Noumenal Freedom and Kant’s Modal Antinomy

Uygar Abaci

doi:10.1017/s1369415421000340

Abstract

AbstractKant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent modal distinctions. Kohl (2015) and Stang (2016) claim that this statement entails that noumena lack modal properties, which, in turn, conflicts with Kant’s attribution of contingency to human noumenal wills. They both propose resolutions to this conflict based on conjectures regarding how God might non-modally represent what our discursive intellects represent as modally determined. I argue that (i) these proposals fail; (ii) the viable resolution consists in recognizing that we modalize human noumenal wills as a merely regulative-practical principle in our judgements of imputation.

Highlights

A viable resolution, I will argue, consists in recognizing that, while the MT follows from a theoretical reflection, the proposition that human noumenal wills have modal properties or in particular ‘ought implies can’ is a merely regulative principle of practical reason that we are required to employ in our judgements of imputation of moral failures to human agents, and should not be understood as part of a positive description of human noumenal wills
Even if Kant’s conception of noumenal freedom per se does not have to be regarded as carrying positive modal content, let us recall that Stang points to Kant’s principle of ‘ought implies can’ (OIC) as the ground of his claim that human noumenal freedom requires the attribution of possibility to do otherwise and contingency to our noumenal wills
Rather than taking Kant’s references to the possibility of willing/doing otherwise as theoretical statements purporting to describe the metaphysical mechanics of human noumenal volition, one could understand the modalization of the human free will as a regulative principle that we are both entitled and required to employ in our judgements of moral responsibility

Summary

Introduction

Even if Kant’s conception of noumenal freedom per se does not have to be regarded as carrying positive modal content, let us recall that Stang points to Kant’s principle of ‘ought implies can’ (OIC) as the ground of his claim that human noumenal freedom requires the attribution of possibility to do otherwise and contingency to our noumenal wills.

Results

Conclusion