1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois, 7 October 2001

I. Introduction

A. Immanuel Kant, 18th century German philosopher (1724-1804), represents the

culmination of the Enlightenment, the pinnacle period in Western thought for reliance on

reason and valuing the contributions of philosophy and scientific knowledge.

B. It is virtually impossible to understand subsequent developments in philosophy without

understanding Kant's views.

C. His views have also had great impact on our culture generally, especially with regard to

the role of religion and the nature of ethical behavior and political institutions.

D. Kant's philosophy is usually classified as "skeptical idealism." It is skeptical in that it

denies the possibility that humans can have knowledge about how reality really is as

distinct from how it appears to us. It is idealistic in that it claims that our mind and its ideas

are the reality with which each of us must deal.

1. In Kant's terminology the phenomenal world is the space-time or natural world as it is

presented to us in sense experience. It is the world which science studies. It has three

spatial dimensions plus a time dimension. It must have this Euclidean, Newtonian

mechanistic, deterministic appearance because that is the form in which the mind casts all

of our experience. We cannnot even imagine what the beginning of time would be like or

what the edge of space would be like. Before time there would be some more time and

beyond the edge of space there would be more space. We cannot even image what an

uncaused event would be like. There would have to be some cause for what happens even

if we don't yet know what that cause is. Could it possibly be that there is no cause for

cancer or for Alzheimer's disease?

2. But Kant claims that there must also be something outside of our experience which

accounts for the content of experience. The world must be a space-time world but there

are many possibilities but only one is realized. Which particular one is realized is a

contingent matter. The content of our experience could have been different even though it

must be in space-time and of a mechanistic deterministic nature.

II. Fundamental to Kant's thinking is the distinction between what is necessarily true of all

experience, what could not be otherwise, and what is contingent, what aspects of our

experienced world could be other than they are.

A. A priori truths are necessary and universal. A good example is mathematics. Two and

two must add up to four. The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference must be

¼ (pi or 3.1416). The shortest distance between two points must be a straight line. But the

basic truths of physics are also necessary. The force of gravity must be pro-portional to the

masses of the objects and the square of the distance between them. All events must be

caused by the conjunction of the laws of nature and the state of the universe at the

previous moment. It is impossible for something to just happen.

B. A posteriori truths are contingent and dependent on what we can learn from our sense

experience. Although we can be certain that all events have causes, we must turn to actual

sense experiences in order to discover what causes what.

1. Scientists have the task of finding out what causes what. It is not appropriate for

theologians and philosophers to speculate about such matters since they are not relying on

sense experience to learn about them as the scientists are.

2. In the natural space-time world studied by scientists, there is no possibility that some

non-material, non-spatial God or gods will be discovered. There is no possibility that a

nonmaterial soul will be discovered. There is no possibilty that something like free will can

turn up, since all occurrences must have some kind of a material cause.

3. Yet for religion and philosophy the crucial issues are the existence of God, the existence

of an immortal soul, and the existence of free will.

III. For Kant we must then distinguish between the phenomenal natural world studied by

scientists and another reality which exists outside of our sense experience, a reality which

he calls the noumenal world, the world known by the mind independently of sense

experience.

A. Consider one's knowledge of one's self. Our self is not an object of our sense

experience. It is rather the subject that has the sense experiences. We have sense

experience of our bodies. We have memories of our past ideas. But we are not our bodies

or our memories. Our selves are something different that never become part of our

experienced world but are only those unperceived somethings which are having the

experiences and ideas.

1. These unperceived somethings which have the experiences and ideas are our noumenal

selves. Noumenal selves are not part of the phenomenal world but they are real.

2. Scientists focused on the phenomenal world will never be able to discover nou-menal

selves even though they really exist.

B. Not only noumenal selves but also other parts of the noumenal world cannot be known

by studying the phenomenal world. Scientists can never discover God or immortal souls or

free wills but that does not mean that they do not exist.

C. At the same time, this observation does not prove that they do exist. From a theoretical

point of view we must remain skeptical about God, immortality, and free will.

IV. Kant's argument for believing in God, immortality, and free will is based on taking a

practical point of view rather than a theoretical one.

A. Suppose that free will does not exist. In that case deliberating about whether we should

do what duty requires instead of just following our self-serving inclinations would make no

sense. Morality requires presupposing that we have free will. This argument doesn't prove

that we have free will, but it shows that we must believe that we have free will or forget

about taking morality seriously.

B. Suppose that God does not exist. In that case the world has no purpose and there is no

assurance that good will prevail in the end. Reality is amoral, so why try to be moral? We

must believe that God exists or lose any rationale for being concerned about morality.

C. Suppose that there is no immortality. In that case there is no chance for good people's

moral character to be further perfected. Even good wills are going to fall short of

perfection in the kind of world we now inhabit. We must believe in immortality or lose the

hope of ever becoming the totally good persons we aspire to become. Also a morally just

universe requires the bringing together of virtue and happiness, something which is often

lacking in this life.

D. Though we cannot prove that God, free will, and immortality exist, we must believe

that they exist in order to have a basis for taking morality seriously. Also the scientists

cannot claim that they don't exist just because they do not show up anywhere in the

phenomenal world.

V. Kant's ethical views have also been influential. His view provides an ideal case of a

duty-based or deontological ethical view.

A. The aim of each person should be to be a good person, to have a good will, to be a

person who always tries to do one's duty despite pressures or rewards to do otherwise.

Good or bad consequences for oneself are totally irrelevant to moral issues.

B. Doing one's duty means acting in accord with the moral law, and the moral law consists

of acting in a manner that you could will that everyone always would act on the basis of

the same principles (maxims). This moral law, known by reason, is called the "categorical

imperative" and is basically the same as the Golden Rule. The basic idea is that one must

do what the moral law requires rather than trying to excuse oneself on the basis of other

concerns or interests or on the basis of what everyone else is doing.

C. When we fail to do our duty it is because of inclinations which tempt us to do what is

best from our egoistic point of view rather than doing what duty requires. A good will is

one which always acts on the basis of what duty requires rather than from other motives.

D. Sometimes we just naturally do what duty requires, but such acts have no moral value

even though they may make us nice people to be around. The true moral test comes when

duty and inclination push in opposite directions. A good will is one which does what duty

requires even when one must suffer, possibly unjustly, as a result.

E. It is just because duty may require us to do what leads us to suffer greatly (and possibly

even die as a result) that we need the religious assurance that the universe is a moral

universe as a base for this serious kind of morality.

F. Note that Kant's ethics have an a priori foundation. The categorical imperative (Act in

such a way that you could will that all others in all possible situations would always follow

the same maxim) does not change from time to time or place to place (although the

particular behavior required by the moral law could possibly change depending on the

circumstances). His strict morality allows for no cultural relativism or doing what others do

or what they happen to approve.

G. Kant's view of humans is that they are physically animals like other animals but that

they are also noumenal selves, and it is this noumenal self which is somewhat like God. To

be a good person is to have the divine noumenal part of ourselves prevail over the physical

animal part. Then we become worthy of immortality.

H. One form of the categorical imperative is that one should never view other people as

simply means or instruments to be used for our purposes. They should always be viewed

as ends-in-themselves. People are immortal noumenal selves and are thus in a different

class from anything else in the world.

VI. In the area of philosophy of history and social history that Kant's views have also been

very influential.

A. Kant argues that human history has a purpose, namely, the perfection of society so that

people will be free to live in accord with moral principles. All people would be free to use

reason to develop their noumenal selves. History is moving toward more democratic social

institutions where reason & moral law rather than physical force rule.

B. Just as in individuals, reason overcomes the inclinations of the physical organism, so in

society the influence of reason gradually overcomes the earlier situation where events were

controlled by the inclinations and self-regarding actions of a few physically strong rulers.

C. Ultimately, there will be a global society in which war will have been eliminated and

where people will be free to live morally rather than being oppressed by authori-tarian

governments which use their citizens as means to get more power for the rulers.

D. Kant envisions a loosely united community of democratic countries such as the

European Union or the Organization of American States rather than a world government.

In accord with his Enlightenment background, he wants to rely much more on natural law

and the kind of voluntary cooperation we find in the United Nations than on the kind of

democratic global federation which would make and enforce world law on individual

violators advocated by world federalists.