Kant on Moral Freedom and Moral Slavery

Abstract

AbstractKant's account of the freedom gained through virtue builds on the Socratic tradition. On the Socratic view, when morality is our end, nothing can hinder us from attaining satisfaction: we are self-sufficient and free since moral goodness is (as Kant says) ‘created by us, hence is in our power’. But when our end is the fulfilment of sensible desires, our satisfaction requires luck as well as the cooperation of others. For Kant, this means that happiness requires that we get other people to work for our ends; and this requires, in turn, that we gain control over the thingsotherpeople value so as to have influence over them. If this plan for happiness is not subordinated to morality, then what is most valuable to us will be precisely whatothersvalue. This is the root of the ‘passions’ that make us evil and make us slaves whose satisfaction depends on others. But, significantly, this dependence is amoralslavery and hence does not signal a loss, or even diminishment of the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility.