Allison and Kant's Practical Deduction

In the final chapter of Allison's commentary on the Groundwork he describes the way he understands the "deduction" of the categorical imperative in the third part of Kant's work. Given how controversial the argument of Groundwork III has become it is surprising that Allison's final chapter does not only focus on this question. However Allison also includes here an account of the way Kant concludes the Groundwork by describing the limit of practical philosophy though this account is certainly much less interesting than that of the "deduction" and it is the latter that will be the focus of this posting.

It is the fourth section of Groundwork III that is headlined "how is a categorical imperative possible?" and it is here that the focus on the reading of the "deduction" of the categorical imperative is based. As Allison puts it: "Since every imperative involves a necessitation...of the will, to account for its possibility is to account for this necessitation" (332). With regard to the categorical imperative we have a synthetic a priori proposition and accounting for the necessitation requires showing that the imperative is, as Allison puts it, "practically possible" by which is meant that it expresses something whose binding character can be shown.

In the opening paragraph of the fourth section of Groundwork III Kant discusses the sense in which rational beings are forms of "intelligence" and indicates that if we were merely members of the world of understanding all our actions would conform 'perfectly' with the principle of autonomy of the pure will. Kant also goes on to claim later that the world of understanding contains the "ground" of both the world of sense and of its laws and purports to use this claim to show that as a being of intelligence I am therefore bound by the laws of the world of understanding. 

Allison's analysis of the "deduction" argument begins with the claim that thinking beings place themselves in the world of the understanding but adding to this the point that it is only if such beings also have will that the argument can begin. The next step of the argument, for Allison, is the claim that the self, considered as an active being, possesses spontaneous causal power so that, when viewed as an intelligence, it is seen to be a causal agent. The third key step is that actions, when considered thus to be originated by the agent in question so viewed are part of the "space of reasons". Fourthly, this aspect of the self is contrasted with the empirical one which is governed by reference to "happiness".

Allison's major interpretative move, however, concerns the fifth and final step of the argument as he views it, a step he breaks down into two sub-steps. The first sub-step is concerned with the claim that the world of understanding contains the "ground" of that of sense. The key question with regard to this claim concerns the way the grounding relation is to be understood. Following his general deflationary manner of reading Allison dismisses the idea that this should be seen in a "metaphysical" way as a causal claim. However in addition to the general philosophical reasons Allison possesses for resisting this reading he adds an important normative one to the effect that such a reading provides no binding ground for accepting the validity of the "laws" of understanding. What is needed instead of such a reading is thus one that does show the ground of validity of these laws.

Hence it is not only "ground" that needs to be given an account of but also "laws" in the sense that there could be a "law" of understanding that was validly taken to be binding by a sensible being. In the Critique of Pure Reason this question drove the argument of the transcendental deduction, the schematism and the general Analytic of Principles. From the argument of this part of the Critique we arrived at an account of the conditions of possibility of experience and the analogy between this procedure and that undertaken here in Groundwork III would appear to be that the latter text must provide an additional way of viewing the "possibility of experience" that allows us now to see a way in which there is included amongst "experience" the working of moral law (in the shape of the categorical imperative). Since the will belongs also to the world of understanding it would seem that Kant views it as the basis for providing laws that have to be added to those laid out in the Critique of Pure Reason.

The second sub-part of the fifth claim is where Allison finds the "crux" of the argument. Here Kant includes the claim that the being of sense is nonetheless subject to the laws of understanding which Allison argues are intended to be seen as holding simultaneously with the laws of the type described in the Critique of Pure Reason. This is followed by a paragraph that Allison sees as "explaining" the deduction apparently now given. It opens by declaring that categorical imperatives are "possible" but Allison views this claim as only being that we have had provided to us a reason for thinking that the categorical imperative is a necessary and not a sufficient condition of the argument that the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world. Further it is the "idea" of freedom only that makes one a member of such a world. Being a member of such a world is seen by Allison as having the mere intellectual capacity to think the idea of such freedom.

However Allison's conception of the "explanation" of the deduction runs into a problem with the appearance of a "sollen" (or "ought") that arises next when Kant states that I "ought" to conform my actions to the laws of the intelligible world. Allison thinks this move is here introduced illegitimately since all Kant has shown are epistemological grounds for being in two "worlds" and that a normative requirement does not arise from this alone. Part of the problem here is that Kant had earlier suggested that entirely belonging to the world of understanding would have produced the outcome that one simply "would" have followed the laws of understanding, a point that appears to render these laws, as Allison says, "vacuous". Allison argues that the problem with the text at this point arises from Kant not yet having explicitly to hand the distinction developed later in the Religion between two aspects of the "will". 

Kant next provides an account that is meant to give a basis for "confirmation" of the deduction and involves the awakening of a "scoundrel" to consciousness of the moral law. The claim of how this takes place in Groundwork III is, however, contrasted negatively with the parallel discussion in the Critique of Practical Reason by Allison. In Groundwork III Kant appears to state that it is the idea of freedom alone which suffices to change the standpoint of the scoundrel. By contrast, in the Critique of Practical Reason the "fact of reason" is invoked to provide the basis for a view that one does stand independent of determination by sensuous needs. This passage, even so amended, is, however, less plausible as a piece of moral psychology than Kant provides later in the Religion.

When Allison turns to assessing the deduction as he has reconstructed it he begins with the question of how to understand the argument that the world of "understanding" provides a ground for that of sense that enables a normative claim to be made on behalf of the former. Key to this is the point that the difference between the two is centred in the argument of Groundwork III on the self alone. This enables Allison to make the point that we need not view the supremacy of the "world" of understanding as a claim about a specific "realm" separate from that of sense. Further at Ak. 4: 458 Kant speaks of the distinction between the two "worlds" as that of a change in "standpoint". This change requires us to view ourselves as capable of legislating laws and having the capacity to recognise our own legislation as binding upon us. When we look at the "two standpoints" practically Allison adds we can give the "law" of understanding a content by means of the moral law. Such "laws" can also then be understood as "reasons". 

Allison also looks at the question of whether there is some specific non-empirical "interest" which supports the moral law and admits that it is impossible to account for the possibility of one. So Allison does not think Kant resolves or is capable of resolving this problem. However this leads to the question of the boundary of practical philosophy since this boundary is reached in terms of arguing that it is impossible to demonstrate the impossibility of freedom. Freedom is only an idea, not an "absolute reality" and it rests, for Allison, on viewing the relationship between a subject and an action in divergent ways. Part of Kant's defence of this claim was that it is essentially recognised within common human reason itself. The world of understanding, considered from a practical point of view, is the world of the will and this point requires us, given the general picture of the world, to see the will as something non-empirical. This supports the point that the "standpoint" of freedom is one that reason takes up in order to be able to think of itself practically.

However when Allison looks at the final passages of Groundwork III he argues that Kant here weakens some of the claims made earlier in the same section. Kant here states that the question of the possibility of the categorical imperative can be answered "to the extent that one can state the presupposition on which alone it is possible" (Ak. 4: 461). This "presupposition" is the idea of freedom. Allison's point is that this claim involves accepting that the deduction provides only a necessary condition of the possibility of the categorical imperative not conditions that are sufficient to account for its actual possibility. Thus it would appear, on this view, that the argument of Groundwork III is of less moment than it initially appears to be. This points, for Allison, to the superiority of the account of the "fact of reason" in the Critique of Practical Reason. Indeed the commentary Allison provides to the Groundwork ends with the claim that this work is "in many ways a transitional as well as a foundational work". 

Allison's account of the third part of the Groundwork in his commentary on it is instructive as the deflationary view of transcendental idealism that is Allison's hallmark is used here primarily to buttress the sense that the transcendental distinction has a primarily practical significance. However the conception that arises of the argument of the third part of the Groundwork is certainly a disappointing one and worth contrast in subsequent postings with quite different readings to that of Allison.

Allison and *Groundwork* III

In Chapter 11 of his commentary on the Groundwork Allison looks at two questions concerning the interpretation of the third section of the work. On the one hand, he assesses the way freedom is discussed here and on the other looks at the nature of the apparent "circle" the argument reaches at a crucial point. In looking at these points in Chapter 11 Allison prepares the way for an account of the "deduction" apparently carried out in Groundwork III. 

The first point Allison makes is that Kant does not really attempt to "prove" the reality of freedom but only the need to "presuppose" it (thus disagreeing with the view of Karl Ameriks who assimilates the argument of Groundwork III to certain passages from lectures in the 1770s). The "presupposition" in question is a necessary one in the sense that morality expresses a law for every rational being as such and so its principle must be bound up in an a priori fashion with the will of such a being. One of the reasons for taking this to be true is that it is requisite rationally to be able to act and one does so under the "idea" of freedom. The "idea" in question is understood by Allison to be freedom in the sense of transcendental spontaneity, the ability, that is, to begin a series absolutely. However this is not equivalent for Allison to the claim that it is necessary to "believe" that one is free or to the fictive claim that this freedom is "heuristic". Rather the idea in question is one which is a necessary product of reason and is thus possessed of objective validity. 

Not only is this the case but the idea of freedom also has normative force and acting in accordance with it places one in the "space of reasons". The use of this Sellarsian vocabulary is particularly interesting given that Allison connects the question of freedom to reason in two respects, both theoretical and practical. The understanding is the source of spontaneous grasp of truth (as given in the German for "concept") and it does this in a rule-governed way which is part of its internal operation. Similarly freedom in a practical sense is a product of the internal operation of the will. However whilst Kant's argument, as construed by Allison, appears to lead at this point to the conclusion that there is operative a practical reason whose "reality" we can show, the argument instead takes the turn that leads towards the "circle" that stops its progression in the manner that appears obvious.

Allison's account of the move the argument of Groundwork III takes at this point is grounded on the view that all that has been established up until now is a conditional claim. Freedom has not, as yet, been shown to be actual and the consciousness of autonomy is not one whose binding validity has been shown. So the establishment of the supreme principle of morality has not been achieved and thus the reason for departing from empirical interests has not been conclusively given. This is why Kant speaks now (at Ak. 4: 453) of a "hidden circle" having been apparent in the argument up to this point. Kant's reference to this "circle" is one that has puzzled many including Paton whose commentary Allison cites as a case of misrepresentation of Kant's argument. Allison understands the "circle" to consist in an inference from freedom to autonomy or from negative to positive freedom. However this does mean that Kant was not previously really guilty of arguing in a "circle" but only of begging the question in the sense of taking freedom to have an immediate certainty. 

In preparing the way for the resolution of the "circle" in question Kant discusses the notion of "two standpoints" and the rest of Allison's chapter is devoted to looking at the way these standpoints are characterised in Groundwork III. This distinction is one that has to be shown not to be merely an ad hoc device and Kant aims also to show that it is recognised by common understanding although the latter claim is regarded by Allison as dubious. The account of the distinction between appearances and things in themselves is drawn crudely enough in Groundwork III however and it may be, as Allison suggests, that the reason for this crudity is precisely to make the distinction one that can be related to "common understanding". It does, however, also include the distinction between two aspects of the agent, one that certainly seems at variance with "common understanding" but which is justified to it by means of the difference between active and passive aspects of the self. The active element includes the sense of spontaneity in the production of ideas, a capacity not sensibly conditioned. However the question of whether this consciousness is illusory has to be addressed. This is where the claim that all Kant is showing is that freedom is a necessary "presupposition" comes in for Allison since the presupposition is one that we have a warrant for adopting inasmuch as we consider ourselves as members of the intelligible world. This provides, on Allison's reading, a basis for claiming a "deduction" of the "moral law" though not the categorical imperative given his commitment to a "double deduction" reading.

Rawls on Freedom and Equality

In my last posting I looked at and provided an exegetical reading of Rawls' first lecture on Kantian constructivism as published in The Journal of Philosophy. In this posting I turn to the second of Rawls' lectures in which he turns from the discussion of autonomy to the views of freedom and equality and how these features of the person are represented in the original position. This lecture also features an extended account of the notion of publicity and its place within a Kantian view.

Rawls opens this second piece however by returning to the "model-conception" of a well-ordered society. In returning to this Rawls points out that the model-conceptions he is discussing are special cases of even more general notions but he does not here undertake to determine the way of describing the latter. A well-ordered society is a self-sufficient association which strives to perpetuate itself but is also a closed system. It is viewed as productive, that is, as giving itself its own means of support and not, as is the case in some utopias, as essentially not in need of labour. The "circumstances of justice" under which it exists are both subjective and objective. The objective form of these is that there is moderate scarcity, the subjective form is that there exists contrary conceptions of the good within the society. Despite the subjective circumstances of justice the citizens of the well-ordered society take their institutions to satisfy their public conception of justice. This point is introduced as the manner in which we can both understand the way that citizens are able to have a dual view of justice and as the basis for a distinction between different levels of the notion of publicity.

Rawls distinguishes three levels of publicity. The first level is in terms of the principles of justice. These principles of justice meet the conditions of institutions defined in Theory. They are accepted by all and the knowledge that they are is itself general. They are also supported by the general consensus beliefs held and so buttressed in an epistemic way by "common sense". Since Rawls is working throughout with the conception of a modern democratic society this includes the methods and practices of scientific inquiry and its findings when taken to be settled. The final level of publicity includes the "complete" justification of the public conception of justice which is also taken to be fully known or at least publicly available. This "full justification" includes the connection between the model-conceptions of the person and social cooperation. A "full publicity condition" is met when a well-ordered society meets all these conditions. Such a full condition expresses fair terms of cooperation and is hence Reasonable.

The full condition is also one that is appropriate, according to Rawls, for the restricted purposes of political justice and may be less compelling for other moral notions. Given the principles of justice apply to the political constitution and to all basic institutions, and that such can shape the character and aims of the members of society, the fundamental terms of this cooperation should answer to the requirements of "full" publicity. When institutions are capable of answering to such requirements citizens can account for their beliefs in them in such a way that their account will strengthen the institutions themselves. Publicity thus ensures that free and equal persons are in a position to accept the background social influences that shape their conception of themselves as persons.

For many other moral notions public agreement cannot be reached so consensus is limited in scope to the public moral constitution and its associated terms of cooperation. With regard to public questions ways of reasoning and forms of evidence have to be presented in such a way that they are generally accessible. The conception of a well-ordered society applies to the notions of the good held by citizens the principle of liberty (effectively toleration) held previously by religion alone. The basis for this is precisely due to the role of publicity in the justification of the principles of justice.

Parties to the construction of the original position assess conceptions of justice subject to the constraint that their principles can be public conceptions. The basic level of publicity cannot be met unless there is agreement on rules of evidence and forms of reasoning and these must be limited to those allowed by forms of reasoning as given to "common sense". Unless this stipulation is made no agreement is possible. So, whilst particular views of the good may hold certain institutions and policies to be wrong, the holding of them lacks public force if it does not meet these criteria of common sense (or public reason). Agreement within the original condition is thus not just on principles of justice but also on the ways of reasoning and rules of weighing evidence. The subjective circumstances of justice thus determine ways in which agreement can be articulated.

The second level of publicity concerns the way that general beliefs of social theory and moral psychology enter which is as publicly known to the parties to the construction. Citizens are aware of the factors that support the principles of justice as stated in forms that are common. This does not mean all factors that might support such beliefs are admissible within the process of reasoning since those which belong to controversial doctrines or are stated in ways which cannot avoid such controversy are not public doctrines in Rawls' sense. The articulation of the agreed principles of justice is not required to overcome the subjective circumstances of justice. Rather, it is assumed that only coercion could overcome such circumstances and this would subvert the point of reaching agreement. 

Rawls' careful articulation of public doctrines does not require decision on the truth of the doctrines disallowed public roles. It does however play a role in indicating that whilst fundamental disagreement may never be overcome that such disagreement need not have adverse effects in society. The fundamental principles need to be justified in ways that are impartial to the differences within society if the subjective circumstances of justice are to be respected. 

Only after these points about publicity and public reasoning have been stated does Rawls turn to the account of freedom and equality that is the principal purpose of the second part of his treatment. Moral persons were argued in the first part to be moved by higher-order interests to exercise moral powers. Within a well-ordered society citizens are free in the sense that they hold themselves entitled to make claims on the design of social institutions. Such claims are based on the self-conception persons have within this society which is that they take themselves to be self-originating sources of valid claims.  A second aspect of freedom is that free persons recognize each other as having the moral power to form and articulate a conception of the good. Following from this second element of freedom is that citizens, as citizens, are assumed to have a reflective capacity to reflect on and to alter any final ends they have. Another way of putting this second element of freedom is that the citizens are essentially independent of the particular conceptions of the good they espouse since their public identity is not dependent on any particular such view. In private life such a conception does not apply since privately we take our views to be integral to our identity but this does not affect the public ideal of social cooperation.

Returning to the notion of a well-ordered society Rawls next states that we assume in this that citizens are fully cooperating members of it over the course of their life so the ideal of it does not include special conditions that prevent this being actualized at given times. This helps to make clearer the notion of equality that is here being worked with which states that the public conception of justice is one that all are capable of honouring and of being participants in. All are thus viewed as equally worthy of being represented in any procedure that determines the principles of justice that regulate the basic institutions of society. This does not mean that we don't allow, in the structure of the society, for the fact that some, by virtue of special abilities, may be better qualified to hold offices and positions but only that all, as equal citizens, are assumed to have a sense of justice that is equally sufficient relative to what is required of them.

Rawls next returns to the original position and observes that within it the two powers of moral persons are represented formally as, for example, we do not here give any specific content to the sense of justice possessed to parties within it. So the first power means here only that all participants can follow the most reasonable conception of justice. The second capacity is similarly presented formally meaning that the parties are assumed to be able to have a sense of the good. But parties are also here determinate persons in the sense that both these powers would, after the removal of the veil of ignorance, have specific content. But there is no antecedent principles external to the argument of the position to which anyone has to refer to derive their principles. Freedom as independence is represented in how the parties give priority to guaranteeing the conditions for realizing their highest-order interests. Given that parties can stand above their conceptions of the good and judge them they are independent from them.

The Kantian conception of the veil of ignorance is also stated by Rawls to involve this veil being "thick". It is not only, as with Hume, that we wish to prevent parties from reasoning according to threat advantage. We further wish to prevent specific given notions of the good from being decisive in determining the basis for general agreement. This thicker veil is thus intended to ensure the fullest recognition of the equal status of persons by preventing even the higher-order (but not highest-order) interests of some from weighing more than others. Equality is represented within the original position by taking rights and powers within the procedure of it to be distributed to all. The only relevant feature here is that the capacity for moral personality is fulfilled and accidents of fortune are given no place within the construction. 

Rawls unhappily concludes the second lecture with two misleading contrasts between his approach as articulated here and Kant's own views. The first contrast is between the primacy of the social in the view and the "individual" focus of the Categorical Imperative. This contrast is misleading since Rawls argues that the principles of social justice are understood by Kant to follow from personal considerations of a sort that weigh in moral decisions strictly so called. In fact the supreme principle of right is not derived from such personal considerations even though it is clearly related to the Categorical Imperative itself. The basis of such derivation is a lengthy and difficult question but suffice it to say that the rationale for treating one in relation to the other concerns the overall conditions for the possible sustaining of just relations and is not grounded on personal matters. Rawls' suggestion to the contrary here is based on a very loose reading of the Doctrine of Right, a work he nowhere gives any sustained interpretation of, including, surprisingly, in his lectures on political philosophy (which don't include lectures on Kant).

The second contrast concerns the relationship between Rawls' notion of the "full" publicity requirement and Kant's idea of the "fact" of reason. Here Rawls is emphasizing that his view of autonomy is based on the way that publicity conditions enable it to be given form. By contrast he takes the "fact" of reason to just imply a mysterious basis to autonomy. In fact Kant's account of publicity (as stated in Perpetual Peace) has no essential relationship to the idea of autonomy in his moral philosophy and nor does Kant model political philosophy by it though he does instead discuss a relationship between freedom and independence that has correlates with Rawls' view of full autonomy. Rawls' comparison here mixes up levels of articulation of his doctrine by reference to Kant's and is singularly unhelpful in enabling a relationship between them to be stated.

Allison and Kant on the Moral Law

My last posting on Allison concluded a series on Chapter 9 of his commentary on the Groundwork, a chapter that raised so many questions it seemed to be necessary to split it between a number of postings. Chapter 9 also culminated Allison's discussion of the second part of the Groundwork. In this posting I am going to address Chapter 10 where Allison begins his discussion of the third section of the Groundwork.


If Groundwork II is particularly significant due to the question of the formulas of the categorical imperative being addressed there, Groundwork III is traditionally taken to have a problematic status due to its account of a "deduction" of the principle of morality and in this chapter part of Allison's task is to discuss what precisely it is that Kant is providing here a deduction of. This turns out to be problematic since it appears that there are at least two differing views concerning this question. The basic question turns out to be whether Kant provides only a deduction of the categorical imperative or whether he also provides one of the "moral law".  Allison distinguishes these two readings terming the view that Kant only provides a deduction of the categorical imperative a "single deduction" reading as opposed to the "double deduction" one that focuses on the moral law as distinct from the categorical imperative and assumes that Kant here provides deductions of both.


Allison himself prefers the "double deduction" reading and rests part of his argument on what he claims to be distinct referents in the text of Groundwork III for the term "deduction". On Allison's reading "the moral law" is the term Kant uses for a descriptive principle which depicts the modus operandi of an agent in abstraction from whatever ends or interests they have in view whilst the categorical imperative, by contrast, is taken to be a prescriptive principle which only applies to certain types of agents (finite or imperfectly rational ones). However there are some problems with this distinction, not least, as Allison himself notes, Kant rarely refers to "the moral law" in the Groundwork although he cites Ak. 4: 449 as evidence that Kant equates it with the principle of the autonomy of the will. This principle is distinguished by Allison from autonomy as a formula of the categorical imperative. 


The second problem is that the textual questions at issue for showing that the distinction is relevant to the description of the overall task of Groundwork III are pretty difficult ones. So Allison cites for example Ak. 4: 444 where Kant speaks of a "synthetic practical proposition" without clearly identifying the proposition in question. On Allison's own reading the passage is ambiguous and capable of being read in two different ways so that Allison's preference for taking it to refer to the moral law doesn't appear very firmly grounded. Indeed Allison himself agrees that: "the obscurity of the text makes any interpretation hazardous". 


Another issue that Allison addresses in this chapter concerns whether "the moral law" is analytic or synthetic. Again the argument here turns on some very fine textual details but Allison's claim that "the moral law" is be taken generically as a synthetic principle is surely correct assuming that "the moral law" is a substantive principle that Kant is affirming. The other point about the suggestion that there is a distinct "deduction" of this "moral law" is, however, as Allison again confesses, that, should it exist, it must be quite different from the "deduction" of the categorical imperative. The reason why it must be different is that the categorical imperative states something that is binding and the deduction of it would aim to establish this bindingness. By contrast, the "moral law" cannot be binding as it does not state an imperative so that the deduction of it would only be a deduction of a "descriptive" law. Should Kant be attempting such a deduction it has to be said it is far from obvious what status it would have for him.


The other topic that Allison addresses in Chapter 10 concerns the relationship asserted there between freedom and autonomy. Allison takes Kant to be arguing in Groundwork III that freedom is not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition for autonomy and that freedom and unconditional practical law imply each other. The general name Allison gives to this claim is the "reciprocity thesis" and he finds Kant's argument for it to reside in a short passage at Ak. 4: 446. Back in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant already presented an argument for a kind of "law of freedom" though he did not there present this law as equivalent to autonomy. However Allison is not convinced that the argument Kant gives for the notion of autonomy as a necessary law of freedom is compelling finding it only a basis for saying that some kind of internal (and thus possibly only contingent) "law" is required. This leads Allison to distinguish between two different senses of "autonomy", namely moral autonomy and free agency in a general (even only contingent) sense. 


Allison uncovers what he takes to be a better argument for the reciprocity thesis in the Critique of Practical Reason, better in the sense that it does not, on his reading, equivocate between two senses of autonomy, though he continues to fault it for having an ambiguous use of "form", moving from the sense of it to indicate abstraction from matter to the quite different sense of "lawgiving". Thus Allison eventually arrives instead at the claim that the real basis for the "reciprocity thesis" asserted in Groundwork III is found not there, nor in the Critique of Practical Reason but instead in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. In the latter work Kant asserts what Allison terms the "incorporation thesis" which requires maxims, in order to be justified, to be self-consciously understood as acts of free agency. The point of invoking this thesis is that the notion of such incorporation requires, on the one hand, that only such agency can be seen as the real source of the maxim and hence rules out appeals to sensuousness as normatively determinative and that it enables the first principle of maxims to be clearly described.


Thus it is not merely the choice that agents are making when they formulate maxims but also the reason for the choice that matters, a point that is central to the understanding of autonomy. Whilst this argument for the reciprocity thesis has some importance, however, it is clearly not sufficient as yet to provide a deduction of the categorical imperative and to that Allison will turn in the next two chapters of his commentary.

Parfit and Kant on Free Will

Chapter 11 of the 2008 version of On What Matters introduces a topic not touched on in comparable sections of Climbing the Mountain or the 2002 Tanner Lectures, the topic, namely, of free will and desert. In this chapter Parfit discusses the question of the sorts of compatibilism Kant considers and what is needed for morality.


Parfit opens the chapter by mentioning the transcendental distinction Kant makes between noumena and phenomena and essentially states a version of the Groundwork III argument that noumenal freedom is what underpins morality (though there is also a version of this argument in the Third Antinomy). The point of the argument, though Parfit's discussion is not textually grounded, is to provide a ground for taking morality not to be an illusion. Parfit does accept the general "ought implies can" move Kant makes, though, notably, in making this premise central, he is following a version of the argument Kant makes that is quite different to the Groundwork III discussion that he appears to begin with.


Parfit does not, however, take the general argument he reconstructs from Kant to be persuasive, primarily because of the way Parfit views the notion of what it means to say that one "could" have done something different to that which one did which Parfit views only in a hypothetical sense, although, in saying this, he seems not to notice he is repeating an argument from Leibniz that Kant would precisely not be happy with. After all, the guarantee of merely "hypothetical" conditionals proves nothing about the reality of freedom.


The reason why Parfit takes this shift to be sufficient is because he thinks Kant confused determinism with fatalism and that the fatalist view is the only one that implies that it makes no difference what we do. However, this is not the point at all. The determinist view, as Kant construes it, allows for universal causal reasons to apply for all actions and these reasons are both necessary and sufficient to account for what takes place. Given this, the addition of "hypothetical" conditionals makes no difference to the reality of what has taken place which is why Kant describes it as a "wretched subterfuge".


Parfit essentially approaches determinism in a practical rather than a speculative way insisting on the point that there is nothing to prevent us from acting merely because there are reasons why what is taking place is happening as it is. The essential point Kant is making, however, concerns the origin of the basis of my action, that is, whether it arises only externally to me or whether there is some internal, spontaneous, ground for action. Questions of hypothetical conditionality do not help resolve this question.


Having failed to "correct" Kant in this way Parfit moves on to the analytically distinct question of what is involved in claiming that someone "deserves" to suffer and he focuses on the Kantian claim that if acts were merely events in time (hence all fell under a universal causal claim) then we couldn't be said to act in ways that would produce suffering as desert. Parfit seems, by contrast, not to think this claim about desert is required at all for moral statements to have sense. One of his reasons seems to be the rather weak one that either events are causally determined or they are partly random. The reason Parfit takes this disjunctive to be sufficient is that reasons given will all end somewhere and thus be partly random. However this is simply not the case. Reasons end in a final appeal to a basic principle taken to be sufficient which does not make actions partly random but rather shows a basic divide between reasons for action that has to be overcome (though this may be, as Kant argues in the Religion, by means of moral "conversion").


Parfit goes on to look at Kant's claims about moral character and arrives at a better view when he returns to his earlier claim that it rests ultimately upon the noumenal freedom thesis. However Parfit proceeds to reject this thesis as he does not find it intelligible. What Parfit seems to be mean by this is that a theoretical defence cannot be elaborately made of it though this is not even required by Kant since all that he sets out is that the case against freedom cannot be definitively proven and Parfit does not rise to this challenge.


Because Parfit rejects the noumenal freedom thesis and therefore is driven to the randomness claim about free actions he reaches the conclusion that there is nothing to the claim that we could deserve to suffer. Instead Parfit claims all we can justifiably want is to make people come to understand the wrongness of their acts, not to aim at making them suffer. So Parfit rejects retributivism and adopts a kind of deterrence theory of punishment though, in doing so, he fails to address the relationship of this to an account of autonomy. Interestingly, however, Parfit seems to object to retributivism on the grounds of its affinity to consequentialism, something that would require a long argument with him if he had justified this claim in any detail which he does not.

The Kantian Interpretation of 'Justice As Fairness'

Chapter IV of A Theory of Justice concludes with the central section 40 that discusses the sense in which Rawls takes it to be the case that 'justice as fairness' can be given a 'Kantian interpretation'. There is a great deal worthy of comment in this very rich section, not least with regard to how it both explicates a lot of Rawls' view and raises some important points about the Kantian implications of it.


The section opens by relating the general view of justice Rawls has set out to the Kantian conception of autonomy and emphasizes this conception over the place of universality and generality in Kant's ethics. The downgrading of the importance of universal law follows from an acceptance on Rawls' part of the force of the Hegelian objection of the "triviality" of the focus on universal law (although Hegel is not explicitly here referred to). In some respects this is surprising given the account Rawls gives subsequently of the "categorical imperative procedure" and is certainly not in accord with the work later done by constructivist interpreters of Kant.


However, whilst the downgrading of emphasis on universal law has problematic elements in it, there is also one basis for it that is creditable to Rawls and this is his intention to pay attention to the full scope of Kant's ethical view, a point made in an important footnote where Rawls wishes to distinguish Kant's view from the utilitarian conception of universality and attempts to easily reconcile Kant with utilitarian considerations. In making this point Rawls points, in a way that until extremely recently was unusual, at Kant's later ethical writings, particularly the Metaphysics of Morals although he also mentions the moral significance of Kant's works on religion and even refers to the Critique of Judgment. In the course of making this comment Rawls states that there was, at the time of writing Theory, 'no commentary on Kant's theory as a whole", adding, 'perhaps it would prove impossible to write'. Without saying that the work has addressed all elements of Kant's theory, since I am now certainly aware of a number that it does not, I think I can, without undue immodesty, point now to my own book, Kant's Practical Philosophy as covering rather more ground than any of the works Rawls here cites and going at least someway to disproving his pessimism concerning the possibility of addressing the ramifications of the whole theory.


Returning to the main text of section 40, Rawls' substantive philosophical point is to articulate the sense in which Kant makes moral principles objects of rational choice so that moral philosophy becomes the study of "the conception and outcome of a suitably defined rational decision". One of the points that Rawls derives from this is that understanding the point of legislation in relation to the kingdom of ends leads as a matter of course to the centrality of public principles although he neglects here to discuss the differing formulas of publicity Kant offers in Perpetual Peace. Free and equal rational beings are also presupposed in Kant's moral legislation.


Rawls articulates the original position as a way of realising the legislation of the kingdom of ends. One of the supporting considerations for this philosophical interpretation of the reference to the kingdom of ends is that Kant wishes to exclude heteronomous motivation and the adoption of the "veil of ignorance" ensures that the methodology of the original position maps this constraint. Effectively the ruling out of heteronomy is understood to require what Rawls earlier referred to as the formal constraints of right and the "veil of ignorance" is a means to ensure these formal constraints are met.


However, as Rawls goes on to add, there are additional elements in his construction that Kant does not refer to. One of the central ones is that of the basic structure although in referring to this Rawls neglects to follow the admonition of his own footnote since he doesn't mention here the formation of the basis of a state of right in Kant's Doctrine of Right but he does indicate generally that when all Kant's ethical writings are taken together something like the basic structure can be seen to emerge.


The principles of justice are also suggested to be analogous to the categorical imperative again when the latter is viewed primarily as a constraint that applies to persons understood as purely free, equal and rational. Just as the exclusion of heteronomy is mirrored in the "veil of ignorance" so also is the adoption of specific ends as required in hypothetical imperatives. However, Rawls does retain the notion of primary goods although he does assume these arise only from the most general assumptions about rationality and human conditions. The assumption of motivations in the original condition was also one of general mutual disinterest and this is again mapped in relation to the Kantian conception of autonomy. 


Having made these points Rawls follows Sidgwick in identifying a problem with Kantian ethics, a 'problem' first articulated in the 'appendix' to the latter's Methods of Ethics. The 'problem' concerns an alleged ambiguity in Kant's view of freedom as on the one hand it is understood as a basis of choice whilst on the other it is also argued that choice of the law indicates a manifestation of freedom itself. This 'problem' has been examined at length since Rawls wrote this section of Theory with extensive accounts of the different types of freedom in Kant being undertaken by, for example, Henry Allison in his important book Kant's Theory of Freedom (amongst many other key treatments). It is a matter of distinguishing different ways in which Kant understands freedom that allows for the argument that "the scoundrel" as Rawls puts it does not realise freedom in the same sense as the one following the law and is far from being, as Rawls, following Sidgwick, thinks, a "decisive objection" to the Kantian view of freedom. Rawls says that Kant does not show "that acting from the moral law expresses our nature in identifiable ways that acting from contrary principles does not" but this is a mere assertion on Rawls' part since he does nothing to examine the evidence here.


It is likely far from being Rawls' case to engage Kant on this point since he wishes instead to articulate the original position as making good the alleged lack in Kant's view. Saying this does mean that the original position is taken to be an analogue to the noumenal view of choice with built-in constraints showing the ground for rational decision. In saying this however Rawls effectively reprises again the argument Kant gives not of moral choice in relation to autonomy but instead free choice in relation to right showing a surprising confusion of levels in Kantian theory afflicts Rawls' account. The description of the original position does not, as he claims, replicate that of noumenal freedom. Instead it replicates the contract position of right showing the ground for the restriction of external freedom being what can also realise it (the argument of his own previous two sections).


Rawls however is right to present Kant's view as one in which liberty is acting in accord with a law we give ourselves and that the understanding of shame, in Kant, is precisely one in which we fail to live up to such an ideal. The comprehension of Kant's view as an ethic of mutual respect is correct. The original position is presented in general by Rawls as a procedural interpretation of autonomy and the categorical imperative "within the framework of an empirical theory". One of the consequences of this is that Rawls does not investigate the notion that there is such a thing as pure practical reason. Another is that he conflates conditions of right with conditions of noumenal freedom. A third is that Kant's transcendental view is presented by Rawls as "transcendent", a mistake that is particularly striking. Finally, Rawls' view is explicitly distinguished from Kant's in the sense that whilst Kant's view applies to rational beings as such, Rawls' view is only meant to apply to human beings. The basic result of this is that Rawls gives up on providing a general theory of normativity or practical reason. One of the reasons for this is that Rawls wishes to give up on Kant's "dualisms", something that shows the philosophical modesty of Rawls' view. This modesty involves abstraction from central philosophical problems, an abstraction that much recent moral philosophy has, in my view rightly, given up on. The revival of more ambitious and comprehensive theories of practical reason is a return to the view of it that contemporary philosophers share with Kant and shows that the influence of Rawls on a central element of philosophy has waned.

Related articles

• Rawls on the Rule of Law and the Priority of Liberty (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Constructing the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• The Two Principles of Justice and the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls' Principles for Individuals (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• From the Initial Situation to the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls, Classical Utilitarianism and Benevolence (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Nelson Potter and Groundwork I (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls on Toleration and Equal Liberty (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and "average utility" (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Parfit, Sidgwick and Kant (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Choosing Principles in the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• The Difference Principle and Fair Equality of Opportunity (kantinternational.blogspot.com)

Rawls on Toleration and Equal Liberty

After the opening account of the "constitutional convention" that I discussed in my previous posting  Rawls turns next in Chapter IV of Theory to a description of equal liberty of conscience that leads in to an account of toleration. Chapter IV is concerned as a whole with "equal liberty" so this concentration is one we should expect to emerge here.


When the device of the "original position" was invoked it was for  the purpose of ensuring that principles of justice chosen would definitely not be based on considerations that uniquely favoured given parties. In fact, Rawls even assumes that the problem of future generations can be addressed by means of the device. In relation to the latter problem, the invocation of equal liberty has a special pertinence since it ensures the integrity not only of the parties in the position but continuing lines of descent from it. Rawls even goes so far as to claim that equal liberty of conscience is "the only principle" that the persons in the original condition can acknowledge by which he seems to mean the only one that they can agree to as a condition of anything (and everything) else.


Even were the parties in the "original position" convinced that the principle of utility need not compromise liberty still they could see the point of adopting the principle of equal liberty first in any case. This points to a way that the parties in the "original position" would be prompted to consider pluralist or "mixed" doctrines rather than the allegedly  "monistic" one of utilitarianism. Further the principle of equal liberty of conscience meets the criterion of finality as it is not a principle, once adopted, that can be bent in favour of something else. The "veil of ignorance" strengthens the case for its adoption since it ensures one has no means of knowing whether one would have views that were in the majority.


The discussion of future generations furthers the case for equal liberty since the adoption of the principle is one that members of other generations can be assumed to also desire for the same reason that parties in the original position would do so. It also meets the test of a reasonable paternalism in being a principle that we can assume those under our guardianship would adopt on attainment of the age of reason.


Having presented the basic argument for the principle of equal liberty Rawls goes on to discuss toleration. Liberty of conscience is something that can be restricted under special circumstances that involve severe threats to public order and security. However these are the only conditions as there is nothing in political authority strictly considered that provides it with competence in other domains. The restriction of liberty in the severe circumstances mentioned would be accepted within the original position since disruption of the conditions of liberty is a danger to all. Hence restriction in these cases is an "enabling right" in relation to the provision of liberty itself.


It follows from this point that toleration is a general consequence of the acceptance of the principle of equal liberty. Hence granting it is granting something that is just, denying it is unjust. As Rawls puts it in a very Kantian formula: "Liberty is governed by the necessary conditions for liberty itself". This formula echoes the universal principle of right in the Doctrine of Right that referred to freedom in accordance with a universal law so that "the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone's freedom" (Ak. 6: 230).


After arriving at this point Rawls concludes by providing some reasons why toleration should even extend to the intolerant despite the fact that intolerant groups would have no right to complain where toleration not to be extended to them. No particular view of religious truth can be accepted in the original position so there is no basis for anyone thinking that their own views have any privileged status. One of the nice points Rawls makes in this connection is that even the intolerant principle that all should obey the injunctions of God at the expense of anything else is indeterminate in the sense that no one has a status that politically can enable them to determine what these injunctions consist in.


The political basis for toleration of the intolerant consists, fundamentally, however, in the stability of just institutions in the sense that they reproduce adherence to themselves. This psychological truth about just institutions is one that should give members of a well-ordered society confidence in these institutions. The only case in which the intolerant have toleration withdrawn are where their intolerance poses danger to the whole body politic (and hence this is not a special principle applied to the intolerant). 

Related articles

• Rawls on Liberty and Constitutions (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Choosing Principles in the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• The Two Principles of Justice and the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and Distributive Justice (I) (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls' Two Principles of Justice (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls on Fair Equality and Stability (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and the Justification of Civil Disobedience (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and "average utility" (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls' Principles for Individuals (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• The Difference Principle and Fair Equality of Opportunity (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls on Stability and the Sense of Justice (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Justice and Methodology (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls, Classical Utilitarianism and Benevolence (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Justice As Reciprocity (I) (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and "Classical Utilitarianism" (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Rawls and "Classical Utilitarianism" (II) (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• A Theory of Justice (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• From the Initial Situation to the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)
• Constructing the Original Position (kantinternational.blogspot.com)

Republicanism (I)

The 1st Definitive Article for perpetual peace reads simply: "The civil constitution in every state shall be republican" (Ak. 8: 349). Two questions emerge in consideration of it: firstly, what is meant by "republican" and, secondly, how does it relate to the aim of perpetual peace?

The first question will be addressed in this posting. Kant speaks of a constitution that is republican as including principles that operate on three distinct levels. At the level of individuals there is a principle of the freedom of members of a society whilst at the level of subjects there is one of dependence on a single common legislation. The third level is that of citizens of a state where there is a principle of equality operative. Kant's general claim is that the "idea of the original contract" leads us to the notion of a republican constitution.

In articulating further the notion of this constitution Kant develops his argument in another extended footnote. The footnote begins by opposing a conventional "liberal" idea of freedom as "the warrant to do whatever one wants provided one does no wrong to anyone". This view of freedom is what Isaiah Berlin characterized as "negative freedom" and is captured well in John Stuart Mill's definition of freedom as "pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs" (On Liberty). Kant indicates however that this view amounts to an empty tautology.

By contrast to this view Kant defines freedom as "the warrant to obey no other external laws than those to which I could have given my consent" (Ak. 8: 350n). The reference here to hypothetical consent was not included in the "negative", "liberal" view of freedom and nor was the specific inclusion of external laws. The specific inclusion of the concept of law in the idea of freedom is subsequently followed up by the ways in which Kant characterizes equality. Equality within a state is "that relation of its citizens in which no one can rightfully bind another to something without also being subject to a law by which he in turn can be bound in the same way by the other" (Ak. 8: 350n). So the equality in question is one of reciprocal relation to the laws of the state. Kant intimates that there is no need to further specify the dependence of subjects since we have already covered it in what has emerged.

On the grounds of the egalitarian conception of citizenship Kant explicitly rules out the notion of hereditary nobility. The republican position advanced is one in which freedom is distinctively understood as emergent from a relation to law, not as something properly realized independently of law. This is the substantive difference between the republican view that Kant has advanced here and many "liberal" views. It remains to be assessed, however, what relation this puts a specifically Kantian theory in to the so-called "Kantian liberals", such as John Rawls and his followers on the one hand, or the more apparently "republican" views of Jurgen Habermas. A further point of interest is how to characterize Kant's form of republicanism by contrast to that which has been developed in contemporary political theory on the basis of response to the Renaissance account of Machiavelli. For a detailed description of this tradition and its place in contemporary political theory see this article. A notable feature of the contemporary revival of republicanism and assertion of its distinction from liberalism has been the general failure, despite the historiographical nature of its basis, to account for Kant.