A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'

by Norman Kemp Smith

Thus freedom is for Kant a demonstrated fact, and in that respect differs from the Ideas of God and immortality, which are merely problematic conceptions, and which can be postulated only as articles of “practical faith.”

This brings us to the final question, upon what grounds Kant ascribes validity to the Ideas of God and immortality. At this point in his argument Kant introduces the conception of the Summum Bonum. Reason, in prescribing the moral law, prescribes, as the final and complete end of all our actions, the Summum Bonum, i.e. happiness proportioned to moral worth. Owing to the limitations of our faculties, the complete attainment of this supreme end is conceivable by us only on the assumption of a future life wherein perfect worthiness may be attained, and of an omnipotent Divine Being who will apportion happiness in accordance with merit.

”[This Divine Being] must be omnipotent, in order that the whole of nature and its relation to morality ... may be subject to his will; omniscient, that he may know our innermost sentiments and their moral worth; omnipresent, that he may be immediately present for the satisfying of every need which the highest good demands; eternal, that this harmony of nature and freedom may never fail, etc.”[1729]

The moral ideal thus supplies us with a ground[1730] for regarding the universe as systematically ordered according to moral purposes, and also with a principle that enables us to infer the nature and properties of its Supreme Cause. In place of a demonology, which is all that physical theology can establish, we construct upon moral grounds a genuine theology.

The concepts thus obtained are, however, anthropomorphic; and for that reason alone must be denied all speculative value. This is especially evident in regard to the Idea of God. Owing to our incapacity to comprehend how moral merit can condition happiness, we conceive them as externally combined through the intervention of a supreme Judge and Ruler. As Kant indicates,[1731] we must not assert that this represents the actual situation. He himself seems to have inclined to a more mystical interpretation of the universe, conceiving the relation of happiness to virtue as being grounded in a supersensuous but necessary order that may, indeed, be bodied forth in the inadequate symbols of the deistic creed, but which in its true nature transcends our powers of understanding. So far as the Ideas of God and immortality are necessary to define the moral standpoint, they have genuine validity for all moral beings; but if developed on their own account as speculative dogmas, they acquire a definiteness of formulation which is not essential to their moral function, and which lays them open to suspicion even in their legitimate use.

These considerations also indicate Kant’s further reason for entitling the Summum Bonum, God and immortality, Ideas of faith. Though they can be established as presuppositions of the moral situation in which we find ourselves, such demonstration itself rests upon the acceptance of the moral consciousness as possessing a supersensuous sanction; and that in turn is determined by features in the moral situation not deducible from any higher order of considerations.

“Belief in matters of faith is a belief in a pure practical point of view, i.e. a moral faith, which proves nothing for theoretical, pure, rational cognition, but only for that which is practical and directed to the fulfilment of its duties; it in no way extends speculation.... If the supreme principle of all moral laws is a postulate, the possibility of its highest Object ... is thereby postulated along with it.”[1732] “So far, as practical Reason has the right to yield us guidance, we shall not look upon actions as obligatory because they are the commands of God, but shall regard them as divine commands because we have an inward obligation to them.... Moral theology is thus of immanent use only. It enables us to fulfil our vocation in this present world by showing us how to adapt ourselves to the system of all ends, and by warning us against the fanaticism and indeed the impiety of abandoning the guidance of a morally legislative Reason in the right conduct of our lives, in order to derive guidance directly from the Idea of the Supreme Being. For we should then be making a transcendent employment of moral theology; and that, like a transcendent use of pure speculation, must pervert and frustrate the ultimate ends of Reason.”[1733]

SECTION III
OPINING, KNOWING, AND BELIEVING[1734]

Kant first distinguishes between conviction (Ueberzeugung) and persuasion (Ueberredung). A judgment which is objectively grounded, and which is therefore valid for all other rational beings, is affirmed with conviction. When the affirmation is due only to the peculiar character of the subject, the manner in which it is asserted may be entitled persuasion. Persuasion is therefore “a mere illusion.”[1735] Conviction exists in three degrees, opinion, belief, and knowledge. In opinion we are conscious that the judgment is insufficiently grounded, and that our conviction is subjectively incomplete. In belief the subjective conviction is complete, but is recognised as lacking in objective justification. In knowledge the objective grounds and the subjective conviction are alike complete.

After pointing out that opinion is not permissible in judgments of pure Reason,[1736] Kant develops the further distinction between pragmatic or doctrinal belief and moral belief. When a belief is contingent (i.e. is affirmed with the consciousness that on fuller knowledge it may turn out to be false), and yet nevertheless supplies a ground for the employment of means to certain desired ends, it may be called pragmatic belief. Such belief admits of degree, and can be tested by wager or by oath.[1737] What may be called doctrinal belief is analogous in character, and is taken by Kant, in somewhat misleading fashion, as describing our mode of accepting such doctrines as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.[1738] They are adopted as helpful towards a contingent but important end, the discovery of order in the system of nature. This account of the nature of Ideas is in line with Kant’s early view of them as merely regulative. Taken in connection with his repeated employment of the term ‘moral sentiments’ (moralische Gesinnungen), it tends to prove that this section is early in date of writing.