Kantian freedom at a distance

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that, as practical deliberators, we are inescapably conscious of being bound by the moral law. This moral consciousness grounds our right to think of our will as free, from a practical point of view. But it is less clear what justifies our ascriptions of moral personhood and freedom to others. On one common view, harkening back to Fichte, Kant shows only that each of us can prove her- or himself to be free and subject to the moral law, but can offer no argument by which we can prove that others are. I argue that this view overlooks Kant’s crucial insight into the nature of moral agency: the practical point of view is not merely first-personal; it has a complex, multi-faceted structure that provides us with an original practical awareness of others as moral persons and as free. We do not first establish our own personhood and freedom and then extend it to others through a set of analogical inferences. Rather, our moral self-awareness would not be possible without awareness of others as free moral agents and vice versa.