18 - Freedom in Appearance: Notes on Schiller and His Development of Kant's Aesthetics

Summary

In the first pages of the second edition of the 1794 treatise Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason one finds a long footnote in which Kant acknowledges the objections of an eminent critic of his writings and justifies once more his “rigorist” ethics, elaborated in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in the second Critique and in the first edition of Religion itself, according to which can be admitted in his doctrine of morals no “intermediate moral concept.” We read this:

Professor Schiller, in his masterful treatise on gracefulness and dignity in morality (Thalia, 1793, 3rd issue), disapproves of this way of representing obligation, because it carries with it the frame of mind of a Carthusian. Since we are however at one upon the most important principles, I cannot admit disagreement on this one, if only we can make ourselves clear to one another. —I readily grant that I am unable to associate gracefulness with the concept of duty, by reason of its very dignity. For the concept of duty includes unconditional necessitation, to which gracefulness stands in direct contradiction. The majesty of the law (like the law on Sinai) instills awe (not dread, which repels; and also not fascination, which invites familiarity); and this awe arouses the respect of the subject toward his master, except that in this case, since the master lies in us, it arouses a feeling of the sublimity of our own vocation that enraptures us more than any beauty. (Religion, 6:23)