Although the best-known Hegelian objection against Kant's moral philosophy is the charge that the categorical imperative is an ‘empty formalism’, Hegel's criticisms also include what we might call the realizability objection. Tentatively stated, the realizability objection says that within the sphere of Kantian morality, the good remains an unrealizable ‘ought’ – in other words, the Kantian moral ‘ought’ can never become an ‘is’. In this paper, I attempt to come to grips with this objection in two steps. In the first (...) section of the paper, I provide an initial reading of the objection, according to which Hegel agrees with Kant's formulation of the realizability problem but disagrees with the specific Kantian solution, namely, with the Kantian idea of the highest good and the doctrine of the postulates. In the second section, I go on to argue that this reading is potentially too superficial and offer a more far-reaching interpretation whereby Hegel is ultimately targeting fundamental distinctions of Kant's moral theory. I end by employing these more far-reaching results of Hegel's objection to sketch some features of Hegel's alternative ethical view. (shrink)

Discussing two common critiques on theological interpretations of the concept of the highest good in Kant’s moral philosophy in his paper, Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant, Reath has invited readers to have a secular interpretation of this concept and pointed out its advantages. In the present paper, we will attempt to provide the main principles of Reath’s claims and demonstrate why Kant has stated both of these interpretations in all of his critical works—a subject that has confused (...) Reath. For this purpose, we will indicate that in both of the above interpretations, Kant has offered the concept of the highest good in a historical context, in which the intellectual idea of the highest good as a desired ultimate totality makes the intellect to grow in history and cultivate the talents of human kind through numerous conflicts embedded in nature. (shrink)

Las antinomias de la razón ocupan un lugar destacado en el sistema crítico de Kant. El conflicto de la razón consigo misma es lo que despierta al Profesor de Königsberg del “sueño dogmático” y lo conduce a la elaboración del idealismo trascendental. Sin embargo, las antinomias de la razón práctica no han ocupado el mismo lugar que aquellas del uso teórico. De hecho, muchos estudiosos de la obra kantiana consideran que no hay, en sentido estricto, una antinomia de la razón (...) en su uso práctico. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que hay una antinomia de la razón práctica. Particularmente, mostremos por qué la antinomia de la razón práctica se debe entender a la luz del concepto kantiano de absurdum practicum. (shrink)