Zur vermeintlichen vorkritischen Moralphilosophie in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft

Abstract

Abstract Time and again, one finds in the literature the view that Kant held a pre-critical or semi-critical moral philosophy in the canon chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is shown, firstly, by the fact that practical freedom is understood as cognized through experience and, secondly, by the fact that Kant not only allows a sensuous incentive for the observance of the moral law, but considers it necessary. Against that, it is argued in this essay that, firstly, moral philosophy as such is not addressed in the canon at all and, secondly, that the canon by no means approves of sensuous incentives with regard to the morally required promotion of the highest good. What is indeed addressed, although only in the second section of the canon, is moral theology.