1 66. KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM OF THE PRACTICAL REASON.

The most influential subjectivist theory of certitude is un

doubtedly the "moral dogmatism" of Kant. Hume had in

ferred from Sensism the impossibility of any knowledge of

absolutely universal and necessary truths. Against this con

clusion Kant s Critique of Pure Reason had asserted, and started

from, the undeniable fact of the existence of such knowledge.

So, too, English Sensism had endeavoured to reduce moral ob

ligation or duty to an egoistic, utilitarian dictate of self-interest.

And against this Kant s Critique of Practical Reason asserted,

and started from, the undeniable fact of the existence of a moral

law that is utterly irreducible to any such dictate.

Is not duty often in conflict with the inclinations of self-

interest? To explain duty, therefore, as springing from any

such motive is to attempt the impossible. The English and

Scottish moralists had imagined that a " moral sense," inclining

the human heart to benevolence, sympathy, enlightened self-

interest, could adequately account for the growth and develop

ment in man of the consciousness of duty, the sense of moral

obligation. This Kant regarded as utterly erroneous and de

structive of morality. A person may be sincere and truthful

and honourable from the motive of an enlightened self-interest

in his own good name and reputation. But the moral law

dictates that he be sincere and truthful and honourable even at

the sacrifice of his own personal interest and reputation. Its

dictate is above all personal interests, superior to all individual

considerations, exempt from all particular conditions : it is an

unconditional or categorical imperative.

Moreover, the moral law as such simply dictates that we

Jo tiie right because it is tJie right, without prescribing the objects

RANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 327

or contents of our individual moral acts. In other words it is a

pure form, which says simply : Do your duty because it is your

duty. The theory of the moral act he calls a metaphysic : the

" metaphysic of morals ".

The dictate of the moral law, then, is wholly disinterested :

it does not seek any end ulterior to itself: it commands the right

for sake of the right. It is its own end. Moreover, transcending

as it does all individual interests, it is a universal law, and is

capable of formulation in absolute or universal terms. For

instance : So act that the maxim of your conduct can prevail as a

universal law. Further, the moral law forbids that the will be

subordinate, as a means to an end, by seeking any good beyond

the moral act itself. Hence also : Act always so that human

nature, whether in yourself or in others, be always an end, not a

means. A will that would pursue an ideal of goodness extrinsic

or foreign to itself would be heteronomous, or subject to an alien

law ; but the moral law is autonomous : the practical reason, or

will, finds in itself the true law of its own proper activity. Hence

this final Kantian expression of the moral law as the form of

moral conduct : Consider the idea of the will of every rational

being as the idea of a will dictating universal laws.

Armed with this apparently lofty and stoic conception of the

moral law, Kant asks himself what does it imply. What " pos

tulates of the practical reason " are inseparable from it ? There

are three such postulates.

The first \<$> freedom of the will. If I ought to act morally, it

must be that I can. Thus in the logical order moral responsi

bility implies human freedom as its ratio cognoscendi, while in

the ontological order freedom precedes responsibility as its ratio

essendi.

The second implication of the moral law is the immortality of

the soul. And why or how ? For this reason and in this wise :

The moral law dictates duty for duty s sake and forbids us to

subordinate duty to the attainment of happiness. On the con

trary, duty often demands the sacrifice of personal interest, well-

being, happiness, satisfaction. Nevertheless reason revolts, and

rightly revolts, against the idea that duty and happiness be

for ever separated. Does not the notion of the supreme good

imply all good, and therefore the union of the good which is

righteousness with the good which is happiness ? But such union

cannot be realized in the conditions of man s moral life here on

328 TffEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

earth. There must, therefore, be a future state of existence in

which the soul can attain ever more fully to the moral ideal,

where it can taste and enjoy, without however having sought,

the happiness which must reward its fidelity to duty.

The third postulate of morality is the existence of God. For

when the soul shall enjoy the reward of its virtue, when duty

and happiness coincide, when the bonum supremum will be the

bonum consummatum, such consummation of the universal order

can only be conceived to be the work of an All-Powerful and

All-Holy Will. There must be a God : the author of the

physical order and the moral order, of the world of sense and

the world of intellect, of the domain of appearances or phenomena

and the domain of realities or noumena, Who will unify all in

one universal and indefectible harmony.

Such, then, are the affirmations of the practical reason : the

moral law exists as an absolute dictate, a categorical imperative ;

its conditions are freedom, immortality, and God s existence.

And religion, based upon morality, derives its legitimate sway

over man, its authority and its credentials, from the practical

reason.

But what are those affirmations of the practical reason worth ?

What are their credentials and authority ? They are not based

on knowledge, but on a need or dictate of the will.

Knowledge is the achievement of man s speculative reason

(46). But it is confined to phenomena which occur in space

and time and are subject to the absolute determinism of the law

of universal causation. Man s speculative reason can attain to

no knowledge either of a substantial soul exempt in its acts from

the absolute determinism of physical antecedents and capable

of surviving bodily death, or of an Absolute Being transcending

the phenomenal universe (46, 54). It may, and indeed must,

think them, but only as problematic : it cannot know them to be

real. Neither, however, can it know them to \>& unreal. Know

ledge has simply nothing to say of them. Nevertheless we will,

and cannot help willing, the morally good ; and therefore we

believe, and cannot help believing, what this implies. Conse

quently we will, and have a natural need to will, that there be a

free and immortal soul in man, and that God, the Supreme Good,

exist ; and we believe, and cannot help believing, in the reality

of what the will thus dictates to be real. The foundation, there

fore, of moral or ethical certitude, and of religious faith, is the

KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 329

need of our nature to give credence to certain ideas. By nature we

are endowed with will or practical reason, the seat or source or

principle of moral conduct. Moral conduct is a fact ; so is its

source or principle. They are of our very nature. In the

dictate of moral conduct we find certain necessary implications :

human freedom and immortality, and the existence of God.

This dictate of our nature as moral beings furnishes each of us

individually with a motive that is subjectively sufficient for

believing in the reality of these implications : though their ob

jective reality falls necessarily beyond the scope of our knowledge ;

their reality cannot possibly be an object of knowledge. Kant

admits this expressly. "All faith," he says, 1 "is an assent that

is subjectively sufficient, but conscious of its objective insuffi

ciency; faith therefore is opposed to knowledge."

Nor can this consciousness that God, freedom and immortal

ity are unknowable, unattainable by the speculative reason,

militate against the personal certitude of our belief in them as

realities : for reflection on the speculative reason shows that such

realities, being suprasensible, cannot possibly be its objects,

cannot belong to the sphere of knowledge or science. The

Critique of Pure Reason established this. Its achievement in

regard to them was to " remove knowledge in order to make

room for belief": 2 and thus "to render a signal service to

humanity by removing morality and religion from the domain

of science and from the consequent corroding influence of

scientific doubt ". 3 The limits of the scientific knowledge attain

able by the speculative reason being thus duly recognized, the

primacy of the practical reason, the supremacy of its influence

in determining the certitude of personal belief in those supra-

sensible realities, is manifest. For the dictate of the practical

reason, the categorical imperative of conscience, implies and

demands belief in God, freedom and immortality, as realities ;

and at the same time this dictate (with all that it involves)

transcends the sensible or phenomenal domain of the speculative

reason and attains by way of belief to the real or noumenal do

main of being. 4 Thus, then, the scepticism or phenomenism

1 Qu est-ce que s orienter dans la pensie. Edited Sn the Melanges de Logique,

apud MERCIER, op. cit., 77, p. 173. Mercier s exposition (ibid.) has been closely

followed in the text above.

* Critique of Pure Reason, Pref. pp. xxx and xxi (tr. MU LLRR, pp. 700-1), quoted

above, vol. i., 46, p. 172, n. i.

3 Vol. i., 46, p. 172 ; cf. 56, pp. 199-200. * Cf. vol. i., 46, p. 172.

330 THEOR Y OF KNO WLRDGE

of the speculative reason is seen to be a condition of, and a pre

paration for, the moral dogmatism of the practical reason.

The most influential subjectivist theory of certitude is un

doubtedly the "moral dogmatism" of Kant. Hume had in

ferred from Sensism the impossibility of any knowledge of

absolutely universal and necessary truths. Against this con

clusion Kant s Critique of Pure Reason had asserted, and started

from, the undeniable fact of the existence of such knowledge.

So, too, English Sensism had endeavoured to reduce moral ob

ligation or duty to an egoistic, utilitarian dictate of self-interest.

And against this Kant s Critique of Practical Reason asserted,

and started from, the undeniable fact of the existence of a moral

law that is utterly irreducible to any such dictate.

Is not duty often in conflict with the inclinations of self-

interest? To explain duty, therefore, as springing from any

such motive is to attempt the impossible. The English and

Scottish moralists had imagined that a " moral sense," inclining

the human heart to benevolence, sympathy, enlightened self-

interest, could adequately account for the growth and develop

ment in man of the consciousness of duty, the sense of moral

obligation. This Kant regarded as utterly erroneous and de

structive of morality. A person may be sincere and truthful

and honourable from the motive of an enlightened self-interest

in his own good name and reputation. But the moral law

dictates that he be sincere and truthful and honourable even at

the sacrifice of his own personal interest and reputation. Its

dictate is above all personal interests, superior to all individual

considerations, exempt from all particular conditions : it is an

unconditional or categorical imperative.

Moreover, the moral law as such simply dictates that we

Jo tiie right because it is tJie right, without prescribing the objects

RANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 327

or contents of our individual moral acts. In other words it is a

pure form, which says simply : Do your duty because it is your

duty. The theory of the moral act he calls a metaphysic : the

" metaphysic of morals ".

The dictate of the moral law, then, is wholly disinterested :

it does not seek any end ulterior to itself: it commands the right

for sake of the right. It is its own end. Moreover, transcending

as it does all individual interests, it is a universal law, and is

capable of formulation in absolute or universal terms. For

instance : So act that the maxim of your conduct can prevail as a

universal law. Further, the moral law forbids that the will be

subordinate, as a means to an end, by seeking any good beyond

the moral act itself. Hence also : Act always so that human

nature, whether in yourself or in others, be always an end, not a

means. A will that would pursue an ideal of goodness extrinsic

or foreign to itself would be heteronomous, or subject to an alien

law ; but the moral law is autonomous : the practical reason, or

will, finds in itself the true law of its own proper activity. Hence

this final Kantian expression of the moral law as the form of

moral conduct : Consider the idea of the will of every rational

being as the idea of a will dictating universal laws.

Armed with this apparently lofty and stoic conception of the

moral law, Kant asks himself what does it imply. What " pos

tulates of the practical reason " are inseparable from it ? There

are three such postulates.

The first \<$> freedom of the will. If I ought to act morally, it

must be that I can. Thus in the logical order moral responsi

bility implies human freedom as its ratio cognoscendi, while in

the ontological order freedom precedes responsibility as its ratio

essendi.

The second implication of the moral law is the immortality of

the soul. And why or how ? For this reason and in this wise :

The moral law dictates duty for duty s sake and forbids us to

subordinate duty to the attainment of happiness. On the con

trary, duty often demands the sacrifice of personal interest, well-

being, happiness, satisfaction. Nevertheless reason revolts, and

rightly revolts, against the idea that duty and happiness be

for ever separated. Does not the notion of the supreme good

imply all good, and therefore the union of the good which is

righteousness with the good which is happiness ? But such union

cannot be realized in the conditions of man s moral life here on

328 TffEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

earth. There must, therefore, be a future state of existence in

which the soul can attain ever more fully to the moral ideal,

where it can taste and enjoy, without however having sought,

the happiness which must reward its fidelity to duty.

The third postulate of morality is the existence of God. For

when the soul shall enjoy the reward of its virtue, when duty

and happiness coincide, when the bonum supremum will be the

bonum consummatum, such consummation of the universal order

can only be conceived to be the work of an All-Powerful and

All-Holy Will. There must be a God : the author of the

physical order and the moral order, of the world of sense and

the world of intellect, of the domain of appearances or phenomena

and the domain of realities or noumena, Who will unify all in

one universal and indefectible harmony.

Such, then, are the affirmations of the practical reason : the

moral law exists as an absolute dictate, a categorical imperative ;

its conditions are freedom, immortality, and God s existence.

And religion, based upon morality, derives its legitimate sway

over man, its authority and its credentials, from the practical

reason.

But what are those affirmations of the practical reason worth ?

What are their credentials and authority ? They are not based

on knowledge, but on a need or dictate of the will.

Knowledge is the achievement of man s speculative reason

(46). But it is confined to phenomena which occur in space

and time and are subject to the absolute determinism of the law

of universal causation. Man s speculative reason can attain to

no knowledge either of a substantial soul exempt in its acts from

the absolute determinism of physical antecedents and capable

of surviving bodily death, or of an Absolute Being transcending

the phenomenal universe (46, 54). It may, and indeed must,

think them, but only as problematic : it cannot know them to be

real. Neither, however, can it know them to \>& unreal. Know

ledge has simply nothing to say of them. Nevertheless we will,

and cannot help willing, the morally good ; and therefore we

believe, and cannot help believing, what this implies. Conse

quently we will, and have a natural need to will, that there be a

free and immortal soul in man, and that God, the Supreme Good,

exist ; and we believe, and cannot help believing, in the reality

of what the will thus dictates to be real. The foundation, there

fore, of moral or ethical certitude, and of religious faith, is the

KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 329

need of our nature to give credence to certain ideas. By nature we

are endowed with will or practical reason, the seat or source or

principle of moral conduct. Moral conduct is a fact ; so is its

source or principle. They are of our very nature. In the

dictate of moral conduct we find certain necessary implications :

human freedom and immortality, and the existence of God.

This dictate of our nature as moral beings furnishes each of us

individually with a motive that is subjectively sufficient for

believing in the reality of these implications : though their ob

jective reality falls necessarily beyond the scope of our knowledge ;

their reality cannot possibly be an object of knowledge. Kant

admits this expressly. "All faith," he says, 1 "is an assent that

is subjectively sufficient, but conscious of its objective insuffi

ciency; faith therefore is opposed to knowledge."

Nor can this consciousness that God, freedom and immortal

ity are unknowable, unattainable by the speculative reason,

militate against the personal certitude of our belief in them as

realities : for reflection on the speculative reason shows that such

realities, being suprasensible, cannot possibly be its objects,

cannot belong to the sphere of knowledge or science. The

Critique of Pure Reason established this. Its achievement in

regard to them was to " remove knowledge in order to make

room for belief": 2 and thus "to render a signal service to

humanity by removing morality and religion from the domain

of science and from the consequent corroding influence of

scientific doubt ". 3 The limits of the scientific knowledge attain

able by the speculative reason being thus duly recognized, the

primacy of the practical reason, the supremacy of its influence

in determining the certitude of personal belief in those supra-

sensible realities, is manifest. For the dictate of the practical

reason, the categorical imperative of conscience, implies and

demands belief in God, freedom and immortality, as realities ;

and at the same time this dictate (with all that it involves)

transcends the sensible or phenomenal domain of the speculative

reason and attains by way of belief to the real or noumenal do

main of being. 4 Thus, then, the scepticism or phenomenism

1 Qu est-ce que s orienter dans la pensie. Edited Sn the Melanges de Logique,

apud MERCIER, op. cit., 77, p. 173. Mercier s exposition (ibid.) has been closely

followed in the text above.

* Critique of Pure Reason, Pref. pp. xxx and xxi (tr. MU LLRR, pp. 700-1), quoted

above, vol. i., 46, p. 172, n. i.

3 Vol. i., 46, p. 172 ; cf. 56, pp. 199-200. * Cf. vol. i., 46, p. 172.

330 THEOR Y OF KNO WLRDGE

of the speculative reason is seen to be a condition of, and a pre

paration for, the moral dogmatism of the practical reason.