For Kant transcendental freedom consists in the power of agents to produce actions without being causally determined by antecedent conditions in exercising this power. He contends that we cannot establish whether we are actually or even possibly free in this sense. Kant claims only that our conception of ourselves as transcendentally free involves no inconsistency, and that as a result the belief that we are free in this sense meets a relevant standard of minimal credibility. Justification of this belief ultimately depends on practical reasons: the need to believe that we are subject to moral obligation and that we are morally responsible. I argue that the belief that we are transcendentally free does satisfy an appropriate standard of minimal credibility, but that the practical reasons Kant adduces for it should be controversial.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), dissatisfied with the sort of compatibilism advocated by philosophers such as David Hume (1711–1776), the hard determinism of Spinoza (1632–1677), and any view on which nature is indeterministic, advocated a bold conception of freedom on which human agents are the undetermined sources of their actions while at the same time all events in the natural world are thoroughly causally determined. In another respect, Kant’s theory is cautious: he maintains that our being free in this sense—transcendentally free—cannot be established theoretically, that is, from evidence available to us. Rather, our evidence can establish only that believing we are transcendentally free involves no inconsistency, and our justification for this belief must instead rely on…
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