Book | Chapter

1. According to Kant we are free to choose between two ways in which our will can be determined: either following our natural inclinations, desires and feelings — all of which are sensuous, given and pathological (passional) — or obeying solely the moral law from no other motive but respect for it. This freedom of choice is a fact of reason, which is necessarily presupposed (since without it morality is impossible) but not explicable. Were it possible to explain this fact, our choice would not be free at all but predictable, and, as such, subject to the deterministic laws of nature. No wonder, then, that Kant says that we cannot understand how our will is determined either pathologically or morally and rationally (KpV 5: 72). Neither rational explanation nor empirical example can make us understand the determination of our will (Willkür) which is capable of being independent both of sensuous impulses (A534/B562) and of the moral law, between the two of which it can freely choose. The two systems of determination — that of natural phenomena ("the causality of sensuous nature," KpV 5: 47) and that of free noumena ("the causality through freedom," ibid.) — are separate and independent, and the one cannot interfere with the other (A557-58/B585-86; KpV 5:42–43). Following the one excludes the other. When following natural desires, our will is phenomenal, empirical and pathological; whereas when obeying the moral law from no sensuous motive, our will is noumenal. We can choose between enslaving ourselves to the deterministic, phenomenal system and setting ourselves, as noumena, free from it. In the latter case we reluctantly choose, against our natural inclinations, desires and interests, to obey the moral law, which is the most characteristic expression of our autonomy as self-legislative, rational beings.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-2016-8_5

Full citation: