Critique of Practical Reason

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My first attempt at a topic so be gentle

After a brief look around these pages, I’ve noticed plenty of talk about Kant (obviously) but little about this rather under-rated book (its chief merit probably being that its not particularly hard to understand once you know what all the terms mean). Having just completed a semester’s worth of study of it at uni, I’ve been thinking rather a lot about Kant’s deduction of freedom within the book.

As a quick summary, from the Critique of Pure Reason Kant shows that the idea of (transcendental) freedom is possible, though unproveable (that is, if you accept the resolution of the 3rd antinomy). Then, in the Practical Critique he produces an argument which is either ridiculous, or very clever, depending on how you look at it. Basically, Kant says, we are aware of a moral ought i.e. in a situation X we are aware that we should do Y. From this awareness, we become aware of our freedom to do Y: therefore, we are free to do Y - this freedom is transcendental freedom because our awareness of this freedom is an awareness of a freedom to act under a law of causality which is not natural necessity, which is the very definition of transcendental freedom.

So, in summary, we are free to do Y because we are aware that we ought to do Y. As I said, my estimation of this argument has passed through various stages. On the one side, it is of course very easy to criticise. By relying on a nation of ‘awareness’ Kant is obviously open to the vagueness inherent in this. What if we were in the rather cruel situation of having moral laws but not freedom to fulfill them? I’m sure you will all fill in your own objections here.

But, on the other hand, an example (taken from Kant).

1st case: you are offered the chance to sleep with Jessica Alba. Once leaving the house you do the business in, you will be immediately executed. What do we do here? Surely, we must reject the chance to fulfill this fantasy. Here our consideration is purely one of weighing up our inclinations. Only an irrational man would choose otherwise than to preserve his own life.

2nd case: you are in a situation where Tony Blair is offering you great riches if you will give false evidence against Gordon Brown in order to get him killed for treachery, if you refuse, he will have you killed as well. What are we to do here? We have our inclinations, which point us in the direction of giving the evidence - we want to live. But, we are also aware of an ought here - we ought not to do this. Herein lies our freedom.

I find myself not able to escape the fact that this above example seems to capture something that I do, on reflection, find in experience. Of course, we could have other explanations for the above phenomena, the question is which is best?[/i]

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I didn’t understand the question. Sorry.

Let’s say I don’t sleep with Alba, and I give false evidence against Gordon Brown (to survive). The choices are just neurons firing in my brain, right?

Do I need to read Kant to understand the question?

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Thats what I meant between saying you have to decide which option is best. Obviously it could be due to a particular brain state, the question is: is this the best explanation for the experience I outlined. For Kant, its not just ‘neurons firing in your brain’. Its an intelligence within us which is not under the laws of natural causality.

It all sounds very weird when you think about it, but what I was really getting at was the intrinsic difference between how, when an action has no moral value, we would tend to just weigh up the outcomes and pick the action which seems best for us, whereas in an action that has moral value we experience something else: a consideration for what is right. This consideration demonstrates our ability to, and provides a motivation for, doing something we would not normally do. So, as in the example, we would normally never consider agreeing to certain death, unless there was some kind of moral consideration.

I don’t think you really need to read Kant to understand, when I read him I tend to forget how utterly ridiculous his whole system is and just become awestruck with the cleverness of it all.