Relation between Kant’s moral/political philosophy and his metaphysics

Short notes based on my reading of the relevant portions of F. Beiser's Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800:


•In Kant Morality (and hence political philosophy) grounds Metaphysics and not the other way round. Or to put it more precisely Kant ushers in a new kind of Metaphysics, a metaphysics that revolves not around God and Cosmos but around man.

•A major step in this direction was Kant’s redefinitions of Morality. Kant redefines Morality in terms of autonomy and freedom. Before Kant Morality was either defined with reference to natural law or religion. In both cases the essence of Morality was to obey certain higher order, be that order a religious one or secular one based on natural law.

•Thus if Kant bases Metaphysics on his conception of Morality, it follows that he founds his Metaphysics on the basis of the concepts of autonomy and freedom.

•Furthermore, Kant relates concept of freedom and autonomy to he concept of human will.

•For Natural law tradition source of value is not human will but the providential order.

•For Kant source of value is human will (and the source of epistemology is human understanding).

•Rousseau’s idea of general will is important in this context. The crux of the idea is that people are obliged to obey only laws of their own making.

•Based on this idea Kant claims that the subjugation of one person to the will of another is the greatest evil (thus surrendering your will to the will of God would be an evil act). We cannot and should not suffer the humiliation of the dictation from another will.

•The basic fault of the traditional Metaphysics is that it “alienate human autonomy.” (Beiser, 1992, 31). It follows fro this that we need an alternative Metaphysics that does not alienate human autonomy. We need a Metaphysics (or lack therefore) that legitimates human autonomy.

•This is the basis of Kant’s humanism, the religion based on the worship of man and not that of God.

•This humanism provides legitimation for republicanism of Kant.

•Kant’s criticism of traditional Metaphysics is based on the idea that it is useless. The focus, says Kant, should be on what is useful for humanity and not on the useless speculations of Metaphysics.

•By this Kant effectively adopts a utilitarian conception of truth.

•Reason should subordinate itself to practical ends. The end which is useful for human beings is “not happiness but the freedom of humanity.” (Beiser, 1992, 29).

•The fundamental purpose of philosophy is not to discover truth but to “defend the inalienable rights of man.” (Besier, 1992, 29).

•The above provided the basis of Kant’s critique of traditional Metaphysics. It is “useless” to the man.

•To make it useful for the man, we should consider the ideas of reason (God, Self, Cosmos) as “regulative” and not “constitutive” in the manner of traditional Metaphysics.

•To consider the ideas of reason regulative implies two things: a) Kingdom of God is not a provident order but something which we humans create. Modern. welfarism and capitalism takes this idea in the realm of actualisation. b) The “highest good” is not the object of belief but a “goal for action.” (Besier, 1992, 32).

•It is freedom alone that gives unconditional worth to human being. The question immediately arises where does this “right” to freedom comes from?

•The answer must be sought in the new Metaphysics, the metaphysics based on the divinity of the man.

•This Metaphysics provide the foundation not only to the Kantian Morality but also to his politics of democracy and republicanism as well as his constitutional liberalism.

•Thus it is more appropriate to say that Kant’s Moral doctrine gives us clue to his new Metaphysics rather than providing foundation for it.

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A few relevant quotes from Besier:

"The whole motivation for metaphysics, Kant now believed, is misguided. We do not need it to provide a foundation for morality and religion, which are based on a good heart and will, and certainly not on any subtle demonstrations of the existence of God, Providence, and immortality. Instead of basing morality on metaphysics, we should base metaphysics on morality, for it is only our moral duty that justifies our attempt to know the supersensible. Kant now began to rethink the very purpose of metaphysics. It could be legitimate if it were not speculation about transcendent entities but "a science of the limits of human reason." Its task should be to prevent reason from transcending experience, so that it devotes itself to inquiries useful to the conduct of life." (Beiser 1992, 29).

"[The Natural law] tradition places the source of moral value not in the human will but in the providential order. The law of nature is the end appropriate to a thing, the purpose God intended for it. To know our moral obligations, then, we need to know "the vocation of man," our place in the Creation or role in the divine design. Although Pufendorf and Wolff maintained that natural law can be justified by natural reason alone, they never ceased to regard God as its creator and enforcer. Compared to this tradition, Kant's new ethics are revolutionary. The source of moral value is the rational will inside us, not the providential order outside us. Here lies the real depth and impact of Kant's Copernican revolution. This took place not only in epistemology but also in ethics. Just as the natural world depends on the laws of the understanding, so the moral world depends on the laws of the will. Both ethics and epistemology had become anthropocentric." (Beiser 1992, 31).

"Thanks to his new ethics, Kant gained a deeper insight into the problems of traditional metaphysics. The fundamental defect of traditional metaphysics, he now realized, is that it alienates human autonomy. Rather than recognizing the human will as the source of moral laws, it hypostatizes these laws, as if they are part of the providential order designed by God. People had therefore enslaved themselves to laws of their own making. Such hypostasis was the source of Rousseau's famous paradox, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." As early as the autumn of 1765, Kant foresaw a problem that would later haunt Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx: alienation." (Beiser 1992, 31).