Kant's Demonstration of Free Will, Or, How to Do Things with Concepts

Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (2):291-309 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Kant famously insists that free will is a condition of morality. The difficulty of providing a demonstration of freedom has left him vulnerable to devastating criticism: critics charge that Kant's post-Groundwork justification of morality amounts to a dogmatic assertion of morality's authority. My paper rebuts this objection, showing that Kant offers a cogent demonstration of freedom. My central claim is that the demonstration must be understood in practical rather than theoretical terms. A practical demonstration of x works by bringing x into existence, and what the demonstration of freedom brings into existence is a moral will, a will regulated by the moral law and capable of acting in accordance with it. Since to act morally is to act freely, bringing a moral will into existence actualizes our capacity for freedom and demonstrates that we possess it. To confirm the viability of such a demonstration, Kant must establish that agents can regulate their wills by practical principles, and that practical judgments are efficacious of themselves (i.e., that non-Humean motivational internalism is true). Kant, I argue, is successful on both counts.

Similar books and articles

Kant on Freedom of Empirical Thought.Markus Kohl - 2015 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 53 (2):301-26.
Can we interpret Kant as a compatibilist about determinism and moral responsibility?Ben Vilhauer - 2004 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12 (4):719 – 730.
The Cambridge Companion to Kant. [REVIEW]Bernard D. Freydberg - 1995 - History of European Ideas 21 (1):75-80.
Kant, History, and the Idea of Moral Development.Pauline Kleingeld - 1999 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 16 (1):59-80.
Kant: Critique of Practical Reason.Immanuel Kant - 1997 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Mary J. Gregor.
The Cambridge companion to Kant.Paul Guyer (ed.) - 1992 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will.Robert Kane - 2005 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Kant and the Value of Free Rational Activity.Jennifer K. Uleman - 1995 - Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania
Two approaches to moral responsibility : part two.Garrath Williams - 2004 - Richmond Journal of Philosophy 6:14-19.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-04-07

Downloads
390 (#45,984)

6 months
224 (#9,190)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Benjamin S. Yost
Cornell University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Possibility of Altruism.John Benson - 1972 - Philosophical Quarterly 22 (86):82-83.
Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy.John Rawls & Barbara Herman - 2002 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):178-179.
Rethinking Kant's Fact of Reason.Owen Ware - 2014 - Philosophers' Imprint 14.

View all 20 references / Add more references