Abstract
Abstract The article has the aim to show that Kant’s “standard” conception of the highest good does not represent his last word about the problem. Kant moves from a conception of the highest good close connected with the metaphysical tradition and with the aim of a new, moral justification of traditional metahysical concepts such as God and immortality of the soul. This view does find many difficulties and oscillations in the Critiques, looking for different formulations of a moral “proof” for the metaphysical concepts, grounded upon the need of justice and of a rational solution to the question of theodicy. The failure of this project is apparent with the essay on theodicy (1791). In the last decade of Kant’s intellectual activity, the expression “highest good” occurs few times and the concept looses its systematic relevance, as shown by the last works up to the Opus postumum.
Highlights
In 1963 – more than 20 years after his great work on Kant’s transcendental deduction (1934) – the prominent Kant scholar Hermann Jean de Vleeschauwer published a now-neglected article devoted to the Critique of Pure Reason (de Vleeschauwer 1963)
Kant moves from a conception of the highest good close connected with the metaphysical tradition and with the aim of a new, moral justification of traditional metahysical concepts such as God and immortality of the soul
What interests me rather is de Vleeschauwer’s illustration of how and how much the heritage of modern metaphysical tradition does play a role in the Critique of Pure Reason
Summary
In 1963 – more than 20 years after his great work on Kant’s transcendental deduction (1934) – the prominent Kant scholar Hermann Jean de Vleeschauwer published a now-neglected article devoted to the Critique of Pure Reason (de Vleeschauwer 1963). In the lectures on ethics, Kant’s discussion of the highest good leads him to a discussion of ancient moral philosophy, because with the moderns – he writes in the second Critique – “the question of the highest good seems to have gone out of use or at least to have become a secondary matter” (Kant 1788/1996, 64), the ancients too did not give the correct answer to the question In this context Kant’s attitude is directed towards a metaphysical solution. Kant repeats several times that the best representation of the greatest moral perfection as highest good is given by the ideal offered in the gospel: the rational justification of the Christian ideal would be Kant’s answer to the problem of justice in the world.. In the last decade of his intellectual activity, Kant looks for a different solution of the problem of realization of morality, and the highest good is no longer a central concept of his philosophical horizon, having lost its systematic relevance
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