculiarities? If we are serious about the project of determining ourselves as persons, then empirical agency cannot be determined by “natural leanings and arbitrary preferences.”146 This is a misrepresentation of what latitude can mean within the limits of a theory of autonomy. Ethical duties indeed need to take into account and respond to an agent’s contingent capacities and skills. However, for Kant, what determines the content of maxims must ultimately be a moral concern. Consider how Kant expresses this moral concern: in choosing one’s profession, the agent must not deceive himself with respect to whether he “has the powers necessary for” the kind of life he wants to adopt; he needs to choose based on his “own rational reflection,” such that it makes him “a useful member of the world,” and his choice must be consistent with “the worth of humanity in his own person, which he ought not to degrade.”147 Another word for “the worth of humanity in his own person” is self-respect. There is a moral restriction on choosing a local identity. It is not an agent’s free-floating arbitrary preference that lies at the basis of guiding the “latitude of free choice,”148 but rather an agent’s moral self-respect, which transforms the fundamental concern of autonomy into a context-sensitive

144 145 146 147 148

how Kant’s theory of moral feelings can provide a theoretical framework for solving scope and hierarchy problems in terms of autonomy (Herman, Moral Literacy, 210, 219, 218). I am indebted here to Donald Wilson with whom I discussed this topic on various occasions. MSTL 6:445. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 348. Ibid. MSTL 6:445–6. MSTL 6:446.

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local self-conception. The limits of latitude with respect to duties toward oneself are expressed in terms of self-respect. The limits of latitude with respect to duties toward others are expressed in terms of love of human beings. The task of moral feelings is to guide empirical agency to a coherent rational explanation of human conduct.149

The unfinished Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum If Kant has established a theory of moral judgment and its aesthetic affects as the missing link between the universal noumenal law of morality and particular phenomenal agency, which is quite significant for his moral theory as a whole, why does he not tell us so directly in the Metaphysics of Morals? Schönecker has correctly observed that “Kant rather abruptly introduces”150 the four moral predispositions in section XII, and I think this fact should make us pause and reflect. The many oddities and discrepancies between the introduction and the main part of the Doctrine of Virtue have often been noted.151 Ludwig has suggested that the published Doctrine of Virtue is a compilation of passages written long before 1796 and those that were newly composed.152 He calls the Metaphysics of Morals an “unbalanced Opus.”153 Mary Gregor has pointed out that the Metaphysics of Morals is an unfinished and hastily written work.154 Gerhard Lehmann has claimed that the Doctrine of Virtue is an attempt to systematically reformat Kant’s lectures on ethics into a system.155 Let me briefly elucidate what these authors have in mind. To begin with, the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue is almost half as long as the main text of the Doctrine of Virtue!156 This is something unheard of. We do not find this in any other of Kant’s publications. The extensive length of the introduction is already a first indication that the Metaphysics of Morals is work 149

150 151 152 153 154 155 156

A related issue deserving more discussion is the problem that, as a sensible creature, I cannot ignore my “personal” life, yet the demands of pure practical reason lack this personal dimension. Kant’s theory of mediating concepts, as I have sketched it here, can be seen as providing the missing link between reason and embodied agency. For further discussion of this topic, see Baron, Kantian Ethics, 10n9; David J. Velleman, “Love as a Moral Emotion,” Ethics 109(2) (1999): 367. Schönecker, “Kant’s Moral Intuitionism,” 26. See Ludwig, Introduction Tugendlehre, xvii–xxiii; Esser, Ethik für Endliche, 344–8. Ludwig, Introduction Tugendlehre, xviii, xx, xxiii. Ludwig, Introduction Tugendlehre, xvii. Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 115. Lehmann, Kants Tugenden, 90. Ludwig, Introduction Tugendlehre, xvii.

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in progress. The Metaphysics of Morals attempts to unite lecture notes dating back to the 1770s with very recent thoughts. A case in point is the reference to the Transition Project of the Opus postumum in §45, at 6:468, which is directly followed by thoughts that we already find in the Kaehler lecture on moral philosophy.157 Here Kant raises the problem of the application of the principle of morality to specific conditions by asking a series of questions: “How should one behave, for example, toward human beings who are in a state of moral purity or depravity? . . . How should people be treated in accordance with their differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty and so forth?” These questions directly pick up passages from Baumgarten and Meier, whose textbooks served as the basis for Kant’s lectures. All of this is lecture material from the 1770s that is now republished in the Metaphysics of Morals.158 However, that these questions lead to the need of schematizing principles in order to make them ready for morally practical use, and the parallel to Kant’s metaphysics of nature, represent Kant’s latest thoughts of 1797. Only two hyphens separate the passages stemming from two periods!159 Just as a passage [Überschritt] from the metaphysics of nature to physics is needed—a transition having its own special rules—something similar is rightly required from the metaphysics of morals:  a transition which, by applying the pure principles of duty to cases of experience, would schematize these principles, as it were, and present them as ready for morally practical use —. . . How should people be treated in accordance with their differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty and so forth? . . . —Yet even this application belongs to the complete presentation of the system.160

Another such hyphen occurs in section VII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, at 6:390. Here Kant first stresses that the latitude in the notion of ethical duties allows for playroom (implying that nonmoral reasons could determine such playroom). Immediately after the hyphen, Kant presents an entirely new thought, namely that the specification of wide duties always requires moral grounds. If the law can only prescribe the maxims of actions, not actions themselves, this is a sign that it leaves a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the law, that is, that the law cannot specify precisely in what way

157 158 159 160

See Introduction to this book. E.g., Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 358. Unfortunately, the current Cambridge edition has omitted these hyphens. MSTL 6:468–9.

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one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end that is also a duty.—But a wide duty is not to be taken as permission to make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as permission to limit one maxim of duty by another (e.g., love of one’s neighbor in general by love of one’s parents).161

Interpreters have stressed the passage either before or after the hyphen. Hill, for example, stresses the indefiniteness of obligatory ends expressed in the first part, and attempts to align the second part accordingly, suggesting that agents have “choice among various ways of furthering the end of happiness in others.”162 Since “no determinate limits can be assigned to what should be done,” Hill supposes that we may choose to pass up opportunities to promote obligatory ends, “even if we are not doing so to fulfill another duty.”163 This means imperfect duties “allow some ‘exception in the interest of inclination.’ ”164 Herman and Timmermann, on the other hand, emphasize the latter part of the passage, arguing that no inclination-based exceptions to obligatory ends are permissible.165 Again, the passage after the hyphen belongs to Kant’s Transition Project of 1796–8. A further such hyphen is found in §35, at 6:457. Here Kant first asserts that we have “an indirect duty to cultivate the compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings in us, and to make use of them as so many means to sympathy based on moral principles.”166 Note that feelings are not conceived of as passive and potentially overwhelming, but rather as based on moral principles. The terminology of aesthetic feelings is also striking, given its proximity to section XII. Kant rejects the idea to be beneficent from “compassion” understood as passive suffering, but instead demands to cultivate “sympathy based on moral principles.”167 Not pathological emotion, but practical deliberation ought to be the ground of philanthropy. The feeling of sympathy is here conceived of as a sensible product of moral judgment, that is, a self-wrought feeling. After the hyphen, however, Kant talks about moral feelings as “impulses” of nature that may serve as additional empirical motivational aids to do what duty requires. Agents ought to cultivate the compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings in us, and to make use of them as so many means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them.—It is therefore a duty not to avoid the places where the

161 162 163 164 165 166 167

MSTL 6:390, my emphasis. Hill, Human Welfare, 222. Hill, Human Welfare, 207, 216. Hill, Human Welfare, 214. Herman, Moral Literacy, 213–4. Timmermann, “Good but not Required,” 18–9. MSTL 6:457. Ibid.

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poor who lack the most basic necessities are to be found but rather to seek them out, and not to shun sickrooms or debtors’ prisons and so forth in order to avoid sharing painful feelings one may not be able to resist. For this is still one of the impulses that nature has implanted in us to do what the representation of duty alone might not accomplish.

Not surprisingly, there is sheer puzzlement in the literature about how Kant can hold this latter view in the Metaphysics of Morals because it clearly implies a pre-Groundwork position of impure moral motivation.168 Note the passivity of these sympathetic feelings: they are “unfree,” “like receptivity to warmth or contagious diseases,” and agents “may not be able to resist” the painful feelings that, for example, a visit to sickrooms causes.169 To repeat, these feelings are natural “impulses,” they are the product of being passively affected by the poor condition of agents. The discrepancy between such natural impulses and Kant’s moral feelings of section XII of the “Aesthetics of Morals” is obvious: moral feelings proper are self-wrought feelings, they are based on rational agency directed at the moral status of agents (not their condition) and do not potentially overpower the agent who holds these feelings. Because Kant’s mature theory of moral motivation is not a theory of the relative strength of various motivating grounds, interpreters have been perplexed by this passage (assuming that it reflects Kant’s views of 1796–8), and have used all of their ingenuity to make Kant consistent with himself. However, it is quite clear that the passage after the hyphen reflects on the moral feeling of philanthropy from the perspective of motiva auxiliaria, which we find in numerous passages in Kant’s lectures and notes from the 1770s, where Kant ponders motiva auxiliaria (such as sympathetic joy and sadness, natural impulses, fear of punishment, pleasures of fame and recognition, and religious belief) as aids to realize what duty alone might not accomplish.170 These passages reflect a Baumgartian theory of action, in which various motivating grounds can compete among each other, and where the motive of duty can be supplemented by sympathetic impulses.171 On Kant’s mature view, of course,

168 169 170

171

MSTL 6:457. Cf. Allison, Theory of Freedom, 121; Baxley, Theory of Virtue, 163ff. MSTL 6:457. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 113, 120–2; VE 27:166–7; Refl 19:77, 113, 131–2, 153, 181, 212, 221; Refl 15:282; VAnth 25:650, VE 27:1452; VM 28:258. Cf. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 81–6; VE 29:635–41, 777; VE 27:1425. See Chapter 2, “Mundus Intelligibilis and Mundus Sensibilis” for an outline of Baumgarten’s theory of action. In his Anthropology, which is developed from Baumgarten’s “Psychologia Empirica,” Kant is a proponent of such an empirical theory of action, where pleasure and displeasure are opposed to each other as counterparts (realiter oppositum), such that we can add and subtract pleasures like forces. See, e.g., Kant’s discussion of Verri and Locke at Anth 7:230, 235; VAnth 25:1071, 1513; Count Pietro Verri, Gedanken über die Natur des Vergnügens, aus dem Italienischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen

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moral motivation does not compete with empirical motivation. Kant’s theory of autonomy does not weigh motivating grounds. The spontaneity of adopting a rule is independent of pleasure and desire.172 The spontaneous act of adopting a maxim has indeed an aesthetic effect on the agent, but this aesthetic responsiveness cannot be interpreted as the incentive for the adoption of maxims without reversing the direction of determination: autonomy grounds moral feeling, but moral feeling cannot motivate the autonomous adoption of a maxim. Kant insists that the strength of motivating grounds at the phenomenal level, even the strongest of all inclinations to act contrary to what duty requires, is in a different category than moral motivation. Recall again Kant’s gallows example. Moral feelings are unique, and not among the sensibly caused garden variety of other pleasures and displeasures. Kant is at pains to insist on the peculiarity of moral feelings, which originate in an agent’s autonomy. Thus, it is inexplicable how the mere thought of duty can overcome the counterweight of all other sensible inclinations.173 When Kant uses “pleasure” to describe moral feeling it is always clear that this is not a pathological but a rational feeling.174 Consider how Kant stresses the rational basis of moral feelings: Moral feeling . . . is the susceptibility to feel pleasure or displeasure merely from being aware that our actions are consistent with or contrary to the law of duty.175 Consciousness of them is not of empirical origin; it can, instead, only follow from consciousness of a moral law, as the effect this has on the mind.176 Moral feeling is the capacity to be affected by a moral judgment.177

Moral feeling does not precede and cause the adoption of a maxim, but follows upon the rational determination of the will.178 Moral feeling is not a sensible inclination leading to action, as the Baumgartian model has it, but rather expresses an autonomous agent’s “self-approbation.”179 Moral feeling is the effect of an intellectual, not a sensible, representation.180 Both kinds of feelings cannot

172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179

180

begleitet von Christoph Meiners, Professor der Weltweisheit in Göttingen (Leipzig:  In der Weygandschen Handlung, 1777), 113; Locke Essay, Book 2, Chapter 20, Section 6; ibid., Book 2, Chapter 21, Section 31. E.g., KpV 5:117, 161. E.g., KpV 5:72, RGV 6:59n. Cf. Baron, Kantian Ethics, 196. MSTL 6:399. MSTL 6:399. Cf. KpV 5:38. Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 68. Cf. KpV 5:80, 159ff; TP 8:283. E.g., MSRL 6:212–3; MSTL 6:399. KpV 5:81: “The subjective effect on feeling, in as much as pure practical reason is the sole cause of it, can thus be called self-approbation.” Cf. KpV 5:118, where Kant opposes passive empirical feelings with pure practical reason’s interest. MSRL 6:211n.

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be weighed against each other. A  motivational function of feelings is both unnecessary and incompatible with Kant’s theory of freedom.181 Even though there are many passages—dispersed throughout Kant’s writings—in which Kant talks about moral feelings in terms of pleasure and incentives,182 a motivational reading of moral feelings is not supported by section XII of the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, where Kant talks of moral feelings as an expression of an agent’s commitment to morality, which itself is independent of pleasure and displeasure. Since Kant’s statements after the hyphen in §35 cannot be brought under the umbrella of Kant’s mature theory of moral motivation, other interpreters have suggested we read this passage in terms of an epistemic function of moral feeling. On this reading, Kant means to say that duty alone is insufficient to provide information about which objects require moral attention. Feelings are “needed for us to notice where help is needed . . . they draw our attention to human need and to ways in which we might help.”183 This epistemic reading of moral feelings does not square well with Kant’s explicit use of the technical term “impulse,” which denotes a sensible motivating ground of the faculty of desire. In addition, feelings, for Kant, do not have objective intentionality but rather express a relation to the subject. Moral feelings tell me something about myself (namely, how I subjectively experience the affective impact that the active adoption of principles has on me).184 My point is that the Metaphysics of Morals is not a coherently written work that reflects Kant’s position of 1796–8. Speaking metaphorically, the published Metaphysics of Morals is a mixed bag. Consider Manfred Baum’s observation that Kant presents two different deductions of the duty of beneficence.185 The introduction puts the principle to make the human being as such one’s end at center stage.186 In contrast, the main text works with the teleological assumption that human beings are “rational beings with needs, united by nature in one dwelling place so that they can help one another.”187 In other words, the main text follows Baumgarten’s realism, whereas the later composed introduction focuses on Kant’s proper principle of morality. This is an example of the 181 182 183

184 185

186 187

Cf. Baron, Kantian Ethics, 218–20. E.g., GMS 4:460; KpV 5:71ff.; VE 27:498. Baron, Kantian Ethics, 220, my emphasis. Cf. Sherman, Necessity of Virtue, 146–50; Baxley, Theory of Virtue, 164–5. See MSRL 6:211n, 212; EEKU 20:230–2; KU 5:204. Cf. Allison, Theory of Taste, 51f., 216. Manfred Baum, “Probleme der Begründing Kantischer Tugendpflichten,” in Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik: Annual Review of Law and Ethics, vol. 6 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1998), 52. MSTL 6:393. MSTL 6:453; my emphasis.

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Janus face of Kant as the lecturer and Kant the philosopher.188 Even though many passages of the lecture notes accompany the development of the critical philosophy, it is also true that Kant lectures on positions that are superseded by his critical standpoint, so that writing and teaching do not always cohere. Some of the lecture notes find their way directly into the Metaphysics of Morals, and this adds to the complexity of reading this work. Various passages in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, similar to those I have drawn attention to, are likely to be a mixture of passages written by Kant around 1796–8; passages from his textbook authors, on which his lectures are based; and Kant’s notes and reflections on these. How to distinguish the various components is difficult and not always unambiguously possible. The Metaphysics of Morals is not a coherently written book. One tool for finding the passages that Kant actually wrote during 1796 and 1798—Kant finished the Doctrine of Right by October 1796, the Doctrine of Virtue by February 1797, and the appendix to the Doctrine of Right by April 1798—189 is finding Kant’s allusions to the Opus postumum, which are clearly traceable and distinguishable from other passages. There is overwhelming evidence that the Metaphysics of Morals is an unfinished work, using material from different periods, and that the passages written around 1796 resemble construction areas similar to those of the “Octaventwurf ” of the Opus postumum, in which Kant is developing his ideas. Thus, I suggest that besides the motivational and epistemic readings of moral feelings, which assumes that the Metaphysics of Morals is a coherently written work, there is a third alternative, which interprets moral feelings as located at an intermediate level connecting the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of human agency. Acknowledging the cross references to the Opus postumum is pivotal for this interpretation. Both the Opus postumum and the Metaphysics of Morals are unfinished works. At 6:457, Kant calls the cultivation of moral feelings an indirect duty. In section XII, only conscience is labeled an indirect duty.190 Based on this textual evidence, Timmermann wants to locate Kant’s general conception of moral feelings in the context of indirect duties, which are of instrumental value only. On Timmermann’s reading, the cultivation of moral feelings is like acquiring prosperity, which can be used as a means to morally worthy ends. This means the cultivation of moral feelings itself lacks moral worth. Their cultivation is merely an indirect duty concerning instrumental means for implementing 188 189 190

I am here indebted to Robert R. Clewis, ed., Reading Kant’s Lectures (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 1–29. Cf. Ludwig, Introduction Rechtslehre, xxiii–xxiv. MSTL 6:401.

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moral ends.191 Think of the beginning of the Groundwork, where Kant speaks of talents of the mind, gifts of fortune, and qualities of temperance as conditional goods that can play a supportive role for the realization of moral ends.192 Along these lines, Timmermann attempts to locate moral feelings in the broader context of Kant’s theory of indirect duties in general. My concern with this reading is that, as a class, indirect duties do not share the features of moral aesthetic responsiveness presented in section XII. Kant consistently emphasizes in section XII that moral feelings are indispensable prerequisites for moral agency (this includes conscience’s function as a meta-reflection on maxims), and not mere optional means for the promotion of moral ends. Kant presents the cultivation of moral feelings as essential for receptivity to concepts of duty as such. Because indirect duties do not share these features, we should not think of moral feelings as indirect duties on a par with acquiring prosperity or pursuing our own happiness. Moral feelings are dispositions that should be cultivated for their own sake (their cultivation is morally obligatory), because any moral cultivation of character requires them. They are not optional instrumental means that facilitate moral action or help to ward off temptations to trespass the moral law. Agents cannot leave moral feelings behind at any point of their moral development, because they are the media through which any kind of moral cultivation is bound to work. It is because moral feelings play an indispensable role in the never-ending process of moral progress that they cannot be indirect pedagogical aids. Passages in the Metaphysics of Morals, in which Kant sees sympathetic feelings as “a means to promoting active and rational benevolence,” and which, therefore, it is a “conditional duty” to cultivate,193 differ markedly from section XII, where moral feelings are conceived of as rational–sensible hybrids. Kant’s characterization of the cultivation of moral sympathy and conscience as indirect duties in two passages of the Metaphysics of Morals is fully compatible with the kind of discrepancies we find in the “Octaventwurf,” which, like the Metaphysics of Morals, is unfinished work. This means, section XII, that is, Kant’s theory of moral judgment and its aesthetic affects as the missing link between the universal noumenal law of morality and particular phenomenal agency, is an unfinished sketch, significant for his moral theory as a whole but not yet ready for publication.

191

192 193

Timmermann, “Kant on Conscience,” 298–302. For similar readings of the cultivation of moral/ aesthetic feelings as indirect duties, see Allison, Theory of Freedom, 122–3; Theory of Taste, 212; Pablo Muchnik, “The Heart as Locus of Moral Struggle in Religion,” in Kant on Emotion and Value, ed. Alix Cohen (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave McMillan, 2014), 233–4. GMS 4:393–4. Cf. MSTL 6:388. MSTL 6:456.

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At the time of the publication of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant has a clear grasp of the problem that he labels the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics, but he does not yet have its final solution.194 The goal of the Transition Project is a systematic a priori classification of the various kinds of empirical moving forces in their dependence on the two matter constituting forces of repulsion and attraction. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant attempts to present a systematic classification of ethical duties, which, however, like Kant’s work in the Opus postumum, remains work in progress. The project of a systematic classification of ethical duties goes back at least to the Groundwork. The sole purpose of the Groundwork is to determine and establish the supreme principle of moral obligation.195 It is sufficient for this purpose to show (1)  that moral obligation can only be understood through a categorical imperative, where a categorical imperative must be based on autonomy, and (2) that autonomy has objective reality. It is neither the task of the Groundwork to show which specific duties follow from the principle of moral obligation nor what the conditions are for thinking of these duties as systematically organized. Thus, Kant entirely reserves the classification of duties for a future Metaphysics of Morals.196 Nevertheless, as the Groundwork makes also clear, the completeness of the classification of ethical duties belongs essentially to Kant’s critical conception of ethics, because Kant aims to demonstrate the derivability of all duties from the single supreme principle of moral obligation: “All imperatives of duty can be derived from this single imperative,”197 and immediately after the presentation of the exemplary duties in the second section of the Groundwork, Kant claims that “all duties, as far as the kind of obligation (not the object of their action) is concerned, have by these examples been set out completely in their dependence upon the one principle.”198 Thus, like in the “General Remark to Dynamics,” where Kant attempts to provide a classification of the kinds of empirical moving forces, there is both a claim to systematicity and a lack of a principle that would account for such an exhaustive classification. The Groundwork simply assumes “the usual division of them [duties] into duties to ourselves and to other human beings and into perfect and imperfect duties.”199 It should be noted that what Kant describes as the “usual division” of duties is from Kant’s historical 194

195 196 197 198 199

The so-called ether deductions are written much later, i.e., after the publication of the Metaphysics of Morals. GMS 4:392. GMS 4:421. Ibid., my emphasis. GMS 4:424, my emphasis. GMS 4:421.

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perspective rather unusual. For example, the usual division in Baumgarten begins with duties against God and then continues with duties toward oneself and toward others. Kant thus eliminates an entire class of duties, and explicitly acknowledges that the introduction of perfect duties toward oneself is controversial.200 In other words, Kant’s “usual division” could also be replaced by some other classification: It must be noted here that I reserve the division of duties entirely for a future Metaphysics of Morals, so that the division here stands only as one adopted at my discretion (for the sake of arranging my examples).201

Kant claims in the Groundwork that there are four types of duties to which the specific variety of human duties can be reduced, namely, perfect duties toward oneself (example: prohibition of suicide), perfect duties toward others (example:  prohibition of making promises without the intention of keeping), imperfect duties toward oneself (example: duty to cultivate one’s natural predispositions), and imperfect duties toward others (example: duty of beneficence). This classification, like the one of the “General Remark to Dynamics,” has only a provisional status because Kant does not derive it a priori. It is thus not surprising that Kant picks up again the problem of a complete classification of duties in the Metaphysics of Morals in order to replace their provisional division by a systematic account. As the Opus postumum picks up on the provisional classification of the “General Remark to Dynamics” of the Metaphysical Foundations, so the Metaphysics of Morals picks up the provisional classification of the Groundwork. Both are continuous projects. Unfortunately, instead of providing a justification for the classification of duties in the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant simply declares in sections I–V of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue that ethics is a doctrine of ends, which agents are required to adopt, and that “My own end which is also my duty (My own perfection)” and “The end of others, the promotion of which is also my duty (The happiness of others)” are the two topoi of the division of the duties of virtue. These two ends are presented as exhaustive.202 However, the main text does not follow this distinction laid out in sections I–V. Subsequently, in sections VI–X, Kant lays out the distinction between duties of right and duties of virtue, arguing that the former prescribe action and the latter maxims. Again, the main text does

200 201

202

Cf. GMS 4:421n; Kant, Moral Philosophy Kaehler, 169, n106. GMS 4:421n. For critical positions on Kant’s classification of duties, see Guyer, Nature and Freedom, 259–60; Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 186–7; Henrich, “Das Problem der Grundlegung,” 363–4. MSTL 6:398.

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not follow that distinction because it does not restrict ethical duties to imperfect duties, but also discusses ethical duties as perfect duties. Finally, sections XI and XVIII–XIX present various divisions of the Doctrine of Virtue, none of which are to be found in the main text. There is “no connection” between these divisions of the introduction and the following main part of the Doctrine of Virtue.203 Hill has noted that “Kant’s classification of duties contains some anomalies. For example, the so-called ‘perfect duties to oneself,’ such as a duty to avoid lying . . . are not easily construed as duties to adopt ends and so fit uneasily into Kant’s general description of ethics as concerned with ‘duties of virtue.’ ”204 “Given these labels,” Hill continues, “it remains a substantive, and controversial issue, which duties are ‘perfect,’ which ‘imperfect,’ and how exactly they should be stated.”205 Note that the one division of ethics presented in the introduction that does reoccur in the main text, namely the division of the “Doctrine of Elements” into a dogmatic and a casuistry,206 is introduced for the reason that wide duties allow for a latitude in their application, and thus require a casuistry. However, the casuistry is also appended to the discussion of narrow duties in the main text.207 This is not entirely surprising given the increased importance that Kant ascribes to the role of moral reflection for the completion of his moral theory in 1796–8. Yet the question remains, where do the two ends that are also duties (the perfection of an agent’s own self and the happiness of other agents), which function as the topoi of all empirical duties, come from? Kant writes: The supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue is: act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have.—In accordance with this principle a human being is an end for himself as well as for others . . . it is in itself his duty to make the human being as such his end. This basic principle of the doctrine of virtue, as a categorical imperative, cannot be proved, but it can be given a deduction from pure practical reason.208

This deduction, however, is nowhere to be found in the Metaphysics of Morals. Note that the principle of virtue is a synthetic a priori proposition because it adds two ends to the formal principle of obligation.209 Given that freedom and 203 204 205 206 207 208 209

Ludwig, Introduction Tugendlehre, xx. Hill, Human Welfare, 205–6. Hill, Human Welfare, 209. MSTL 6:413. This has also been noted by Sedgwick, “On Lying,” 57n50. MSTL 6:395. MSTL 6:396. “For were there no such ends, then all ends would hold for practical reason only as means to other ends; and since there can be no action without an end, a categorical imperative

28

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nature are two separate domains of legislation “entirely barred from any mutual influence that they could have on each other … by the great chasm that separates the supersensible from the appearances,”210 only the power of reflective judgment can make fully explicable the notion that “ethics can also be defined as the system of the ends of pure practical reason.”211 In other words, the bridge from a merely formal law of freedom to material ends that are to be realized in the phenomenal world presupposes the work of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The effect in accordance with the concept of freedom is the final end, which (or its appearance in the sensible world) should exist, for which the condition of its possibility in nature (in the nature of the subject as a sensible being, that is, as a human being) is presupposed. That which presupposes this a priori and without regard to the practical, namely, the power of judgment, provides the mediating concept between the concepts of nature and the concept of freedom, which makes possible the transition from the purely theoretical to the purely practical, from lawfulness in accordance with the former to the final end in accordance with the latter, in the concept of the purposiveness of nature; for thereby is the possibility of the final end, which can become actual only in nature and in accord with its laws, cognized.212

In order to see how precisely the two ends that are also duties presuppose the principle of the power of judgment, it is necessary to take a brief look at the argument in the Critique of the Power of Judgment: In nature we find natural purposes, that is, organisms. For example, a tree is a system of parts, where each part is simultaneously means and end with respect to the whole tree.213 Without the concept of an intentional ordering of the parts in an organism, that is, the assumption of an organization, we could not understand the possibility of an organism.214 What makes “organization” possible is an underlying idea with reference to which all parts are ordered. The causality, which produces an object in accordance to an underlying idea, is the causality of ends (as opposed to the mere mechanistic causality of nature). Since organisms are products of nature, we conceive of them as natural ends

210 211 212 213 214

would be impossible. This would do away with any doctrine of morals” (MSTL 6:385). “Ethics . . . provides a matter (an object of free choice), an end of pure reason which it represents as an end that is also objectively necessary, that is, an end that, as far as human beings are concerned, it is a duty to have” (MSTL 6:380). Cf. KU 5:172. KU 5:195. MSTL 6:381. KU 5:196. KU 5:376. KU 5:425–6.

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[Naturzwecke]. Kant now asserts that because one part of nature is purposively organized, reflective judgment is urged to assume that the whole of nature is purposively organized, that is, ordered in accordance with ends. However, the “chief condition [Hauptbedingung] for regarding the world as a whole interconnected in accordance with ends and as a system of final causes” is the presupposition of a final end.215 A final end is an unconditioned end.216 However, within nature there is no final end, that is, something about which it cannot any longer be asked why it exists.217 So what could this unconditional end, which we would have to think as an end in itself, be? Kant holds that this can only be “the human being under moral laws” because the only unconditioned purposiveness we know of is the formal law of practical reason.218 It is for this reason that reflective judgment is forced to go beyond nature, that is, to the supersensible. The final end must be independent of nature (because it has to be unconditioned), yet it also has to be thought in relation to nature (because the argument proceeds from natural purposes).219 Kant therefore concludes that the final end can only be pure practical reason insofar as it realizes ends in nature. More precisely, the final end of pure practical reason is the realized “existence of rational beings under moral laws.”220 The whole of humanity under moral laws is the final end, that is, an end in itself. This means, an individual agent can only comprehend her unconditional dignity as part of a rational cosmos, whose final end is the highest good (understood as a communal good). It is only through the principle of the power of judgment that “the possibility of the final end, which can become actual only in nature and in accord with its laws,”221 is cognized. The two ends that are also duties follow from this conception of the final end:

215 216 217

218 219 220 221

KU 5:444. KU 5:434. Cf. KU 5:426–7, 434–5, 449; Brandt, Die Bestimmung des Menschen, 483. “In the system of nature, a human being (homo phenomenon, animal rationale) is a being of slight importance and shares with the rest of the animals, as offspring of the earth, an ordinary value . . . Although a human being has, in his understanding, something more than they and can set himself ends, even this gives him only an extrinsic value for his usefulness . . . But a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price; for as a person (homo noumenon) he is not to be valued merely as the means to ends of the others or even to his own ends, but as an end in itself, that is, he possesses a dignity (an absolute inner worth) by which he exacts respect for himself from all other rational beings in the world . . . Humanity in his person is the object of the respect which he can demand from any other human being, but which he must also not forfeit” (MSTL 6:434–5). KU 5:445, 449, 435. Cf. KU 5:453–4. KU 5:449–50, my emphasis. Cf. KU 5:442–3. KU 5:196.

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We are determined a priori by reason to promote with all of our powers what is best in the world, which consists in the combination of the greatest good [grösste Wohl] for rational beings in the world with the highest condition of the good for them, i.e., the combination of universal happiness with the most lawful morality.222

The two ends that are also duties provide an all-encompassing perspective on human agency and thus provide the a priori and exhaustive topoi for the classification of specific human duties.223 Kant’s presentation of ethics as the system of the ends of pure practical reason in the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, in “accordance with [which] . . . a human being is an end for himself as well as for others,” is thus justified.224 For human beings in general, striving for moral perfection and supporting the happiness of others are the two constitutive metaphysical first principles of what it means to be an autonomous agent. The moral aesthetic responses of self-respect and love of human beings can then be seen as schematizations of the principles of self-perfection and other’s happiness, respectively. But why are there then not only these two mediating concepts in section XII? Why are there four schemata? Again, I  think this can only be explained by reference to the Opus postumum, because here, too, the mediating concepts shall ultimately be ordered by the table of the categories in order to assure a systematic and exhaustive classification of divers empirical moving forces. Both the Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum remain work in progress. The key insight, outlined in the section “Moral feelings as based on the table of the categories of freedom” above, was that all four moral feelings of section XII are the product of moral judgment, and that, therefore, they are rooted in the elementary forms of practical judgment, that is, the “table of the categories of freedom with respect to the concepts of the good and evil.”225 I showed that there is a “connection” between the third category of each of the four classes and the four mediating concepts of section XII by emphasizing that “these categories . . . proceed in their order from those 222

223

224

225

KU 5:453. Cf. KU 5:450. The development of Kant’s conception of the highest good within his critical writings is a complex topic in itself. Given the communal conception of the highest good, the Religion should be read together with Kant’s views presented in the third Critique. For more discussion, see, for example, Munzel, Religion, 214–32; Eckart Förster, “Die Wandlungen in Kants Gotteslehre,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 52(3) (1998): 341–62. Cf. Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 89–90, 92–4; and Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment, 182 for similar interpretations. The happiness of other agents is not an end that intrudes into a moral agent’s life, but something that is part of the perspective on the entire cosmos and its final end, which no single agent can bring about by herself. For an alternative reading of the “deduction from pure practical reason,” see Allison, Theory of Freedom, 155–68. For a criticism of Allison see Baum, “Probleme der Begründing,” 41–56. KpV 5:66.

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which are morally still undetermined and sensibly conditioned to those which, being sensibly unconditioned, are determined only by the moral law.”226 There is overwhelming evidence that Kant attempts to use this table of the categories as the clue for the arrangement of the four aesthetic concepts. Historically speaking, this is a new discovery. But precisely what establishes the “connection?” What injects the right kind of necessity into this categorical determination of aesthetic responsiveness? The “connection” between form of judgment and mediating concept is supposed to be necessary. How then can it be ambiguous whether a mediating concept belongs to one category or another? For example, in the preliminary works to the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant considers the notions “permission,” “prohibition” and “cases of collision” under “universale,” “particulare,” and “singulare,” respectively (i.e., the forms of judgment under quantity, not quality).227 So, why is conscience then not a categorical determination of quantity, that is, of singular judgments? Why does section XII assign it to quality?228 Like in the Opus postumum, we see Kant wavering in the Metaphysics of Morals and its preliminary works whether a mediating concept should be subsumed under one or another class of categories. The “Octaventwurf ” plans to present four intermediate concepts guided by the four classes of categories (quantity, quality, relation, modality). The elementary system of the moving forces of matter . . . is the system of categories under which the concepts of the moving forces are systematically ordered, i.e., in accordance with principles a priori.229

Yet, at this stage of his reflections, 1796–8, Kant’s attempts to systematically link the mediating concepts to the table of the categories remain mere stipulations. Kant fails to show how particular schemata are connected to the various categories or classes of categories.230 Nevertheless, can we attempt to indicate what could guide the categorical structure of Kant’s mediating concepts? What would such a reconstruction look like? Kant aims to provide the complete list of all possible kinds of moving forces. For this reason, it is understandable why Kant would want

226 227 228 229 230

Ibid. VAMS 23:382. See “Conscience” under the head “The four mediating concepts in the ‘Aesthetics of Morals’ ” above. Op 22:226. Cf. Op 21:311, 363, 367, 527; Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 200ff., 210–2. See Chapter 1, “The ‘Octaventwurf ’ and the ‘Early Fascicles’ of the Opus postumum: The categorical structure of the mediating concepts of the Transition” above, and “Conclusion” below.

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to resort to the table of the categories, which is “indispensable in the theoretical part of philosophy for completely outlining the plan for the whole of a science .” 231 The table of the categories exhaustively provides what is required to make a complete theoretical judgment. In order to achieve a complete classification of all kinds of empirical moving forces, Kant explicitly notates the table of the categories in the margin of some of his numerous drafts: Of matter in general. Classification a priori. A Variety in accordance with Quantity. [in the margin] Categories. 1. Unity, Plurality and Totality of the homogeneous. [in the main text] [Quantity of matter] can be cognized through gravitation, which is the universal world attraction . . . Density, Ponderosity, and Imponderability. B Quality Of the different qualities of matter [in the margin] 2 Reality, Negat. and Limitation [in the main text] . . . Specific Differences of matter per se or their states . . . Cohesion C Relation [in the margin] 3 Inherence, Causality, and Community [in the main text] The state of matter is either fluid or rigid . . . Cohesion232

Under quantity, Kant concludes that ponderability of matter, which is based on the a priori force of universal attraction, makes possible “the precise determination of the quantity of matter, of whatever type it be.”233 Ponderability applies “to all matter,”234 and for this reason it is “connected” to the totality (third category under quantity) of empirical matter. As a next step, one would need to elaborate on how exactly the quantity of matter (i.e., its ponderability) 231 232 233 234

KrV B109. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 211–2. Op 21:394–5, my translation. Op 22:208. Op 21:375, my emphasis.

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is rooted in the quantity of a logical judgment. I assume that only such a further step would establish the normativity of the moment of ponderability as a mediating concept of the Transition. That is to say, why is ponderability the only quantitative determination of matter that is part of the Transition? What about the many other forms of quantitative determinations of empirical matter that cannot be subsumed under ponderability, for example, forces of electricity, magnetism? Only such an explanation would truly build a necessary bridge from matter in general toward empirical physics. Moving on to the moment of quality, Kant declares that the “division of matter in regard to its quality can be only this: it is either fluid or solid.”235 Note the language: it “can only be this . . .” However, under relation, Kant again discusses cohesion and various phenomena of rigidification. The fact that Kant discusses fluidity and rigidity under both quality and relation seems to make the connection between category and mediating concept conventional. What precisely determines the location of this mediating concept in the system of moving forces? Does cohesion belong to the category of community (relation), as some of Kant’s drafts indicate, or should we think about rigid and fluid bodies in terms of reality and negation (quality), as other drafts indicate, and what would justify any of these stipulations?236 My point is that reading the “Octaventwurf ” next to section XII of the Metaphysics of Morals conveys the same impression: both are unfinished works with a clear systematic effort. Both use a loose and seemingly conventional connection to the categories. The mediating concepts of self-respect and love of human beings as moral aesthetic responses have been established independently of the table of the categories (namely, as the aesthetic affect of moral reflection with respect to the two ends that are also duties). Only afterward does Kant attempt to force these mediating concepts into his table of the categories. This is precisely the conclusion that Adickes also draws with respect to the mediating concepts of the Opus postumum.237 Kant does not derive these mediating concepts through the table of the categories, but rather arrives at them independently from architectonic considerations, and subsequently attempts to use the table of the categories as an “a priori” guide.

235 236 237

Op 22:213, my emphasis. Cf. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 210–4. Adickes, Kants Opus postumum, 212.

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Conclusion On the one hand, Kant is perceived as presenting a rationalist notion of morality, in which feelings cannot play a significant part. The moral subject is guided by reason, whereas feelings seem to indicate passivity, affection, and natural impulse. This claim is entirely correct insofar as the authoritative status of the moral law is independent of an agent’s feelings, desires, and inclinations. For Kant, morally permissible conduct follows from the universal nature of agency; it cannot be determined by an agent’s peculiar characteristics. On the other hand, interpreters have also rightly emphasized that specific duties cannot be derived or deduced from the categorical imperative alone, and that what is universal needs to be instantiated with respect to particular idiosyncrasies, which requires empirical knowledge. Wood, for example, has stressed the dynamic and openended character of Kant’s ethics. He insists that ethics is open to “modification and correction,” and that there is no “rigorous deductive process”238 that would connect the fundamental level of morality with the specification of moral duties. I have argued that this must not mean that the various levels of Kant’s moral theory—autonomy, moral rules, and moral judgment—are only “loosely” connected.239 For, a loose connection is at odds with Kant’s foundationalist conception of morality, which demands that empirical laws be brought under a priori principles. Moral agency is always instantiated through quite particular maxims. What makes these maxims moral is their universal basis: the idea of autonomy. The Transition Project suggests a way to provide the missing link between the a priori and empirical aspects of Kant’s moral philosophy through a theory of moral reflection and its aesthetic moral affects. The role of reason-responsive mediating concepts (rational–sensible hybrids) is to connect the a priori normative foundation of autonomous agency with empirical obligations. For example, adopting another person’s maxim into one’s own will is always informed by relevant values, contexts, needs, and peculiarities of the other person. The moral feeling of love of human beings, which is the product of our practical judgment, is always first-personal and it attends to particular individuals. Yet the basis of our moral aesthetic responsiveness is universal moral concern. Thus, Menschenliebe is a schema of the moral law, in virtue of which agents can understand their empirical reflection as grounded in the constitutive principles of morality. 238 239

Wood, Kantian Ethics, 61, 62. For this view, see, Wood, Kantian Ethics, 60.

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The development of Kant’s theory of moral feelings is a continuous project. It can be traced to the Groundwork, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and section XII of the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue. Kant’s discussion of moral feelings shows that the active endorsement of a maxim is always affective. Originating in an act of moral reflection, the fourfold aesthetic affective states are responses to the unconditional command of reason. Moral feelings can thus be explained rationally, and precisely because they are the product of practical judgment are agents capable of cultivating them. Moral feelings are subject to rational assessment; they do not happen to an agent but are shaped by an agent’s Denkungsart.240 Since moral feelings require cultivation, they have different degrees of strength in different agents. To cultivate our attentiveness to the moral law means to cultivate moral feelings. Moral feelings are the indispensable media of any moral education, because they are the sensible expression of an agent’s moral state. Kant’s “Aesthetics of Morals” sketches how moral reflection produces mediating concepts that allow for the possibility of a transition from autonomy to empirical agency. The role of the capacity of judgment for allowing transitions is developed in the Critique of Judgment and applied in section XII. The fourfold structure of aesthetic responsiveness in section XII is the result of Kant’s architectonic efforts. Kant’s argument for his theory of mediating concepts as the product of moral judgment is independent of the table of the categories. Both the Metaphysics of Morals and the Opus postumum remain unfinished works.

240

MSTL 6:387. Cf. Anth 7:294–5.

236

Conclusion

This study sets out by asking, “What philosophical problem does the Transition Project of the Opus postumum address?” The central insight gained by addressing this question is that the issue of a transition, that is, the problem of a lawful progression from the metaphysical foundations of the cognition of nature to empirical physics, originates in Kant’s very conception of critical philosophy and its strict separation of formal from material aspects of knowledge. The issue of systematic knowledge of the empirical on a priori grounds is in fact not a new project that is first raised in Kant’s Opus postumum. Rather, it is at the heart of critical philosophy and had occupied Kant for many years. “Systematic unity is that which first makes ordinary cognition into science,” Kant writes in the Critique.1 From the very outset, Kant’s critical conception of knowledge emphasizes the prospect of a coherent rational explanation of physical phenomena founded on the transcendental laws of the understanding. Kant claims repeatedly that such a systematicity of the empirical is something that mathematical scientists, such as Newton, cannot provide. For Kant (and the Wolffian school, to which he is deeply indebted), comprehending the necessity of a law means to provide insight into its a priori foundation. How precisely the necessary and universal foundation is connected to contingent and particular cases is a pervasive problem for Kant’s critical philosophy that can be traced to the “Appendix to the Dialectic,” the “General Remark to Dynamics” of the Metaphysical Foundations, the introductions to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, and the Opus postumum. The continuity of Kant’s Transition Project is the first result of this study. Contrary to what is commonly assumed in the literature, Kant’s Transition Project is not a new project. In the time period of 1796–8, which is the main focus of this study, Kant’s vehicle for addressing the issue of the lawful progression from the a priori to the empirical, or—what is the flip side of the same problem—the systematicity of the empirical, is a theory of schematism or mediating concepts. This is the 1

KrV A832/B860.

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second result of this book. The general possibility of such a theory of mediating concepts connecting the metaphysical foundations of natural science to empirical physics is established a priori by the principle of reflective judgment, which enjoins us to search for the systematic unity of divers empirical laws. Given the critical foundations of knowledge, a system of empirical cognition can only be asymptotically approached if reflective judgment “explore[s] dynamical grounds of explanation. For these alone permit the hope of determinate laws.”2 The mediating concepts of the Transition Project are supposed to guide natural investigation in its search for the unity of empirical laws by providing an a priori classification of the types of empirical moving forces in their dependence on the metaphysical principles that constitute matter in general. The search for systematicity of the empirical is not optional in the Kantian system. It is an absolutely essential point to understand why reflective judgment must prescribe to itself the assumption that nature in its empirical laws is systematic.3 The Metaphysical Foundations aim at providing a proper philosophical foundation to physics in order to explain how the necessity of particular empirical laws is possible: all “proper natural science therefore requires a pure part.”4 I showed that Kant’s dynamic account of matter in general is not merely a regulative idea in any empirical sense. Rather, “dynamical grounds of explanation . . . alone permit the hope of determinate laws” precisely because they are based on a priori principles such as the “Anticipations of Perception.” Thus, it is the task of the philosopher to further specify the maxims for investigating nature, a task that cannot be left to empirical physics if nature is to be a law-governed whole. If natural investigation proceeded from empirical principles, we could not ascribe the kind of necessity to particular laws of nature that Kant thinks we need to ascribe to them.5 I argued that Kant’s Transition Project in the Opus postumum must be understood against this background of attempting to explain empirical phenomena through transcendental philosophy: philosophia naturalis. The Transition Project lies at the intersection of metaphysical laws and the empirical variety of specific laws, and it attempts to comprehend the latter as modifications of the former in order to bring empirical regularities “under” a priori principles. For, as long as particular laws cannot be traced to their dynamic foundation, we can only think of them as contingently lawful. To say that a particular law is necessary (as opposed to being a contingent empirical regularity) presupposes that

2 3 4 5

MAN 4:534, my emphasis. EEKU 20:210–1. MAN 4:469. MAN 4:472.

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it can be tied into the a priori system of the cognition of nature. The Transition Project can thus be seen as Kant’s attempt to connect the constitutive principles of cognition to the regulative principles of empirical inquiry. Accordingly, I have shown how the Opus postumum uses the metaphysics of matter in general in order to reflect on empirical problems, and how the mediating concepts originate in the principle of reflective judgment insofar as reflection is the principal activity that allows for the transition from the a priori to the empirical. The problem of systematic knowledge of the empirical on a priori grounds is not unique to Kant’s theoretical philosophy. There is also a Transition Project in Kant’s practical philosophy. This is the third result of this study. Particular moral laws can only be seen as necessary if we can rationally strive to coherently unite them in one system. Because the normativity of a rule is a feature of its a priori foundation, the only way to see particular moral rules as necessary for human beings is to trace them to autonomy. I argued that Kant develops a theory of a priori moral feelings as vehicles to accomplish a systematic transition from the pure part of morality to divers empirical precepts. Since the moral law itself is an unschematized idea of reason, agents cannot be directly attentive to it. I have argued that to be attentive to the moral law means, for Kant, to be attentive to our conscience and self-respect, and so on (i.e., the fourfold structure of moral aesthetic responsiveness) insofar as these are sensible expressions of the moral law. This is the fourth result of this book. My interpretation commences from a passage from the Metaphysics of Morals, which in its relation to the Opus postumum has evaded the attention of Kant scholarship. In §45 of the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant alludes to the Opus postumum and demands a Transition Project also in practical philosophy.6 One goal of asking “Why is a Transition Project in practical philosophy required?” is to establish the historical claim that at the same time as Kant works on the Opus postumum he also works on a transition in practical philosophy. I showed that the problem of the systematicity of duties in their dependence on one underlying principle of obligation, and the application of principles to cases of experience is again a pervasive problem in Kant’s critical philosophy. Kant reflects on this pervasive problem in the Groundwork, the Critique of Practical Judgment, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the sections of the Doctrine of Virtue that were written between 1796 and 1798, but also in other writings of that time period, such as the notorious essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.” I  used the fact that the problems of systematization and

6

MSTL 6:468–9.

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application can be shown to be continuous problems within Kant’s critical philosophy to emphasize that Kant’s Transition Project is neither a new project nor unique to theoretical philosophy. Both the theoretical and practical divisions of Kant’s critical philosophy require mediating concepts that instantiate objective a priori principles under subjective empirical conditions. Kant’s solution of mediating concepts to the problem of a transition, as presented in the time period of 1796–8, not only provides an avenue to resolve the long-standing question of why Kant takes up the question of a “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics” in the Opus postumum and why he describes it as addressing a gap in his critical philosophy, it also shows how this problem is fundamentally about connecting the pure and applied parts of a science and why this issue is so pressing for Kant’s conception of critical philosophy. By reading Kant’s later works on practical philosophy against the background of the Opus postumum, this study wants to open a new perspective on Kant’s late writings on practical philosophy through the lens of the problem of the Transition Project in the Opus postumum, and it wants to correct some misconceptions in the debate surrounding the Opus postumum by looking at it through the lens of Kant’s practical philosophy. Because the transition problem in both theoretical and practical philosophy is fundamentally about the same issue of connecting the pure to the applied part of a science within the framework of Kant’s conception of critical philosophy, it is worth looking at Kant’s solution to the moral problem in order to shed new light on his solution to the theoretical problem, and vice versa. For example, this book has shown that the aesthetic concepts of section XII are ordered through the table of the categories. This is not just a new insight from a historical point of view. It also shows that Kant thought that the way to address transition problems is by means of schemata, which could be enumerated exhaustively. In the Introduction to this book, I cited Louden, who asked: “How can a body of knowledge based on empirical precepts constitute a legitimate part of ethics in any sense for Kant?”7 I think the answer to this question is now clear: empirical precepts constitute a legitimate part of Kantian ethics insofar as they can be “brought under” the a priori principles of morality. This is accomplished through mediating concepts that are constitutive—regulative hybrids, as it were, insofar as they are, on the one hand, grounded in the pure part of morality and, on the other, designed to guide empirical reflection.

7

Louden, Impure Ethics, 17.

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Kant’s attempt to order all mediating concepts through the table of the categories in order to assure a systematic and exhaustive classification is understandable, because all mediating concepts of the Transition Project are the product of reflective judgment and, as such, they must be rooted in the elementary forms of judgment, that is, the table of the categories. Yet, this study finds that Kant’s attempts to systematically link the mediating concepts to the table of the categories remain mere stipulations in the time period of 1796–8. Kant fails to show how particular schemata are connected to the various categories or classes of categories. The key issue here is that Kant cannot inject the right kind of necessity into his mediating concepts of the Transition (i.e., the categorical determination of the different types of moving forces and obligations), because they are generated independently of the table of the categories. The 1796–8 Transition Project thus fails. This is the fifth result. What could this imply? If Kant fails to fill the gap in his system of critical philosophy, insofar as he does not succeed in giving the right kind of logical force to his system of mediating concepts, then, after all, it might not be possible to bring empirical inquiry “under” the a priori restrictions of transcendental philosophy. But how can it be possible in the Kantian system that empirical phenomena are not as we must represent them? Obviously, this is possible if Kant’s a priori foundation of theoretical and practical laws is in fact guided by empirical insights. For example, there is much evidence for the claim that Kant’s argument for the apriority of space and time as forms of intuition presupposes the truth of Newtonian space-time, and, as we know, not all empirical phenomena can be located in this metaphysical framework.8 This is just one example for elucidating why empirical phenomena might not cooperate with Kant’s “a priori” restrictions of knowledge. Similar concerns could and have been raised with respect to the a priori derivation of the two fundamental forces of matter in general, and the two ends that are also duties. Kant’s Transition Project is an expression of his key insight that a pure, formal, metaphysical foundation must precede empirical lawgiving of whatever kind. Yet, if this foundation is not entirely pure, then, as the sciences and the empirical conditions of agency develop, it will become increasingly difficult to hold on to the results of Kant’s foundationalism. This does not necessarily mean that we need to discard transcendental idealism altogether.9 But I hope to have shown that any evaluation of 8

9

For discussion, see Oliver Thorndike, “Kant’s Philosophy of Time in the Transcendental Aesthetic,” in Time and Tense: Unifying the Old and the New, ed. Stamatios Gerogiorgakis, 253–316 (München: Philosophia Verlag, 2016). Cf. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, 445–8.

24

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Kant’s Transition Project and Late Philosophy

the historical achievement of Kant’s critical philosophy must work with a clear view on what precisely the Transition Project is, and why Kant thought it would bring his critical philosophy to completion. The contribution of this book can be seen in bringing to the fore that an accurate assessment of Kant’s critical philosophy requires an understanding of the Opus postumum and Kant’s parallel late writings on practical philosophy. This puts common Kantian wisdom upside down: Kant’s late thoughts are not afterthoughts that are at best at the periphery of critical philosophy, and at worst an indication that Kant lost his mental strength in 1796–8. The distinctions between noumena and phenomena, a priori and empirical, formal and material, understanding and sensibility, universal and applied, make Kant’s concerns with making transitions central to his conception of critical philosophy. These are not problems that are merely belatedly raised in the Opus postumum. Kant was a systematic philosopher throughout his life. By putting texts that are not commonly read together—the Opus postumum and Kant’s late writings on practical philosophy—into conversation, this study wants to make a contribution to what that commitment entails. As I said in the preface, there remains much work to be done on the path I have sketched here. For example, throughout the book, I have emphasized the parallels between Kant’s Tansition Project in theoretical and practical philosophy. It would be interesting to expand this discussion by looking at disanalogies between Kant’s theoretical and practical mediating concepts. This would require a more detailed study of how Kant thought mediating concepts could guide empirical discovery. Further, there are, of course, also other places in Kant’s work where transitions are necessary, such as the problem about the unity of theoretical and practical reason,10 which was only mentioned in passing. I hope that this book has taken some first steps into the direction of explaining what Kant understood by transition as a problem of schematism. If I have convinced the reader of the necessity of a Transition Project, this book has reached its goal.

10

KU 5:176. Cf. Allison, Theory of Taste, 197ff.

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Index Adickes, Erich 31–2, 35, 52, 53n. 115, 74, 83, 97, 99, 110, 233 aesthetics 165–6 of morals xiv, 18, 116, 181, 187, 190, 199, 205 Allison, Henry E. 91n. 329, 109n. 427, 110n. 430, 134, 186n. 19, 194n. 58, 206n. 105, 213n. 137, 224n. 191, 230n. 224, 241n. 9, 242n. 10 Ameriks, Karl 120n. 33, 124 anthropology 10, 25–6, 118–20, 127–31, 151, 211, 220n. 171 anticipations of perception 47–8, 72, 238 atomism 54–5, 63, 71–4, 83, 98, 103n. 402, 105, 108 attraction xi, 3, 44–5, 54–61, 68, 75n. 240, 83, 89–90, 93, 96–106, 130, 225, 232 Bader, Ralf M. 200n. 84, 201n. 86, 202n. 94 Baron, Marcia 29n. 90, 142n. 135, 217n. 149, 221n. 174, 222n. 181, n. 183 Baum, Manfred 222, 230n. 224 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb xvi, 13, 38, 113, 116–19, 122, 146, 151, 155–7, 159, 166, 178, 218, 220n. 171, 222, 226 Baxley, Anne Margaret xviii, 29n. 90, 196n. 68, 208n. 118, 220n. 168, 222n. 183 beauty see aesthetics benevolence 144, 161, 195–6, 224. See also love of human beings and Menschenliebe Brandt, Reinhard 87–8n. 310, 123n. 44, 148n. 160, 229n. 217 casuistry 136, 142, 145–7, 158, 164–5, 191, 215, 227 categories xiv, 10, 26–7, 46, 52n. 110, 53, 76, 85, 87, 91, 93–4, 96–7, 108–10, 230–5, 240–1 of freedom 182, 199–202, 204, 230 character 127, 142, 149, 199, 210, 212

chemistry 3, 61, 63, 66–8, 74–5, 90–1 Cholbi, Michael 159 Cicero, Marcus Tullius xvi, 148–59, 166, 175, 178 circle 92 in theory of matter 103–8, 119 classification/classify xi, 9, 27, 90, 96, 101, 126, 232 Clewis, Robert R. 223n. 188 Cohen, Alix 131n. 85 cohesion 37, 41, 51, 54, 57–60, 64–5, 68n. 190, 82–3, 92, 96, 98–9, 101–2, 106, 109, 232–3 community 153–5 category of 232–3 completeness 50, 78, 89, 93–6, 128, 133, 226 conscience 27, 29, 181, 183–4, 186–7, 190– 5, 200, 202, 205–6, 223–4, 231, 239 continuity between universal and local identity 136, 215 law of 71n. 211, 72–3 of the Transition Project 6, 18, 32, 52n. 111, 68, 75, 91n. 329, 92, 96–7, 101, 237 deduction 16–19, 52n. 110, 91, 109, 111, 121– 3, 125, 165, 183, 223, 225n. 194, 227 density 37, 41, 51, 54–9, 64–5, 74, 82–3, 92, 96, 98, 103, 232 Descartes, René 2, 35, 44, 117, 117–18n. 15 disinterestedness 165–6 duties wide xiv, 15, 134, 141, 145–6, 158, 162– 3, 213–19, 228 education 18n. 55, 25–6, 166, 189, 211, 235 emotion 28, 29n. 91, 189, 208, 210–11, 219 Emundts, Dina 52n. 111, 78n. 261, 104n. 410n. 414

256

256

Index

Engstrom, Stephen 126n. 61, 137n. 114 Esser, Andrea 132n. 92, 140n. 122, 160, 161n. 241, 166, 170n. 290, 172n. 300, 173, 217n. 151 ether 50, 57n. 135, 68, 96, 99, 102–4, 106, 110–11, 225n. 194 evil 118, 152, 182, 187, 200, 206, 230 fact of reason 121–5, 187n. 22, 189 Förster, Eckart xiv, xviii, 32, 52n. 110, 65, 77–85, 96n. 356, 98n. 368, 99, 101, 103, 106n. 418, 107n. 423, 230n. 222 Franks, Paul 107–8 Friedman, Michael xiv, 3, 32, 34n. 17, 40n. 45, 44n. 59, 46n. 69, 65–77, 87–8n. 310, 91n. 328, n. 329, n. 332, 104n. 411, 106 gap xii, xiv, 1, 7, 14, 17, 24–6, 66, 69, 74, 77, 85, 87, 92, 105, 107–8, 116–17, 131, 135, 141, 165, 178, 181, 205, 240–1 Garve, Christian xvi, 1, 16–18, 20, 31, 119, 148 Geismann, Georg 18n. 53, 170n. 291, 171n. 295, 173 Ginsborg, Hannah 87–8n. 310 God 8, 86–7, 118n. 16, 226 Graband, Claudia 200n. 84 Gregor, Mary J. 129–30, 161, 166, 217 Grenberg, Jeanine 121–2, 137n. 114, 206n. 102 grounding 73, 105, 133, 185n. 15, 215 Guyer, Paul 132n. 92, 148n. 159, 158n. 225, 226n. 201 Hebbeler, James 4n. 13 Henrich, Dieter 15n. 42, 17n. 52, 117n. 13, 121n. 35, 123n. 44, 146n. 155, 226n. 201 Herman, Barbara 25, 205–6n. 101, 213n. 136, 215–16n. 143, 219, 230n. 223 heteronomy 21, 120, 147–8, 151, 153, 165, 174–7, 194–5, 197, 206–7, 209–11 hierarchy 20, 133–4, 153–5, 161–2, 166, 215, 215–16n. 143 highest good 229, 230n. 222 Hill, Thomas, E. xiv, 162, 164–5, 208, 213– 14, 219, 227

idea 86–8, 95, 115, 120, 185–6, 190n. 35, 239 regulative xiii, 8, 20, 77, 89–90, 133, 215 identity 114, 136–41, 159, 177, 179, 196, 198–9, 204–5, 215–16 judgment determinate 8, 90 faculty of xiii, 20, 95, 107, 133, 215 moral 17–20, 25–6, 116, 123, 133, 142–5, 158, 165–6, 172, 182, 185, 191, 193, 195–6, 198, 200–3, 208, 214, 217, 219, 221, 224, 230, 234–5 power of xi, 7, 9, 18–20, 26–7, 32, 68, 78–9, 86, 88, 90–1, 146, 184, 228–9 principle of reflective 89, 238 reflective xiii–iv, 9, 18–19, 27, 32, 68, 77, 80, 88–9, 91, 108, 110–11, 184–5, 192–3, 229, 238–9, 241 of taste 165 Kiesewetter, Johann Gottfried Carl Christian xv, xvi, 1, 8, 31, 80–4, 90, 92, 94, 105n. 417 Kleingeld, Pauline 125 Korsgaard, Christine M. 126n. 60, 127n. 66, 136–40, 160–1, 166, 194n. 58, 207n. 113, 213 Kühn, Manfred 120n lawfulness 5, 16, 133, 164, 168–9, 184, 186, 228 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 34, 37, 118n. 16 Locke, John 35, 42, 220–21n. 171 Longuenesse, Béatrice 52n. 110, 200n. 82, 201n. 86, 214 Louden, Robert B. xiv, 25–6, 118n. 22, 119n. 25, 129n. 79, 131n. 85, 142n. 135, 163, 184n. 12, 240 love of human beings 27, 29, 181, 186, 195–7, 203, 217, 230, 233–4. See also benevolence and Menschenliebe Ludwig, Bernd 132n. 89, n. 92, 167n. 267, 217, 223, 227 lying 126–7, 139, 142, 145, 147, 167, 169– 71, 173–4, 176–7, 194n. 59, 198, 226 Mahon, James Edwin 143n. 139, 144n. 145, 145n. 149, 170n. 290, 172n. 298

Index Mathieu, Vittorio 52n. 111, 91n. 327 maxim adoption of 134, 136, 148, 194, 211, 221–2 McCarty, Richard 121–2, 166, 205n. 99 McNulty, Michael Bennett 3n. 10 Meier, Georg Friedrich 13n. 39, 38, 218 Menschenliebe 174, 195, 234. See also benevolence and love of human beings Michaelis, Johann David, xvi, 148n. 161, 172–3 moral feeling 17–18, 27–9, 116, 121–5, 181–224, 230, 235, 239 law 15–18, 21, 27, 114, 120–9, 132–3, 145–6, 177, 182–4, 186–221, 224, 231, 234–5 progress 25, 186, 191, 196, 206, 208, 210, 215, 224 motivating grounds 14, 16, 27, 113–14, 116–21, 125, 146–8, 151, 155–9, 167, 174, 178, 192, 195, 201, 205, 208–9, 220–2 Muchnik, Pablo 224n. 191 Munzel, Felicitas G. 18n. 55, 29n. 91, 184n. 11–13, 185n. 16, 195n. 60, 196n. 67, 211n. 127, 212n. 131, 230n. 222

257

Rand, Sebastian 52n. 110, 95n. 347 respect feeling of 18, 121–4, 184, 189, 204 for the moral law 17, 27, 121–3, 125, 183, 205 for others 11, 37, 144, 215 self- 27, 181, 183–4, 186–7, 197, 199– 200, 203, 205, 211–12, 215–17, 229n, 230, 233, 239 right 11, 22–4, 38n. 39, 141, 146, 152, 156– 8, 161n. 241, 167–77, 192, 204, 223, 226, 239 rigorism 142, 167, 177 Ripstein, Arthur 169 Rorty, Amelie 144n. 147, 150n. 172

Oberer, Hariolf 170n. 291, 171n. 295, 173 obligation grounds of 116, 145, 147, 152–66, 175–8, 202 organisms 228

schematism xi, xvii, 9–10, 19, 85–92, 103, 107, 237, 242 Schmidt, Claudia M. 131n. 85 Schönecker, Dieter 125n. 56, 217 Schwaiger, Clemens 120n. 33 Sedgwick, Sally 161n. 243, 162n. 247, 168n. 277, 170n. 290, 171n. 297, 172, 176, 227n. 207 self -construction 149–50, 166 -legislation 126, 149 Sherman, Nancy 122, 208, 216 Siep, Ludwig 127–9, 131 sublime 18, 27, 183–6, 204 Sussman, David 145n. 150, 168n. 277, 172n. 298 systematic unity xiii, xiv, 2, 7–8, 40, 63, 66, 78, 80, 85–7, 89, 91, 95n. 347, 97, 108, 110, 115, 132–3, 237–8 systematicity xiii, xiv, xvii, 24, 26, 35, 37, 39, 52, 70, 77–9, 86, 91–6, 101–2, 107, 115, 128, 133, 147, 165, 169, 225, 237–9

Pieper, Annemarie 131n. 131, 184n. 13, 202n. 92 Pollok, Konstantin 34n. 11, 36n. 28, 42n. 55, 49n. 93, 50n. 97, 52, 60, 76n. 245, 91n. 332, 101n. 389, 110n. 430, 124n. 52, 139n. 120, 196n. 64 prioritization 116, 134–6, 146–7, 152–9, 163, 172, 178, 187, 193, 197, 213 purposiveness 77–8, 80, 82–3, 85, 228–9

Theunissen, Nandi 131n. 88 Timmermann, Jens 140n. 122, 145n. 149, 156n. 213, 159n. 228, 160, 162, 165n. 255, 166, 194n. 59, 198n. 74, 213n. 136, 219, 223–4 truth 15, 36, 77n. 252, 79, 87, 105, 111, 117n. 15, 135–6, 142, 144, 147, 171, 173, 175, 191n. 46, 193, 241 Tuschling, Burkhard 46n. 69, 52, 101n. 387

Newton, Isaac 2–3, 34, 44–5, 70, 237. See also Newtonian Newtonian 3–4, 36, 40–1, 45, 49, 74, 76, 103–4, 106, 241 Nussbaum, Martha 151n. 180, 162n. 250, 175n. 318, 215n. 142

258

258

Index

Varden, Helga 170n. 290, 172n. 298 Velleman, David J. 217n. 149

Wolffian 4–5, 11, 15n. 42, 32, 34, 36–8, 40, 42, 45, 51, 76, 85, 107, 111n. 438, 114, 129, 171, 237 Wood, Allen 130–1, 134, 166, 234 Wundt, Max 34

Warren, Daniel 2n. 4, 42n. 54, 53n. 115, 72, 73n. 227, 110n. 430 Wolff, Christian 32–3, 35–6, 114, 121, 157, 170. See also Wolffian

Zammito, John 91n. 329, 95n. 347, 111, 184n. 12, 184–85n. 13 Zinkin, Melissa 124n. 55 Zuckert, Rachel 87n. 307

universality 40, 75, 121, 150, 165, 168, 197