Kant's Moral Metaphysics: God, Freedom, and Immortality

343 Pages·2010·1 MB·English

by  James Krueger

Kant’s Moral Metaphysics

Kant’s Moral Metaphysics

God, Freedom, and Immortality

Edited by
Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb
and James Krueger

De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-022003-2
e-ISBN 978-3-11-022004-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kant's moral metaphysics : God, freedom, and immortality /
edited by Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb and James Krueger.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-022003-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Kant,
Immanuel, 1724-1804. 2. Ethics. 3. Philosophical theology. I.
Lipscomb, Benjamin J. Bruxvoort. II. Krueger, James.
B2799.E8K43 2010
193--dc22
2010011702

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de

© Copyright 2010 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York.
Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
(cid:146) Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents
Note on Texts ..................................................................................... vii
Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
Section I. Moral Motivation, Moral Metaphysics
1. Karl Ameriks
Reality, Reason, and Religion in the Development
of Kant's Ethics ........................................................................................ 23
2. Benjamin Lipscomb
Moral Imperfection and Moral Phenomenology in Kant .................. 49

Section II. Interpreting Freedom
3. Patrick Frierson
Two Standpoints and the Problem of Moral Anthropology ............. 83
4. Jeanine Grenberg
In Search of the Phenomenal Face of Freedom ................................ 111

Section III. The Highest Good
5. David Sussman
Something to Love: Kant and the Faith of Reason .......................... 133
6. James Krueger
Duties, Ends and the Divine Corporation .......................................... 149

Section IV. Epistemology and the Supersensible
7. Andrew Chignell
Real Repugnance and Belief about Things-in-Themselves:
a Problem and Kant’s Three Solutions .............................................. 177
8. Patrick Kain
Practical Cognition, Intuition, and the Fact of Reason .................... 211
vi Table of Contents
Section V. Epistemology and Religion
9. Lee Hardy
Kant's Reidianism: The Role of Common Sense in
Kant’s Epistemology of Religious Belief .......................................... 233
10. Eric Watkins
Kant on the Hiddenness of God .......................................................... 255
11. Rachel Zuckert
Kant’s Account of Practical Fanaticism ............................................ 291
References ................................................................................................... 319
Index ............................................................................................................ 333
Note on Texts

As is customary, citations to Kant’s works refer to the volume and page
number of Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe, Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 1902-. Citations to the Critique of Pure Reason
include the usual reference to the first (“A”) or second (“B”) editions.
Except as noted in the text, all translations are from the Cambridge
Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (series editors Paul Guyer and
Allen Wood, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1996-). Any
modifications to translations are noted in the text.
Two essays in this volume have been published elsewhere, in part
or in whole. Chapter 10, “Kant on the Hiddenness of God,” appeared in
Kantian Review 14:1 (2009) pp. 81-122. Parts of Chapter 7 appeared in
“Are Supersensibles Really Possible? Kant on the Evidential Role of
Symbolization,” in V. Rhoden, T. Terra, G. Almeida (Eds.), Recht und
Frieden in der Philosophie Kants, Berlin, DeGruyter, 2008, and parts
appeared in “Real Repugnance and Knowledge of Things-in-
Themselves: A Problem from Locke in Kant and Hegel,” in F. Rush, K.
Ameriks, J. Stolzenberg (Eds.), Internationales Jahrbuch des Deut-
schen Idealismus, 7, Berlin, DeGruyter, 2010. The authors and the
editors are grateful to the publishers for permitting the material to reap-
pear here.

Introduction
James Krueger and Benjamin Lipscomb
Toward a Synoptic Vision: reading Kant metaphysically,
reading him whole
In the interpretation of any past philosopher, contemporary philoso-
phical interests shape how the interpretive task is conceived. The prob-
lems that interpreters bring to a text and the philosophical “common
sense” of the age affect how interpretive questions are raised and ad-
dressed. There is no reason to view this in an exclusively negative light,
as a simple conflict between distorted whiggish history and honest his-
torical scholarship. Shifting approaches can bring to light important
dimensions of a thinker’s work that have not been recognized. More-
over, the dialectic between scholarship that attempts to uncover the
original context in which a thinker wrote and scholarship that looks to
past figures for useful perspectives on questions of present interest can
be a fruitful spur to deeper understanding.
One can see this dialectic at work in the history of Kant scholarship.
In the introduction to his Interpreting Kant’s Critiques, Karl Ameriks
identifies three “waves” of interpretation (Ameriks 2003, pp. 1-3). The
first, he asserts, was characterized by historically grounded, “extensive
synoptic treatments” such as those offered by Hermann Cohen, H. J.
Paton, and Norman Kemp Smith.1 A second wave of interpreters turned
their attention to issues of then-current interest in the wider philosophi-
cal community, focusing on narrower segments of Kant’s work and
often leaving behind questions of historical context. Ameriks holds up
the works of, e.g., P. F. Strawson and Jonathan Bennett as exemplifying
this approach.2 Finally, a third, more recent wave of interpreters has
attempted both to engage with current philosophical debates and to
remain sensitive to the historical context of Kant’s writings.3 Ameriks
_____________

1 See Cohen 1978, 1987 and 2001; Paton 1936 and 1947; Smith 1923.
2 See Strawson 1966, Bennett 1966 and 1974.
3 For examples of this latest wave, see: Allison 1983, 1990, 2001; Guyer 1979, 1987,
2000a; Prauss 1983.