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The Irreducible Importance of Religious Hope in Kant's Conception of the Highest Good

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Christopher Insole
Christopher Insole
Affiliation:
Durham University
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Abstract

Kant is clear that the concept of the ‘highest good’ involves both a demand, that we follow the moral law, as well as a promise, that happiness will be the outcome of being moral. The latter element of the highest good has troubled commentators, who tend to find it metaphysically extravagant, involving, as it does, belief in God and an afterlife. Furthermore, it seems to threaten the moral purity that Kant demands: that we obey the moral law for its own sake, not out of interest in the consequences. Those commentators brave enough to tackle the issue look to the concept of the highest good either to add content to the moral law (Silber), or to provide rational motivation, in a way that does not violate moral purity (Beiser and Wood). I argue that such interpretations, although they may be plausible reconstructions, are unable to account for certain conceptual and textual problems. By placing Kant's thought against the background of medieval theology, I argue that the hope for the summum bonum is irreducibly important for Kant, even where its function is not that of providing the content or motivational force of the moral law. Kant is not only concerned with the shape of our duties and motivations, but the shape of the universe within which these emerge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 333 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2008

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References

1 Kant, , Critique of Practical Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 92, 5:110Google Scholar. I give the reference to the standard German edition of Kant's works (volume and page number), which –except for the Critique of Pure Reason- is that issued by der Deutschen (formerly Koniglichen Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902). The standard method of citing The Critique of Pure Reason is according to the page numbers of the first (A) and second (B) edition.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Kant, , ‘Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion’, pp.341–451 in (trans.) and (ed.) Wood, Allen W. and di Giovanni, George, Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 415–6, 28:1083–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Ibid.

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14 Ibid., p. 102.

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16 Ibid.

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19 Ibid.

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22 Ibid., p. 97, 27:308.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., p. 117, 27:334.

26 Ibid., p. 99, 27:311.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., p. 103, 27:316.

29 Ibid., p. 99, 27:311.

30 Ibid., p. 100, 27:312.

31 Ibid.

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34 Ibid., p. 91, 5:109.

35 Ibid., p. 92, 5:109.

36 Ibid., p. 96, 5:115.

37 Ibid., p. 95, 5:114,

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41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

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50 Ibid.

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56 ST, Ia2ae. 1,6.

57 ST, Ia2ae. 2,7.

58 ST, Ia2ae. 4,1.

59 ST, Ia2ae. 4,1.

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61 Kant, , ‘Lectures on the philosophical doctrine of religion’, 28:1002–3, p. 349Google Scholar.

62 Kant's apparent equivocation about Spinoza in the Critique of Judgment, on the one hand praising his character, whilst on the hand giving warnings about the dangers of atheism, is one of the things that so irritates R.Z. Friedman about Kant's ‘inconsistent’ back-peddling from the necessity of belief in the highest good to moral motivation, ‘The Importance and Function of Kant's Highest Good’, pp. 331–335.

63 Beiser makes a similar effort to place Kant's concept in an appropriately theological context, in ‘Moral faith and the highest good’. Although Beiser's instinct is absolutely correct, I would suggest that his choice of the ‘Augustinian tradition’ (p. 599) is a less enriching vein to explore than the Thomistic-scholastic tradition, which Kant with his scholastic-rationalist background would have been closer to.

64 Kant, , Critique of Practical Reason, p. 94, 5:112Google Scholar.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.