Kant's Theory of Freedom

by Henry E. Allison

• ISBN13: 9780521387088
• ISBN10: 0521387086
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-09-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In his new book the eminent Kant scholar Henry Allison provides an innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom. The author analyzes the concept and discusses the role it plays in Kant's moral philosophy and psychology. He also considers in full detail the critical literature on the subject from Kant's own time to the present day. In the first part Professor Allison argues that at the centre of the Critique of Pure Reason there is the foundation for a coherent general theory of rational agency. The second part employs this account of rational agency as a key to understanding Kant's concept of moral agency and associated moral psychology. The third part focuses on Kant's attempt to ground both moral law and freedom in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. This is a major contribution to the interpretation of Kant which will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students of Kant's moral theory.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on sources and key to abbreviations and translations

Introduction

Part I. Freedom and Rational Agency in the Critique of Pure Reason: 1. The third antinomy

2. Empirical and intelligible character

3. Practical and transcendental freedom

4. Two alternative interpretatuions

Part II. Moral Agency and Moral Phycology: 5. Rational and agency and autonomy

6. Duty, inclination, and respect

7. Wille, Wilkur, and Gesinnung

8. Radical evil

9. Virtue and holiness 10. The classical objections

Part III. The Justification of Morality and Freedom: 11. The reciprocity thesis

12. The deduction in Groundwork III

13. The fact of reason and the deduction of freedom

Notes

Bibliography

Index.