Moral Action and Religious Ends in Kant

In what sense are ends necessary for action, for Kant? This question might seem rather far from the problem of religion. Yet this is precisely how Kant presents his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, in his preface to the first edition. On the one hand, as Kant showed in the Critique of Practical Reason, morality “is in need neither of the idea of another being above him in order that he recognize his duty, nor, that he observe it, of an incentive other than the law itself” (33; 6:3). Morality proceeds from rationality, not from divine authority. In this line of thought, we might draw a connection between Kant and, for instance, Nietzsche: good and bad are based not on divine legislation but ultimately on human beings. “Hence,” Kant continues, “on its own behalf morality in no way needs religion … but is rather self-sufficient by virtue of pure practical reason” (33; 6:3): moral laws bind “through the mere form of universal lawfulness,” not an end to which it is directed.

But “although on its own behalf morality does not need the representation of an end which would have to precede the determination of the will, it may well be that it has a necessary reference to such an end, not as the ground of its maxims but as a necessary consequence accepted in conformity to them” (34; 6:4). Although morality has “no need of an end for right conduct … an end proceeds from morality just the same; for it cannot possibly be a matter of indifference to reason how to answer the question, What is then the result of this right conduct of ours?” (34; 6:5). In a way, this argument parallels the place of God and Kant’s development of religious thought with respect to his critical thought: religion is in no way necessary for rational critique — in fact, the Critiques in some ways leave no place for God at all — but after all is said and done, after “clearing a ground completely overgrown” for metaphysics, Kant still find that he must turn to religion, at the end of his life. In this contemplation, Kant finds “the idea of a highest good in the world”: the summum bonum “for whose possibility we must assume a higher, moral, most holy, and omnipotent being who alone can unite the two elements of this good” (that is, happiness and duty).

So, this begins to answer our question. Do moral actions have an end? Not quite; pure practical reason suffices unto itself. God is not necessary as a legislator, yet God does have a place as the ultimate end of moral action. “What is most important here, however, is that this idea rises out of morality and is not its foundation; that it is an end which to make one’s own already presupposes ethical principles.” An end is not necessary for morality, but action and do come to the concept of an ultimate end of things. “Morality thus inevitably leads to religion” (35; 6:6). Moral actions are self-grounded, with no need for a separate further end. But the idea of God is an end to which we are inevitable led as human beings who honor the moral law, and allow themselves to think (35; 6:5).

Now, this insight is more useful than it might seem, especially when we come back to an essay like the “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim.” In a way, this essay distills some of the most knotty and debated elements of Kant’s thought: his changing thoughts on teleology, practical faith, divine providence, and how that whole complex of ideas relates to moral and political philosophy. This is because the essay is concerned in many ways with the same question that Kant addresses in the beginning of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: the relationship between free action and a final end. Kant says: “Whatever concept one may form of the freedom of the will with a metaphysical aim, its appearances, the human actions, are determined just as much as every other natural occurrence in accordance with universal laws of nature” (108; 8:17). It seems that Kant will then proceed to make an argument that an apparent end presents itself even in the “play of the freedom of the human will” such that “what meets the eye in individual subjects as confused and irregular yet in the whole species can be recognized as a steadily progressing though slow development of its original predispositions.” But Kant’s ultimate attitude towards this “idea of progress” is rather more complex and nuanced. For instance, Kant couches the adoption of this concept in starkly emotional, subjective language:

One cannot resist feeling a certain indignation when one sees their [human beings’ — as opposed to animals or aliens] doings and refrainings on the great stage of the world and finds that despite the wisdom appearing now and then in individual cases, everything in the large is woven together out of folly, childish vanity, often also out of childish malice and the rage to destruction; so that in the end one does not know what concept to make of our species, with its smug imaginings about its excellences. Here there is no other way out for the philosopher — who, regarding human beings and their play in the large, cannot at all presuppose any rational aim of theirs — than to try whether he can discover an aim of nature in this nonsensical course of things human; from which aim a history in accordance with a determinate plan of nature might nevertheless be possible even of creatures who do not behave in accordance with their own plan. (109; 8:18)

Kant from the beginning to the end of this essay recognizes that there is no progress, no real rational aim in the “nonsensical course of things human.” But that does not mean it is pointless to try and write a history in accordance with a plan — much like how it is not pointless to try and philosophize about God, even when one has fully laid out a system of morality in which God has no place.

Why? This is the subject of the ninth proposition of the “Idea” essay: “A philosophical attempt to work out universal world history according to a plan of nature that aims at the perfect civil union of the human species, must be regarded as possible and even as furthering this aim of nature” (118; 8:29). On the one hand, it is absurd to want to write a history of progress; “it appears that with such an aim only a novel could be brought about.” Yet “if, nevertheless, one may assume that nature does not proceed without a plan or final aim even in the play of human freedom, then this idea could become useful.” An idea that is useful? Yes, it seems like Kant’s ultimate justification for conceiving an idea of the end, here as in the Religion text, is that such an idea would be useful to progress in the present. The “guiding thread” of progress “can serve not merely for the explanation of such a confused play of things human, or for an art of political soothsaying about future changes in states”; rather, this idea of progress will open “a consoling prospect into the future (which without a plan of nature one cannot hope for with any ground).” This is the ultimate motivation for adopting an idea of progress: “such a justification of nature — or better, of providence — is no unimportant motive for choosing a particular viewpoint for considering the world” (119; 8:30). Although we could write history without progress, and we could develop morality without God, we have strong practical grounds for choosing viewpoints that contain precisely these ideas. To me, it is striking to find a sort of primacy of the practical at the heart of Kant’s philosophy. Kant is almost like a nihilist, who sees a world where, in fact, there is no God, no progress; yet he shies back from the abyss of meaninglessness, not through the construction of a new dogmatic metaphysics (Kant is too resolutely critical for that), but rather through the recognition that our representation of the past, like our prospects for the future, matter most of all for our actions in the present.