In the Introduction to his 1817 Encyclopedia, Hegel tells us that philosophy as a whole can be understood as “the science of freedom” (¶ 5).  In this paper, I consider what Hegel could mean in describing one branch of his system, the logic, as the science of freedom.  It is not obvious what this purely theoretical science has to do with freedom, at least if we associate freedom with human action.  I argue that, in common with the other two branches of his encyclopedic system, Hegel’s Logic can be characterized as “the science of freedom” because it shares features he associates with the nature of free subjectivity.  In particular, I focus on his account of how thought develops and is capable of generating its own form.

INTRODUCTION: THE MAIN TOPICS OF SECTION II

Of the three sections of the Groundwork, Section II is by far the longest and most sweeping in scope. It is in this Section that Kant finally identifies the categorical imperative as the supreme law of morality. He discusses a number of different formulations of the law, and he explains the sense in which the law commands categorically. In addition, he considers various applications of the moral law. He indicates in a preliminary way how particular duties may be derived from it. Kant also sets out to deepen our understanding of the central character of Section I, the good will. He further clarifies the way in which the motivational ground of the good will differs from other motivational grounds. As we know, the good will acts from duty. In acting from duty, it allows the categorical imperative to govern its will. We learn in Section II that the categorical imperative is a law rational agents give themselves. Kant argues that rational agents are able to give themselves law in virtue of their remarkable capacity of self-determination or autonomy.

DUTY IS NOT A CONCEPT OF EXPERIENCE (406–412)

The first sentence of Section II reminds us of a central claim of the Groundwork, namely, that the concept of duty is not a concept of experience. We first encountered this claim in Kant's Preface. A “metaphysics” of morals is “indispensably necessary,” he asserted there, precisely because morality cannot rest on anything empirical (389).

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals of 1785 is one of the most profound and important works in the history of practical philosophy. In this Introduction to the Groundwork, I provide a guide to Kant's text that follows the course of his discussion virtually paragraph by paragraph. I have aimed to convey Kant's ideas and arguments as clearly and simply as possible, without getting lost in scholarly controversies. I have tried to produce a guide that is easy to use. The organization of all but my first chapter mirrors that of Kant's discussion in the Preface and three sections of the Groundwork. I subdivide my chapters into topic headings that track the progression of his arguments. I frequently provide page references to the Academy edition of the Groundwork, so that the reader can match up my discussion with the relevant passages in Kant's text.

Although I have strived for accessibility throughout this work, the reader will discover that I have not always succeeded. In part, this reflects the fact that Kant's own narrative in the Groundwork is not uniformly accessible. He is particularly obscure when he turns his attention to methodological matters. Moreover, he sometimes relies on arguments he has provided in other texts. This is most obviously the case in the third and most challenging section of the Groundwork, where he sets out to demonstrate the reality of human freedom.

INTRODUCTION

Kant's task in his Preface to the Groundwork is threefold: First, he sets out to clarify his main objectives in the text. Second, he provides clues to the method he will use to accomplish his objectives. Third, he indicates how he intends to organize the work. He devotes his first paragraphs to clarifying the title of the book, a title even he admits is “intimidating” (391). The Groundwork, he says, is not a work in physics or logic but a work in the area he refers to as “morals” [Sitten] or “ethics” [Ethik]. Kant notes that the book is a special kind of treatise in morals or ethics: it is a “groundwork” of the “metaphysics” of morals. These latter terms are technical; we will have to consider what he means by them.

The objectives of the Groundwork

As I noted in my Introduction, Kant describes the chief task of the Groundwork in the following passage:

To “search for” the supreme principle is to set out to discover the principle that is appropriate and adequate as the ultimate or fundamental moral standard. To “establish” the principle is to justify or ground it. Clearly, then, Kant aims to offer an argument in the Groundwork for why the principle he identifies as supreme is, indeed, just that.

THE STRUCTURE AND DIFFICULTY OF SECTION III

We know from our discussion of Kant's concluding remarks in Section II that he understands the task of Section III of the Groundwork as that of proving a priori the possibility of the categorical imperative. As we have seen, he takes this task to be equivalent to that of demonstrating that morality for us is “no phantom” (445). We know, moreover, that the proof he will provide will be “synthetic” in contrast to the “analytic” demonstrations of Sections I and II.

The reader should not look for evidence of Kant's synthetic proof in the opening paragraphs of Section III, however. In these first paragraphs, Kant instead highlights key implications of the conceptual analysis he has performed in the earlier sections of the text. He tries once again to draw a clear line between the results of his discussion in the Groundwork so far and the work he has yet to complete.

The synthetic proof gets underway, finally, at (450). It is there that Kant sets out to justify our right to think of ourselves as beings possessing free will and necessarily bound to the moral law. He summarizes his argument in the section, “How is a Categorical Imperative Possible?” In the final paragraphs of Section III, he further elucidates the nature of the proof he has provided. In addition, he cautions us against making unwarranted knowledge claims about the reality of our freedom.

KANT'S LIFE: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Immanuel Kant was born on April 22, 1724 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), a major trading port on the Baltic Sea in what was then East Prussia. He was the fourth of nine children of a master harness-maker. His parents were devout observers of the Protestant sect known as Pietism. Although his mother died when he was only thirteen, she had a profound impact on his life. She recognized his special gifts early on and encouraged their development. As Kant wrote in a letter, she “awakened and broadened” his ideas, and “implanted and nurtured” in him the “first seed of the good.”

From the age of eight to sixteen years Kant attended the Collegium Fridericianum, a Pietist school dedicated to the instruction of mathematics, history, geometry, and, above all, Latin. Although he enjoyed studying Latin as well as Greek at the Collegium, he described his experience there as that of “youthful slavery.” The school imposed upon its students a particularly zealous form of Pietism, and Kant resisted its insistence upon public displays of devotion. Already as a boy, he was drawn to the ideals of tolerance and freedom of conscience.

In 1740, the year Frederick the Great ascended the throne of Prussia, Kant matriculated at the University of Königsberg. Although his family was of modest means, he avoided pre-professional subjects such as law, medicine, and theology.

INTRODUCTION

The title of Section I

We saw in the final paragraphs of our previous chapter that Kant indicates that he will “proceed analytically” in Section I from a “common rational moral cognition” to the “determination of its supreme principle” (392). The “transition” Kant refers to in the title of Section I, then, is a transition from what he supposes is a commonly accepted concept – in this case, the concept of a good will – to the assumptions upon which that concept is grounded or based. The movement is regressive: from a conditioned concept to its conditions.

But what qualifies a cognition as “common,” on Kant's account? This question is especially pressing in light of the fact that, in Section II, he will insist upon distinguishing the “common” from the “popular” cognition of a good will. In our discussion of the Preface we learned that Kant is convinced that only the common cognition furnishes reliable insight into the concept of a good will. We will examine his reasons for this view in some detail when we turn, in the next chapter, to our discussion of the first paragraphs of Section II. For now, we need merely note that Kant seems to identify “common moral cognition” with something akin to moral insight or intuition. The popular concept of the good will is unreliable, in his view, because it derives its concept of duty from a different source, namely, from experience.

According to Graham Bird, the interpretation and critique of Kant recently defended by John McDowell in his book Mind and World is “fundamentally mistaken” (Bird 1996: 219). Bird is not alone in holding this view; it is also shared by other prominent Kantians such as Henry Allison and Michael Friedman. All agree that the account McDowell provides of what he calls the “transcendental” side of Kant perpetuates unfortunate myths about the nature and implications of Kant's idealism, myths forcefully articulated by P. F. Strawson, and by Hegel more than a century earlier.

In the name of setting the record straight, Allison, Bird and Friedman undertake to defend Kant's idealism anew. The myths, they tell us, are products of misinterpretation. What is more, the myths can set us off on an unfortunate philosophical track, as is evident, they argue, in the case of McDowell. The myths can in other words encourage in us the misguided view not merely that there is something valid about the Hegelian critique of Kant, but also that there is something compelling or attractive about the Hegelian alternative. This explains why in the course of their efforts to correct misinterpretation, the Kantians in addition seek to convince us of the virtues of transcendental over absolute idealism. While Kant, they suggest, has the good sense to draw attention to the limits of our knowledge, Hegel seems intent upon persuading us to ignore them.

The development of German idealism after Kant is in large part a story of the various ways in which features of Kant's Critical philosophy get either preserved or transformed in the systems of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. While Fichte and Schelling represent their forms of idealism as basically consistent with the main principles of the Critical philosophy, Hegel tells us that an adequate form of idealism can be achieved only by parting ways with Kant in fundamental respects. An adequate form of idealism, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel agree, is an idealism that provides a genuine alternative to subject-object dualism. It is in fact in order to challenge dualism, according to these thinkers, that philosophy comes into existence at all. The central task of philosophy or of idealism in particular is to achieve harmony or reconciliation, to replace dichotomy with “identity.” To varying degrees, each of these later idealists believes that, although Kant's philosophy invites the charge of dualism, it also contains resources for overcoming it.

With one exception, the authors contributing to this collection have written their papers with the intention of illuminating the reception and interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. They represent a wide range of views in their estimation of the claim of the later idealists to have developed or completed a philosophical program already defended by Kant. They also represent a diversity of opinion with regard to the question whether the transformation of idealism from Kant to Hegel counts as an instance of philosophical progress.