Kant on Free Will Essay - 1853 Words

Do humans truly have free will or are their lives completely predetermined? This question of free will has and will always remain to be a place for argument in philosophy. Many of the great philosophers attempted to answer this question, but none did as well of a job as Immanuel Kant. He lays the basis of his argument in his Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. Kant writes this prolegomena in response to David Hume’s of skepticism, and therefore, Kant is attempting to more firmly ground metaphysics. In the introduction Kant says, â€Å"I openly confess my recollection of David Hume was the very thing which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new†¦show more content†¦When broken down Kant is appealing to both his thesis and his antithesis; he is agreeing with both. Kant agrees that humans are beings of nature and therefore they follow the rules of nature, but he also is a ccepting his thesis by saying that they are free. â€Å"But in the former case reason is the cause of these laws of nature, and therefore free; in the latter, the effects follow according to mere natural laws of sensibility† (Prolegomena). Instead of rejecting the laws of nature and saying that humans are free of all ties, he is agreeing that certain things do govern the way in which humans act. Furthermore, he suggest that â€Å"Freedom is therefore no hindrance to natural law in appearances: neither does this law abrogate the freedom of the practical use of reason, which is connected with things in themselves, as determining grounds† (Prolegomena). Regardless of natural law humans are free and neither one interferes with the other. His prolegomena is not the only work where Kant addresses free will. In his work, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant suggests that morality is based on the concept of freedom. He states, â€Å"A rational being must alway s regard himself as law-giving in a realm of ends that is possibly only through the freedom of the will, and this holds whether he belongs to the realm as a member or as sovereign† (Groundwork). Therefore mankind mustShow MoreRelatedKant’s Argugument for the Existance of Supreme Moral Law1639 Words   |  7 PagesMetaphysics of Morals, Kant has established that, if there were a supreme moral law, it would look like the categorical imperative. His task in the final section of the Groundwork is to show that there does in fact exist such a moral law by proving that we have free wills, and secondary to this, he wants to show why we actually take an interest in morality. This paper will provide an account and evaluate the success of Kant’s argument in this final section. By the start of section III, Kant has finished developingRead MoreSummary of Immanuel Kants Life Essay1100 Words   |  5 Pages Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) spent all of his life in Kà ¶nigsberg, a small German town on the Baltic Sea in East Prussia. (After World War II, Germanys border was pushed west, so Kà ¶nigsberg is now called Kaliningrad and is part of Russia.) At the age of fifty-five, Kant appeared to be a washout. He had taught at Kà ¶nigsberg University for over twenty years, yet had not published any works of significance. During the last twenty-five years of his life, however, Kant left a markRead MoreKant s Philosophy Of Ethics And Moral Reasoning1432 Words   |  6 Pageshis book, â€Å"Critique of Practical Reason,† Immanuel Kant outlines his philosophy of ethics and moral reasoning. He introduces the reader to the Fundamental Law of Pure Practical Reason in chapter one of the Analytic. 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