Eric Choi PHL-211

Immanuel Kant’s Copernican Revolution: Free Will and Practical Reasonableness

Immanuel Kant’s philosophical work represents a Copernican Revolution in

epistemology, ethics, and conscious perception. The sequential summation of Kant’s system

proves that an apperceptive free will exists in human beings, validating a moral law based on

reason. Kant’s reasoning begins with independent criteria of conscious perception, or as stated

from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, a “transition from common to philosophical

moral rational cognition” (Gr-Kant, p.8). The logical sequence then proceeds towards a moral

philosophy based on reason and universal formulation, or “transition from popular moral

philosophy to the metaphysics of morals” (Gr-Kant, p.8). The final step branches from “the

metaphysics of morals to the critique of pure practical reason,” cumulatively validating a

transcendental apperception of the self, free will and a logically necessary legislative God (Gr-

Kant, p.8). In essence, Kant finds a moral law based on practical reasonableness exists by an

apperceptive free will and necessary God.

Epistemology of Kant’s Transcendent Ego

In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant asks the pinnacle questions of “What can I know? What

should I do? What may I hope?” (Jankowiak). Kant begins by noting that “we may have

misunderstood Nature’s purpose in assigning Reason to our will as its ruler.” Understand the

context of epistemological question, he finds a starting point in Reason, in that “we shall

therefore submit to the idea to examination from this point of view” (Gr-Kant, p.10). Kant’s

answers that while “we can know the natural, observable world, but we cannot, however, have

answers to many of the deepest questions of metaphysics (Jankowiak). To elaborate, Kant

rearranges long-held Platonic categorizations of the a priori between analytic tautologies lacking

Page 1 of 6
Eric Choi PHL-211

a posteriori extension, and mediums of conscious perception (e.g., synthetic causality,

mathematical truths, space, and time) with a posteriori empirical judgement-attachments

(Pojman, p.125-126).

Kant reasons that the human mind is unable to pierce a posteriori phenomenon to

experience its promulgatory synthetic a priori knowledge into the ding-an-sich (thing-in-itself).

While a posteriori knowledge depends on noumenal experience, the a priori analytic judgement

“depends solely on the relations of the concepts involved.” However, it may be inferred by

necessity that there does exists a noumenal self an-sich (in-itself), manifested in the transcendent

ego (Pojman, p.127).

The Categorical Imperative, Kant’s notion of autonomous practical reasonableness

Kant’s notion of practical reasonableness in autonomy is elucidated via normative

expressions, established by way of his principle of ‘self-legislation’ of ‘good will.’ (Gr-Kant p.

43). Noted as the “supreme condition of its harmony with universal practical reason,” Kant

ascertains the idea that every rational being, through authoring of their will, are universally self-

legislating (Gr-Kant p. 44). Thus, every human is seen as acting on will fitted to the ‘categorical

imperative,’ and in no uncertain terms, are there no interest that unconditionally consolidate

autonomy, opposite to heteronomy, by practical reasonableness toward the kingdom of their own

ends (Gr-Kant p. 45).

Kant’s supposition of an applied ‘kingdom of ends’ is solidified and accomplished by

avoidance of trade-offs between equivalent ‘price(s),’ and pursuance of elevated congruencies,

litigated into morality as a basic good by maxims, supporting individual autonomy (Gr-Kant p.

46).

Page 2 of 6
Eric Choi PHL-211

Kant’s ‘categorical imperative’ summarizes into a simple formula, de-necessitating

didactic itemization of requirements as Kant’s predecessors: “act according to the maxim that

can make itself at the same time a universal law” (Gr-Kant p. 48). Indeed, Kant asserts the

universal imperative as a personal duty by choice of will so as to “the maxim of your actions

were to become by your will a universal law of nature” (Gr-Kant, p.34). Simply put, Kant

considers it an enumerable characteristic of the moral law that “the supreme principle of the

doctrine of morals is, therefore, act on a maxim which can also hold as a universal law” (Kant,

p.18).

Beyond a structural Kant’s deontological application of practical reasonableness is the

concept of freedom, which Kant designates as “the key to the explanation of the autonomy of the

will,” affording superior validation of the ‘categorical imperative’ over mere eudaimonic

stipulations (Gr-Kant p. 56). Kant elevates the concept of freedom as a ‘synthetic’ proposition,

since even if deficient of this concept are previous first principles valid, freedom is required in

clarifying the autonomy of the will (Gr-Kant p. 56). With the concept of freedom “presupposed

as a property of the will of all rational beings,” may ‘Reason’ be defined to possess its own free

autonomy and therefore be “ascribed to all rational beings” as the supreme author of individual

(free) will (Gr-Kant p. 57-58).

Cumulative Synthesis: The Apperceptive Free Will & The Necessary God

In elaborating The Doctrine of Right in The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant gives the

argument that the categorical imperative and free will requires belief in God. Although it is

impossible to have experiential knowledge of God, a justified moral law based on freedom

necessarily effects a rational faith (Jankowiak).

Page 3 of 6
Eric Choi PHL-211

Kant describes the concept of freedom as a purely rational concept, therefore a

transcendent for theoretical philosophy with no cognitive basis in the noumenal world. However,

the practical application of the concept of freedom proves itself by practical principles,

themselves “laws of a causality of pure reason for determining choice independently of any

empirical conditions […], in which moral concepts and laws have their source” (Kant, p.14).

Further driving the distinctiveness of the moral law is the view that they “are distinguished from

technical imperatives (precepts of art), which always command only conditionally (Kant, p.14).

In fulfilling the unconditional command-utility of the moral law, Kant writes that

freedom cannot be presented as a noumenon, “that is, freedom regarded as the ability of man

merely as an intelligence, and how it can exercise constraint upon his sensible choice. As such,

freedom cannot be categorized as a positive property, or a ding-an-sich (Kant, p.18).

To validate freedom in regards to the ‘will’ associated with the transcendent ego, Kant

effects a necessary faith in God. Kant elucidates on the metaphysical jurisdiction of the

categorically imperative moral law, by identifying the “lawgiver (legislator) as one who solely

“commands (imperans)” the law (Kant, p.19). In distancing from religious dogma and a

misleading relationship to the legislative God, Kant sees the “author of the obligation in

accordance” with the moral law to “not always the author of the law” (Kant, p.19).

Despite not being accredited with immediate authorship of the moral law, Kant justifies

the God which commands in that the “law that binds us a priori and unconditionally by our own

reason can also be expressed as proceeding from the will of a supreme lawgiver,” or to be

originating from the divine will. Such an arrangement signifies the idea of “a moral being whose

will is a law for everyone, without his being thought of as the author of the law” (Kant, p.19).

Page 4 of 6
Eric Choi PHL-211

Immanuel Kant departs from the dogmatic beliefs and speculative stipulations of

previous moral philosophers by hailing a Copernican Revolution in epistemology. First by

rearranging metaphysical categorization of a priori and a posteriori facets of reality, and

secondly by reasoning forth an unconditional moral law based on reason, Kant is able to realize a

free will in accordance with the divine will. Kant successfully answers the questions of “What

can I know?” What ought I do?” and What may I hope?” Pojman, (p.135).

Philosophizing from Kant’s identification of the concept of an apperceptive free will and

the necessary God, applied to moral reasonableness in authenticating “consciousness of a law for

acting,” is synthetically sequential that “whence the moral law is binding” (Gr-Kant p. 58-59).

Page 5 of 6
Eric Choi PHL-211

Bibliography

Jankowiak, T. (n.d.). Immanuel Kant.

Retrieved November 21, 2016, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/

Kant, I., Gregor, M. J., & Timmermann, J. (2012). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

(Revised ed.). Cambridge: University Printing House.

[Noted as Gr-Kant in main body references].

Kant, I., Gregor, M. J., (2012). The Metaphysics of Morals

(Revised ed.). Cambridge: University Printing House.

[Noted as Kant in main body references].

Pojman, L. P. (2005). Who Are We?: Theories of Human Nature.

Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter Eight (p. 124-135).

Page 6 of 6