or KANT S SYSTEM AS A WHOLE.

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The student of Kant will

be struck by the fact that both of Kant s Critiques are reasoned,

that both are works of the same individual human intellect, ex

ploring, interpreting, arguing, reasoning, apparently in the same

KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 337

way and according to the same general laws which guide and

govern rational processes. When examining the first Critique.

we had occasion more than once to notice certain inconsistencies

and certain peculiar problems it suggested concerning its own

scope and significance. 1 We have now briefly to compare the

two Critiques with a view to seeing whether their conclusions

conform at least to the negative test of consistency (156) in

considering their claim to acceptance as forming a satisfactory

philosophy of human experience as a whole.

For a time it was thought by many that it was only when he

realized the destructive bearings of the first Critique upon the

fundamental moral and religious beliefs of mankind that Kant

tried to avert the impending disastrous consequences by seeking

a new basis for those beliefs in his second Critique; that he had

not conceived and intended from the beginning the destruction

of the " ancient metaphysics " as a necessary preparation for the

transference of the basis of those beliefs from the scientific domain

to the domain of the will, or regarded this transference itself as

the only sure way of defending religion and morality against

the sceptical attacks of reason. But from Kant s correspondence

it appears that he had before him throughout, 2 the whole general

outline of the system embodied in the two Critiques, and that

therefore he always regarded their respective conclusions not

only as mutually compatible, but as mutually complementary and

as forming together one logical and perfectly consistent whole.

That his intention was the very reverse of sceptical or destruc

tive of moral and religious certitude is beyond all question. And

that he could have regarded the two Critiques as mutually com

plementary is also intelligible. For the conflict between them

is de facto not quite explicit and obvious.

When Kant set himself to the task of meeting the scepticism

of Hume he was probably impressed by the formula with which

Leibniz had countered the empiricism of Locke: " Nihil est in

intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu, nisi intellectus ipse "

(71). While sense experience is of objects allied to material con

ditions of time-and-space phenomena, reflection on our intellectual

activity reveals this as determining the necessary, a priori judg

ments of science, and as thereby disclosing an intelligible world

which is beyond the control of positive science altogether.

1 Cf. especially vol. i., 59 ; also 46, 54, 56, 58.

2 Cf. MERCIER, op. cit., 109, pp. 247-50.

VOL. II. 22

33 8 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

When, therefore, the dictate of moral duty reveals itself in man s

conscience as absolute, it cannot on the one hand ground itself

on principles of the speculative reason which are concerned only

with the scientific knowledge of the objects of sense experience,

but neither on the other hand has it anything to fear from them

since it is wholly beyond the range of their proper sphere of

application. The conflict, therefore, between the two Critiques

is not direct or apparent.

But is the conflict between their directive principles neverthe

less really there ? It certainly is ; and by an inevitable logical

necessity.

What, for instance, can be the significance of the distinction

between the speculative reason and the practical reason ? J Are

they two distinct faculties ? There appears to be no ground

whatever for thinking so. They are rather two aspects or

domains of the activity of the human intelligence (or intellect,

understanding, reason). They are simply one and the same

human intelligence, conceiving, judging, reasoning, in the domain

of speculative reality (or "things"), and of practical reality (or

" acts "), respectively. The theoretical or speculative reason, then,

would be intellect employed in the investigation &i that which is ;

and the practical reason would be the same intellect employed in

the investigation of that which ougJit to be or, human conduct

in its ethical aspect.

But if so, this single faculty must in all its functions be sub

ject to the same general laws. If, as theoretical or speculative,

it can attain only to sense phenomena, it should as practical

1 Kant sometimes seems to identify what he calls the practical reason with the

will, or again, at times, with man s moral conscience. But the will, considered in

itself, is not a cognitive faculty at all, not a faculty which apprehends or judges or

assents or reasons : hence it has been described as of itself a " blind " faculty : its

function is to will, desire, "intend " ends, to "choose" means, etc., under the en

lightening infu/ice of the higher cognitive faculty, the intellect, manifesting objects

as " good ". Hence Kant must rather have meant by the practical reason the faculty

which discerns, judges, dictates, reasons, and delivers verdicts, concerning objects of

the practical or moral order, human acts and human conduct, i.e. concerning matters

in which the exercise of free will is directly involved. The question is, then, is

such faculty distinct from the intellect or reason which judges speculative matters ?

And the same question applies to man s moral conscience. Conscience, as a faculty,

is universally regarded by scholastics, and indeed by philosophers generally, as the

intellect itself dictating a judgment concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of

a definite act to be there and then performed or avoided by the person judging.

While the special aptitude of the intellect to discern the truth of first principles of

the moral order has been described by scholastics and others as syndercsis (15).

Cf. supra, p. 243 n.

KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 339

have the same confines. On the other hand, if, as practical, it

can attain to the realities of the domain of moral duty, so should

it, as speculative, be able to attain to the realities of the domain

of sense. Concerned as we are with only a single faculty,

man s intelligence or reason, there can be only two alternative

answers to the inevitable question : Can it attain to reality or

can it not ? We must choose one : we cannot choose both.

If it can, inasmuch as moral duty both transcends pheno

menal conditions and is an object of certitude, why cannot sub

stances and causes be also " noumena " or metaphysical realities

likewise transcending phenomenal conditions, and be therefore

objects of certitude on the same title as the realities of the moral

order ?

If it cannot, for the reason that, owing to the absence of

phenomenal or sensible matter whereby alone reality could " be

given " or " appear," the spontaneity of the intellect endeavour

ing to apprehend it would be without an " object," why should

the reality called the "categorical imperative," or the realities

supposed to be implied by it, be capable of certain attainment,

seeing that they too are not presented in "sensible matter" as

"objects"?

Kant, however, made the fatal mistake of endeavouring to

show that the intellect cannot attain to certitude about substances

and causes, that the supposed metaphysical knowledge of these

is an illusion, whereas the knowledge embodied in physics and

mathematics is genuine ; and his only way of making this nega

tion plausible was by contending that genuine scientific certitude

is confined to phenomena that fall within the limits of sense ex

perience, to the sense appearances which are the objects of

physics and mathematics. But having taken up this position he

could escape the sensism and scepticism of Hume only by

maintaining the reality of a world beyond the scope of sense,

a purely intelligible domain, and the possibility of attaining

to certitude concerning it. The question, however, then was :

How can such certain attainment be possible. After he had

declared that the human intellect cannot attain to certitude

about any reality, that all its necessary and universal judgments

reveal merely mental phenomena or sense appearances moulded

by the forms of its own activity, 1 how was he to get it into certain

1 First it was represented as attaining to certitude as to how the reality which

directly affects us in external and internal sensation (the " noumenon of experi-

22 *

340 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

contact with the purely intelligible, real or noumenal domain of

being ?

He tried to do so by seizing on one single fact of his own

consciousness, assuming a similar fact to be present in every

other person s consciousness, and by analysing rationally its im

plications. This fact was the concept or notion, which he found

within his mind, of moral duty, moral obligation, moral law.

This content of his consciousness he interpreted, not very

accurately, as we saw above, but no matter, as a "categorical

imperative," i.e. an absolute dictate binding necessarily and uni

versally. But, granting all that, the reader will surely ask what

possible use could Kant make of it for grounding certitude about

reality, seeing that he had just declared all necessary and universal

judgments, all notions or concepts, to be capable of manifesting

either (i) merely mental products of subjective, a priori forms with

sensuously given materials, where there are such materials, or else

(2) mere empty mental forms themselves, mere regulative modes

of the mind s activity, where there are no such sensuous materials,

modes which it would be an illusion (according to his own

teaching) to mistake for realities. Either those moral notions

and dictates are revealed to us, and apprehended by us (as de

ence " : the real external world and the real Ego : what the " ancient metaphysics "

called material substances or subjects, and material causes or agencies) appears ;

then as attaining to certitude only about menial phenomena or appearances, which

were thus, as secondary entities (129), distinguished and isolated from their corres

ponding " noumena of experience " : so that these latter were thus made just as

remote from the intellect as the " metaphysical noumena," God, the soul, freedom,

immortality, the moral order, the realities to which the three ideas of the pure

speculative reason point. Nevertheless, Kant in places distinguishes and contrasts

those two sets of noumena, as to their certain attainability by the human intellect.

Cf. MERCIER, of. cit., 144, p. 397: "Kant often contrasts knowledge of the

noumena of experience with knowledge of metaphysical reality. Why ? Can I

know the empirical noumenon, or can I not ? If I cannot, where is the use of con

trasting my ignorance of it with my ignorance of metaphysical reality. If on the

other hand the empirical real, or noumenon of experience, does lie within the scope

of my knowledge, why can I not pass from certitude regarding such empirical

realities to certitude concerning metaphysical realities, seeing especially that ex

hvpothesi the latter are a necessary condition of the existence of the former."

The reader will recognize, in what are here referred to as "noumena of ex

perience " and " metaphysical realities " respectively, the intelligible realities of the

domain of sense (scnsibilia per accidens : material substances and causes), of which

we have proper concepts, and intelligible realities transcending the domain of sense

(spiritual substances nnd causes; the human soul as free, spiritual and immortal;

pure spirits ; God), of which our concepts are only analogical (supra, 114, p. 76,

n. i ; pp. 80-1 ; 125, pp. 143-4)- And in the rational infcrribihty of the latter from

the former he will see the fundamental reason of the possibility of a speculative

metaphysics, and the condemnation of Kant s metaphysical agnosticism.

KANT>S MORAL DOGMATISM 541

facto they are), in the concrete, individual data of our conscious

experience, in our individual moral feelings, sentiments, impulses,

choices, decisions, etc., as these arise in our direct consciousness :

but if so, they can (on Kant s theory) reveal just mere mental

phenomena, pure and simple, like our other concepts and judg

ments ; and the objective reality of the noumenon which they

suggest to us remains exactly as doubtful and unattainable as

that of any other noumenon of experience. Or else those moral

notions and dictates are devoid of all empirical content, independent

of anything revealed in the consciousness of our actual moral

life, objects of pure intellectual intuition. But then, if it is

alleged that because they are such they manifest realities to us,

and that we thus attain to certitude about reality, (i) why can

we not have, a pari, a similar intellectual certitude of suprasen-

sible realities through the (speculative) concepts and judgments

we form regarding substance, cause, soul, spirit, God ? And

secondly, (2) is it not inconsistent of Kant to claim the power

of attaining to certitude about reality for the very faculty of

intellect to which he had already repeatedly denied all such

power? Why should not such reputed attainment of suprasen-

sible reality be still an illusion ? Why should it not still be de

facto only the thought or idea of a mere empty mental form ?

And finally, (3) even supposing it to be a certain attainment to

reality, the insuperable difficulty would still remain of either

leaving one of the noumenal realities, which is human freedom,

up in the clouds of a Platonic mundus intelligibilis, or else

bringing it down to the concrete world of actual human experi

ence, to the inevitable destruction of the universal determinism

which on Kant s own theory prevails there. 1

It is sometimes urged, and this will be our last point, that while the

certitude attainable by the speculative exercise of reason is conditioned by

external experience, the certitude attainable by its practical exercise is con

ditioned only by internal experience. Or, to put it in another way, " human

experience, taken in its totality . . . has two distinct starting-points : sense

data, the subject-matter of scientific knowledge ; and the categorical im

perative of conscience, the basis of moral and religious beliefs ". 2 And this

being so, may not analysis of each of these domains show us that though

certitude concerning reality is unattainable by reason proceeding from the

former starting-point by way of external (speculative) experience, it is attain

able by reason proceeding from the second by way of internal (practical,

moral) experience ? May not such analysis lead us to the conclusion that

1 Cf. supra, pp. 332-4. 2 Vol. i., 46, p. 172.

342 THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

the sense data of consciousness which reveal to reason the physical domain,

and the suprascnsible data of conscience which reveal the moral and religi

ons domains, are totally heterogeneous and mutually isolated for reason ?

If, then, it be shown that reason can ground the certitude of its moral and

religious beliefs in reality on the latter set of data, and that through the former

set it can attain to knowledge, but only of phenomena^ not of reality, is not

moral and religious certitude thereby made absolutely proof against the

sceptical inroads of science ?

In this plea for Kantism we have a plausible mixture of good intentions

and bad philosophy. But its plausibility is destroyed even by Kant s own

teachings. The only point we need notice in it is the insinuation that, from

the point of view of human certitude about reality, different values attach to

the two sources of experience. But what are the two sources referred to ?

Not internal and external experience, in the sense of consciousness of the

Ego and awareness of an external universe. For we have seen J that Kant

holds all our consciousness of what goes on in the Ego to be conditioned

by our awareness of an external, spatial universe ; and that, moreover, both

the spatial or external and the temporal or internal data can, according to his

theory, reveal only mental phenomena, and not realities. The distinction,

therefore, which he seeks to establish between two sources of our experience,

must be the distinction between conscious data of the physical order and

conscious data of the moral order. But neither can this effectively serve his

purpose ; and for two reasons.

Firstly, because the moral data from which he derives the categorical

imperative and its implications, being data of conscious cxperienee? should

on his own theory reveal only mental phenomena, only an "empirical " Ego,

and not any reality. For after all the individual man has only one mind, one

consciousness, the processes and data of which must therefore conform to the

same law so far as their value for certitude or insight into reality is concerned.

And secondly, the heterogeneity of the two domains of conscious data

is not absolute ; nor can they be rightly or reasonably held to form two totally

isolated and separate domains of mental life. Moral concepts and judgments

are of course different from our concepts and interpretations of physical or

sense data. They are not derived or derivable from the immediate data of

any of the senses : just as concepts of the domain of one sense cannot be de

rived from the data of another sense : the concept of colour, for instance,

cannot be derived from the auditory data of consciousness. But moral con

cepts and principles are nevertheless derived from other concrete, individual

data revealed in our conscious experience. Conscious impulses, aspirations,

sentiments, affective and volitional tendencies, choices, decisions, feelings of

responsibility, duty, obligation, of regret, remorse, shame, or of the approval

of conscience for our conduct, these are all concrete individual facts or data

of direct consciousness or intuition, not of sense consciousness, of course,

but of intellectual consciousness (95), consciousness of the higher or intellec

tual and volitional departments of our mental life. It is from such concrete,

individual, conscious data, directly revealed to each of us in his own mental

1 Vol. i., 61, p. 214, n. i; supra, 97, p. 7, n. 4; 100, p. 15; 134,

pp. 202-5.

2 Cf. Vol. i., 56, pp. 199-200.

KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM 343

life, externated in his own moral conduct, and inferred to be also in his fellow-

men from similar externations apprehended in their moral conduct, it is

from such data that we derive the concepts of duty, responsibility, moral ob

ligation, moral sanctions, etc., which enter into all moral principles, dictates

and judgments. The "ought " of moral conduct is, of course, not a datum

of sense. It is, however, a datum of intellect. Nor is it given to intellect,

or apprehended by intellect, in the data of sense, any more than God, or

the free, spiritual, and immortal soul, or the intellect itself, or the will, are

given in sense data. It is, however, given to intellect in our immediate in

tellectual awareness of the conscious, suprasensible, or spiritual activities,

yearnings, aspirations, impulses, of our own intellect and will, as a specific

characteristic of these data. Our intellectual apprehension of it as a thought-

object, and of other thought-objects of the same suprasensible order, we have

already asserted to be mediated by sense, inasmuch as we consider all our

suprasensible mental activities to be conditioned by the prior operation of

sense perception and sense consciousness. This we believe to be the proper

interpretation of Locke s aphorism as qualified by Leibniz (71, 74, loo, 105,

1 14). But even if the conscious data to which the concept of the " ought "

with all its implications applies, could be attained by an intellectual intuition

that would be in no way conditioned by sense, and even if the " ought " as a

concept were a pure a priori form applied by the mind to such data, consist

ency would demand that its function and application obey the same laws, and

be subject to the same limitations, as the other a priori forms of the mind

(for those moral data are data of human consciousness, and the concept of

the "ought " is a concept of the human intellect) : but then the concept and

its implications could enable us to attain merely to phenomena, and not to

reality.

As a matter of fact the concept of moral obligation, and all other moral

concepts, are formed by the human intellect through the same procedure, and

in obedience to the same laws, as are revealed in its formation of speculative

concepts. The notion of moral obligation is a complex notion. On analysis

it reveals a necessary relation as obtaining between a free act and an end

which imposes itself absolutely on the will. Analyse in turn the judgment

which asserts this relation and you will find in it the categories of relation,

final cause, action, efficient causality. And there we are back into the domain

of the " speculative reason ". Nor can the postulates of the practical reason be

established if the principle of causality be denied objective and real validity.

The attempt, therefore, to vindicate consistency for Kant s thought as ex

pressed in the two Critiques is found to break down hopelessly. The split

ting up of the human intellect into two separate faculties, and of the whole

domain of human experience into two water-tight compartments of " know

ledge" and " belief," will not and cannot satisfy human reason reflecting on

the grounds of its spontaneous assents. For "belief," no less than "know

ledge," is an assent. If, therefore, it has no grounds that reason can see and

pronounce to be objectively valid, it is not a " reasonable belief," an obscqtciiim

rationabile. Religious belief must then cease to be intellectual, doctrinal,

dogmatic, 1 and degenerate into a mere sentimental pietism. It will be the

1 Cf. supra, 141, p. 231, (/), where it was pointed out that Kant s theory

necessarily reduces Christianity (and indeed all positive religion) to a meie symbolism.

344 THEOR Y OF KNO WLEDGE

non-dogmatic religion which eschews all " creed " and identifies itself with

moral righteousness. But moral conduct, in turn, being based on a subjec

tive dictate of duty, a dictate that is alleged to emanate from the "auto

nomous " will of the individual, i.e. from an authority for which the individual s

reason can find no objectively valid credentials, -must inevitably tend to lose

its character as duty and to become a matter of individual feeling or caprice.

For the binding force of an obligation is incompatible with its being self-im

posed, and equally incompatible with its having no credentials that reason can

recognize and accept as adequate.

Moral Dogmatism was to foster men s moral and religious beliefs by

justly limiting the scope of knowledge ; by destroying the ancient pretensions

of the human mind to knowledge of the metaphysical, moral and religious

domains ; by grounding those beliefs, among the ruins of the speculative

reason, on a foundation that was to have nothing to fear from the impotent

attacks of its castigated knowledge. But Moral Dogmatism was all the while

itself an effort of that same human mind or reason, playing itself a suicidal

trick which really involved those beliefs in the same abyss of agnosticism in

which it sought to bury knowledge. The history of religion and morals dur

ing the last century under the influence of a widely prevalent anti-intellec-

tualism bears out only too well the justice of our strictures on such a philo

sophical attitude towards human certitude.