From Freedom to Freedom

Abstract

This chapter studies the significant shift, in the 1760s and 1770s, in Kant’s conception of what human freedom must consist in: from compatibilism to transcendental freedom. We find that in his early thought, a deterministic conception of freedom is not merely presented as compatible, in some sense, with a notion of freedom. Although committed to a ‘Newtonian’ account of the behaviour of the physical universe, the success of such accounts, for the pre-critical Kant, is grounded upon a Platonic conception of fundamental reality, which makes recourse to the notion of an intrinsic teleology within all created beings. For this reason, determinism is celebrated as a manifestation and emanation of the order, harmony, and divinity that characterize the being of God. The chapter shows how this changes in the 1760s and 1770s, as Kant pivots into his radically different critical conception of freedom, and of our highest created good. By the 1780s Kant is convinced that we are only free, if we are, in some fundamental sense, the first cause of our actions, without any exterior or prior causal forces acting upon us. Everything Kant says about happiness and the highest good that comes after this shift will look quite different, although, the chapter suggests, there are some subterranean continuities between his pre-critical and critical thought.