In this chapter, I argue that Kant does not offer a theoretical proof of the normative primacy of the moral law and, hence, sees no place for a deduction of its validity. Instead, his efforts are aimed at “showing” the objective reality of morality in one’s actual experience. However, this “showing” cannot stand on its own insofar as it presupposes an interpretive theoretical framework which consists in drawing an analogy between theoretical and practical reason and which relies on the truth of transcendental idealism. I refer to this special strategy of Kant’s justification as his justification from a “practical point of view.” From this follows our cognition of the objective reality of freedom which should not be understood as a theoretical inference from one piece of theoretical knowledge to another of some existent empirical thing but as a form of practical cognition.

With Kant’s conception of organisms as “natural ends” nature and freedom are represented as harmoniously cohering with each other thereby giving us a special reassurance of reason’s causal efficacy in nature. For Kant, in order to make organic formations intelligible, we must represent the rule of their organization as reciprocal causality. I contend that this rule of reciprocal causality serves as a schema-analogue of reason’s Idea of absolute freedom. Moreover, I proceed to show that the antinomial conflict of teleological judgment is a conflict between two perspectives on nature: theoretical (scientific) in the thesis and practical in the antithesis. Therefore, the solution to the antinomy does not merely offer a justification for the explanatory compatibility of mechanical and teleological explanation in our representation of a single organic formation but also leads to a view of the world according to which the theoretical and the practical representations of nature “must cohere.”

Hegel dedicates ‘Teleology’ in his Logic to resolve Kant’s antinomies about causality: the third antinomy of reason and the antinomy of judgement. This chapter first connects these distinct Kantian antinomies. I argue that Hegel is right that the opposition of the causal concepts involved in them is substantially the same. I also advocate that Hegel is right too in supposing that for Kant the conflicting concepts remain opposed after the ‘solution’ to the different logical conflicts in the various Critiques is reached. I argue that, in contrast, Hegel’s own resolution tries to deliver a proper unification of these concepts.

In his Eleutheriology or On Freedom and Necessity (1788), Ulrich is concerned with the prospect of the concept of transcendental freedom carving out conceptual space between necessity and chance. He notes the ingenuity of Kant’s restriction of natural necessity to appearances and his attempt to locate freedom in a sphere independent of temporal conditions. However, the denial of natural necessity to things in themselves does not entail that the intelligible character is not necessarily determined in a way independent of temporal conditions. Ulrich presses this issue with respect to those instances in which pure reason does not effectively determine the will, i.e. with respect to immoral action. He asserts that there either is a ground sufficient for the exercise or omission of reason’s efficacy, or not. If there is such a ground, then reason is necessarily determined and Kant is ultimately a determinist even with respect to the intelligible character. If there is not, then whether we act morally or immorally is the result of chance, which is irrational.

The paper examines a set of critical arguments presented by Johann August Heinrich Ulrich in his 1788 book Eleutheriology or On Freedom and Necessity against Kant’s conception of transcendental freedom and the categorical nature of moral imperatives. Ulrich’s arguments are worth examining for a number of reasons. Historically, his criticism of transcendental freedom is of interest partly for its novel interpretation of the principle of sufficient reason and partly for the use he makes of it in presenting an early version of the so-called problem of luck, which features centrally in the contemporary discussion of libertarian accounts of freedom. Structurally, Ulrich’s criticisms cleverly target the delicate balance Kant seeks to establish between transcendental freedom and the moral “ought” and help bring into view the relations between practical and theoretical claims in Kant’s defense of transcendental freedom. I argue that a Kantian response to Ulrich’s criticism of transcendental freedom is possible and that the basis for Ulrich’s rejection of Kantian categoricity – a naturalistic conception of ethical necessity – is flawed. By the same token, however, my argument shows the importance of Ulrich’s book when it comes to engaging with Kant’s philosophy.