This article tries to make sense of the concept of the highest good (eternal bliss) in Søren Kierkegaard by comparing it to the analysis of the highest good found in Immanuel Kant. The comparison with Kant’s more systematic analysis helps us clarify the meaning and importance of the concept in Kierkegaard as well as to shed new light on the conceptual relation between Kant and Kierkegaard. The article argues that the concept of the highest good is of systematic importance in (...) Kierkegaard, although previous research has tended to overlook this, no doubt due to Kierkegaard’s cryptic use of the concept. It is argued that Kierkegaard’s concept of the highest good is much closer to Kant’s than what previous research has indicated. In particular, Kant and Kierkegaard see the highest good not only as comprising of virtue and happiness (bliss), but also as being the Kingdom of God. (shrink)

Those of us who enjoy certain products of the global industrial economy but also believe it is wrong to consume them are often so demoralized by the apparent inefficacy of our individual, private choices that we are unable to resist. Although he was a deontologist, Kant was clearly aware of this ‘consequent-dependent’ side of our moral psychology. One version of his ‘moral proof’ is designed to respond to the threat of such demoralization in pursuit of the Highest Good. That version (...) of the argument says that the capacity that faith and trust in God has to sustain our moral resolve licenses that faith and trust, from a practical point of view. My goal here is to argue that Kant’s proof has a contemporary, secular analogue in modern industrial contexts where the apparent “inefficacy” of an individual consumer’s choices in the face of massive insensitive supply-chains is a threat to her moral resolve. I conclude by suggesting that the Kantian approach may license us in adopting (as an item of defeasible moral faith) an evidential decision-theoretic principle regarding what it is to ‘make a difference.’ This in turn licenses trust -- if not in God then in other right-minded people. (shrink)

As we know, one of the most important theories concerning the relation between religion and Morality belongs to Immanuel Kant. In this paper, after presenting some of the outstanding ideas on the relation between religion and morality, we introduce Kant’s theory. In first stage, his distinction between revealed religion and historical religion and his interpretation of religion makes it difficult to find his own creative view. Finally it will be known that the relation between Kantian morality and revealed religion is (...) a non-historical one; they are two distinguished things and have no same origin. But through rational interpretation of revealed religion they could be compatible. But if his morality examined by the religion of they would be dual, each one has a separate origin and finally, the religion of practical reason would be depended on morality. In kants opus postumum, God is the same as practical reason and moral perfection and real happiness which is the prefect manifestation of practical reason in phenomenal realm, could be achieved in the moral commonwealth society. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against two prevailing views of Kant’s Religion. Against commentators such as Michalson and Quinn, who have argued that Kant’s project in Religion is riddled with inconsistencies and circularities, I show that a proper understanding of Kant’s views on grace reveals these do not exist. And contra commentators that attribute to Kant at best a minimalist conception of grace, I show that Kant’s view of it is remarkably robust. I argue that Kant works with three different (...) conceptions of grace. These are: a) grace and the God within, b) grace and the transformation of the fundamental orientation, and c) grace that can be laid hold of; the first and the last play a significant role in his philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The falsity of moral claims is commonly deduced from two tenets: that they presuppose the existence of objective values and that these values don’t exist. Hence, the error theory concludes, moral claims are false. In this article, I put pressure on the image of human morality that is presupposed in moving from the non-existence of objective values to the falsity of moral claims. I argue that, while, understood in a certain way, the two premises of the error theory are correct, (...) this does not render moral discourse false, because moral objectivity is disanalogous to objectivity in empirical sciences and as such need not be characterized in terms of mind-independency. Using Dewey, I illuminate the possibility of accommodating the guiding intuitions of the error theory in a first-order account of morality. (shrink)

Kant’s concept of grace in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason is a difficult topic, exegetically speaking. Obviously enough, Kant subscribes positively to a notion of divine assistance. This appears awkward given his rationalist ethics rooted in personal autonomy. This has given cause to interpreters of Kant’s philosophy of religion – both early commentators and today – to read Kant’s account of grace is uniquely rationalist. This would make grace a rational expectation given personal commitment to good works. The (...) argument of this paper is that grace is a hyperrationalist element in Kant’s practical philosophy because of the potentially problematic consequences of Kant’s views of human nature. Human nature is namely not particularly prone to be responsive to the rational moral law and therefore requires a number of pedagogical tools that facilitate moral agency. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of religion almost allergically reacts to metaphysics. They do so because of the various critiques of the potential reach of reason, which each in their own way argue that God cannot be appropriately approached via autonomous reason. In this article, I argue, on the one hand, that these critiques are furtively inspired by a certain outlook on transcendence, which I call the ‘Protestant view’ and, on the other hand, that numerous contemporary philosophers of religion are slowly starting to (...) appreciate a more ‘Catholic view’ on transcendence, which allows for a more metaphysically ambitious philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Kant’s ethics conceives of rational beings as autonomous–capable of legislating the moral law, and of motivating themselves to act out of respect for that law. Kant’s ethics also includes a notion of the highest good, the union of virtue with happiness proportional to, and consequent on, virtue. According to Kant, morality sets forth the highest good as an object of the totality of all things good as ends. Much about Kant’s conception of the highest good is controversial. This paper focuses (...) on the apparent conflict between Kant’s claim that we are autonomous, and passages in which he seems to suggest that we require belief in the possibility of the highest good to motivate moral action. I distinguish three distinct versions of these problematic claims that seem to be present in Kant’s texts: that the highest good serves as (1) a motivational supplement to respect for the moral law, (2) a fundamental spring of right action, and (3) a condition of the bindingness of moral requirements. I argue that the texts are better interpreted to yield alternatives to (2) and (3) that do not conflict with our autonomy. I also argue that, properly understood, (1) does not conflict with our autonomy. In arguing for the last claim, I explore Kant’s notion of radical evil and its implications for human agency and virtue. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of Manfred Kuehn’s observation that Kant’s claim in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that the ethical community must be a community under God seems “a bit strained.” After clarifying Kant’s train of thought that results in his conception of the ethical community in the form of the “visible church,” the paper argues that the seemingly strong religious dimension may be misleading. If we understand the ethical community to be the development of the kingdom (...) of ends in the Groundwork, it becomes apparent that Kant’s notion of God’s “sovereignty” over the ethical community is a shared sovereignty lodged in rationality and not in God’s own will. The “strain” that Kuehn senses thus suggests the potentially gratuitous nature of Kant’s references to God’s sovereignty over the ethical community. Despite the initial appearances, Kant’s account of the ethical community in the form of the visible church is, over the long term, closer to a secularizing move than to a robustly religious one. (shrink)

بر اساس اندیشۀ کانت در دوران نقدی، ایدۀ خدا به عنوان یکی از ایده‌های استعلایی عقل محض مطرح است که عقل نظری با توجه به محدودیت‌هایش نمی‌تواند له یا علیه آن برهانی اقامه کند. اما در دوران پیشانقدی، کانت رسالۀ مستقلی با عنوان «تنها حجت ممکن در تأیید برهان وجود خدا» تألیف کرده و در آن سعی کرده است تا وجود خدا را از طریق براهین عقل نظری اثبات کند. اهمیت این رساله در این است که از یک سو بر (...) خلاف اندیشۀ دوران نقدی برای عقل نظری شأن برهان‌آوری در اثبات وجود خدا قائل می‌شود و از سوی دیگر، بر خلاف سنت ولفی‌ـ‌لایبنیتسی، به جای برهان جهان‌شناختی، برهان طبیعی‌ـ‌الهیاتی را مطرح می‌کند. به علاوه، با محور قرار دادن مفهوم امکان در تقریر برهان وجودی، با تقریر فیلسوفان پیشین - علی‌الخصوص دکارت - مخالفت می‌کند و تقریر جدیدی از آن ارائه می‌دهد. در این مقاله ابتدا مسیر اختصاصی استدلال کانت مبنی بر اثبات وجود خدا را بر مبنای رسالۀ مذکور توضیح داده‌ایم و در مرحلۀ دوم، مستند به برخی پژوهش‌های جدیدتر، نشان داده‌ایم که تعارض بین عنوان کتاب و محتوای آن ، که برخی دیگر کانت‌شناسان را به این گمان انداخته که کانت متهافت سخن گفته است، یک تعارض بدوی و برآمده از ترجمۀ خطای اصطلاح Beweisgrund از آلمانی به انگلیسی است. (shrink)