OS POSTULADOS DA RAZÃO PRÁTICA PURA E O CRISTIANISMO

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (135) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Gabriel Almeida Assumpção
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul ◽  
Kantian Morality

Resumo: A leitura da Crítica da Razão Prática permite perceber que a moral kantiana não consiste em mero formalismo, abrindo espaço para uma discussão sobre os fins morais. O fim último a que o ser racional cuja vontade é determinada pela lei moral se propõe a produzir é o conceito de sumo Bem, ligação sintética a priori entre virtude como causa e felicidade moralmente condicionada como efeito. Ciente das dificuldades para a produção do objeto proposto, Kant recorre aos postulados da razão prática pura (liberdade, imortalidade da alma e existência de Deus) e estabelece um contraponto entre o cristianismo e escolas pagãs da antiguidade que não aceitariam tais pressuposições (na visão de Kant), os estóicos e os epicuristas. Buscamos mostrar, com o presente estudo, a fecundidade do diálogo entre Kant e o cristianismo, bem como o esforço kantiano de tentar fazer jus a diferentes dimensões do ser humano: tanto a afetividade quanto a moralidade.Abstract: Reading the Critique of Practical Reason enables us to realize that Kantian morality is not mere formalism, but is rather an opening to discuss moral ends. The ultimate goal of the rational being, whose will is determined by moral law, is the concept of the Highest Good, the a priori synthetic connection between virtue as a cause and a morally conditioned happiness as an effect. Aware of the difficulties related to the proposed object, Kant resorts to the postulates of practical reason (freedom, immortality of the soul and the existence of God) and counterpoints Christianity with two ancient pagan schools, the Stoics and the Epicureans, which, according to the philosopher, would not accept such assumptions. The present study aims to show there is a fecund dialogue between Kant and Christianity, as well as the author’s attempt to do justice to the following dimensions of the human being: affectivity and morality.

scholarly journals Deduction of Freedom vs Deduction of Experience in Kant’s Metaphysics

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-80
Author(s):  
Valeriy E. Semyonov
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Transcendental Reduction ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
Intelligible World ◽  
Critical Methods

My aim is to demonstrate the specificities and differences between transcendental deduction of concepts and deduction of the fundamental principles of pure practical reason in Kant’s metaphysics. First of all it is necessary to examine Kant’s attitude to the metaphysics of his time and the problem of its new justification. Kant in his philosophy explicated not only the theoretical world of cognition, but also the practical world of freedom. Accordingly, the fundamental means of proving metaphysics’ claims are the deduction of pure concepts of understanding (deduction of experience) and the deduction of the principles of pure practical reason (deduction of freedom). The underlying premises of the Kantian project of reviving metaphysics, “the Copernican Turn”, the critical methods and basic principles of transcendental (formal) idealism also provide the methodological basis of transcendental deduction, a new method of proving the claims of metaphysics in various spheres of human being. Proceeding from the above, I analyse the essence, structure and the peculiarities as well as the differences between the deduction of experience and the deduction of freedom. I single out the following features of the two types of deduction. First, theoretical use of reason is aimed at objects while practical reason is aimed at noumena, the foundations of will and freedom. Second, the transcendental deduction of space and time, as well as the deduction of categories, is preceded by transcendental reduction, which is absent in the deduction of freedom. Third, Kant orients the methodological movement of deductions in opposite directions. Theoretical deduction proceeds from pure forms of sensible intuition to concepts of understanding and thence to fundamental principles. Practical deduction proceeds from a priori principles to the concepts of the metaphysics of morals and thence to moral feelings. Fourth, deduction in the theoretical sphere forbids speculative reason to go beyond experience. Practical deduction has pointed to the intelligible world and has proved its “legitimacy”.

Hidden Antinomies of Practical Reason, and Kant’s Religion of Hope

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Rachel Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul

AbstractIn the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that morality obliges us to believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. I argue, however, that in two late essays – “The End of All Things” and “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” – Kant provides moral counterarguments to that position: these beliefs undermine moral agency by giving rise to fanaticism or fatalism. Thus, I propose, the Kantian position on the justification of religious belief is ultimately antinomial. One ought, moreover, to understand Kant’s considered position concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God to be similar to that he proposes concerning the theoretical ideas of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason: they are necessary as regulative ideas guiding moral action, not endorsed or even postulated as propositions. In other words, they are subject matters not of belief, but of hope.

The Ideal of the Highest Good and the Objectivity of Moral Judgment

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Nataliya Palatnik
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Objectivity ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Ideal World ◽  
The Core ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractMany Kantians dismiss Kant’s claim that we have a duty to promote the highest good – an ideal world that combines complete virtue with complete happiness – as incompatible with the core of his moral philosophy. This dismissal, I argue, raises doubts about Kant’s ability to justify the moral law, yet it is a mistake. A duty to promote the highest good plays an important role in the justificatory strategy of the Critique of Practical Reason. Moreover, its analysis leads to a new perspective on Kant’s conception of moral objectivity.

scholarly journals Kant’s post-1800 Disavowal of the Highest Good Argument for the Existence of God

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Kahn
Keyword(s):  
Moral Law ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Opus Postumum

AbstractI have two main goals in this paper. The first is to argue for the thesis that Kant gave up on his highest good argument for the existence of God around 1800. The second is to revive a dialogue about this thesis that died out in the 1960s. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I reconstruct Kant’s highest good argument. In the second, I turn to the post-1800 convolutes of Kant’s Opus postumum to discuss his repeated claim that there is only one way to argue for the existence of God, a way which resembles the highest good argument only in taking the moral law as its starting point. In the third, I explain why I do not find the counterarguments to my thesis introduced in the 1960s persuasive.

The Kingdom of Ends

2021 ◽  
pp. 152-172
Author(s):  
Lea Ypi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Kingdom Of Ends

This chapter continues to probe Kant’s claim that systematic unity can be found in the practical use of reason, despite the absent justification of a transcendental concept of freedom. It turns to the analysis of the highest good as the synthesis of virtue and happiness, and to the assumption of purposiveness as design on which the idea of nature as a system of ends is grounded. Physico-theology resurfaces when Kant argues that the demands of reason in its practical use prove the reality of a purposive order of nature without which reason could not promote its essential ends in the natural world. The architectonic unity of the system is thus given by the final end of practical reason that, as Kant argues in the Architectonic, guarantees a passage from the realm of nature to that of freedom, validating the physico-theological proof of the existence of God.

Derzhavin's Metaphysics of Morality

Slavic Review ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-210
Author(s):  
Aaron Beaver
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Similar Position ◽  
Poetic Expression ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul

In this essay, Aaron Beaver argues that the poetry of Gavrila Derzhavin routinely and consistently connects metaphysical beliefs with moral ones, and that, at its most sophisticated, this connection amounts to a full “metaphysics of morality” much like that developed by Derzhavin's contemporary, the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Beaver begins by exploring Derzhavin's belief in the immortality of virtue; he then examines how Derzhavin's famous monument poems assert the poet's immortality because he verbally pays tribute to those who are virtuous; finally he analyzes Derzhavin's 1797 poem “Bessmertie dushi,” in which the poet realizes the connection between the immortality of the soul and morality. The latter part of the article examines Derzhavin's poetic expression of this connection in light of Kant's two postulates of the moral law—the immortality of the soul and the existence of God—and finds that Derzhavin's poetry expresses a similar position with genuine philosophical rigor.

Does Kant Permit Grace?

2020 ◽  
pp. 301-320
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Insole
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Traditional Conception ◽  
Divine Grace

This chapter asks whether Kant, in some sense, at least permits us to believe in the possibility of some sort of divine grace, in terms of a supplement to our moral action, or divine assistance. It is established that Kant does permit belief in what could be called a ‘reactive’ divine action, where the human being makes the first moral move in freedom, with God offering some sort of assistance. Kant, though, does not permit belief in proactive divine action, where God would be conceived of as first acting upon us, in a way that helps us to move towards the moral law. This would violate Kant’s demands in relation to freedom. Some commentators have suggested that Kant makes ‘room’ for some sort of concept of divine–human concurrence. This claim is dealt with by showing that, at most, Kant can be said to offer a translation of this concept, into the terms of ‘reactive divine action’, which, from the point of view of the Christian tradition, is tantamount to a denial of concurrence. Kant regards the more traditional conception of concurrence to be an ‘impenetrable mystery’. Kant does allow some space for specific types of mystery, but concurrence, for Kant, is the wrong type of mystery, being useless (and even dangerous) for both theoretical and practical reason.

Morality and The Three-fold Existence of God

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Leslie Armour
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Existence Of God

Arguments about the existence of a being who is infinite and perfect involve claims about a being who must appear in all the orders and dimensions of reality. Anything else implies finitude. Ideas about goodness seem inseparable from arguments about the existence of God and Kant's claim that such arguments ultimately belong to moral theology seems plausible. The claim that we can rely on the postulates of pure practical reason is stronger than many suppose. But one must show that a being who is infinite and perfect is even possible, and any such being must be present in the physical world as well as in what Pascal called the orders of the intellect and morality (which he called the order of charity). Indeed, locating God in the various orders without creating conflicts is problematic. Such arguments are necessarily difficult and sometimes self-defeating but I argue in this paper that there is a promising path.

Kant's Moral Proof of the Existence of God

1979 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Byrne
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Existence Of God

During his lifetime Kant offered a number of versions of his moral proof of the existence of God, but the classic statement of his argument is normally taken to be that found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason. It is to this argument that the phrase ‘Kant's moral proof’ is normally taken to refer.

An Unfamiliar and Positive Law: On Kant and Schiller

2013 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reed Winegar
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract: A familiar post-Kantian criticism contends that Kant enslaves sensibility under the yoke of practical reason. Friedrich Schiller advanced a version of this criticism to which Kant publicly responded. Recent commentators have emphasized the role that Kant’s reply assigns to the pleasure that accompanies successful moral action. In contrast, I argue that Kant’s reply relies primarily on the sublime feeling that arises when we merely contemplate the moral law. In fact, the pleasures emphasized by other recent commentators depend on this sublime feeling. These facts illuminate Kant’s views regarding the relationship between morality, freedom, and the development of moral feelings.

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