The Connection between Reason and Morality in the Kantian Moral System

Abstract

<p>It is the aim of this thesis to begin to sort out the relation between reason (as a "higher" mental faculty) and the moral system that Kant develops. This is done through an investigation of the Kantian conception of reason and an investigation of Kant's moral system itself. The idea of the unconditioned, as a necessary condition for the possibility of morality, is identified as being that which connects the two terms.</p> <p>The first part of this thesis deals with Kant's conception of the faculty or function of reason (as opposed to the faculty of the understanding), and this· is centered around two main elements: syllogistic thinking and the subjective maxim to find the condition for all conditioned cognitions. From this, and given what I call the "ambiguous" nature of the pure concepts of the understanding, I begin to trace the development of the idea of the unconditioned. This idea of the unconditioned, I claim, belongs solely to pure reason.</p> <p>In the second part of my thesis, starting from what I take to be Kant's basic presuppositions about morality, the most basic being universality of moral rules, and from the Kantian notion of the will, I attempt to reconstruct, in a systematic way an argument leading to the formation of iii particular moral laws or categorical imperatives. Along the way, the various notions of the unconditioned are noted (e.g., the unconditionally good will, the unconditionally good object), and these are linked to the idea of the causally unconditioned, viz., freedom.</p> <p>In the third and final part I make explicit, though in no comprehensive way, the relation between the idea of the unconditioned (and thus pure reason) and morality.</p>