by Robert Wicks
Kant believes that the only conceivable way for nature to be such – finding it absurd to suppose that a perfect machine of infinite extent could occur by accident – is to assume that it is the product of a divine designer, or, one could also say, divine engineer. This designer’s purpose would be to create nature as a perfect mechanism, amenable to our finite minds, where each part has its own purpose within the larger systematic whole that is nature itself. Only upon this assumption does Kant believe that our scientific projects can proceed confidently and unimpaired.
Once speculation begins over the details of this divine engineer’s intentions, uncertainty appears as well. It can be tempting to say that the purpose of the rain is to nourish the trees, that the purpose of the trees is to fill the air with oxygen, and that the purpose of the oxygen is to keep the animals alive, integrating each aspect of nature into an imagined system of purposes. The cited purposes can be either convincing or tenuous, but either way, they are contingent. It might seem like the purpose of rain is to nourish the trees, but rains falls in the treeless deserts and oceans as well. Even if our projections are mistaken, though, they can help us uncover mechanical connections in the world that might otherwise remain hidden, and this is Kant’s point.
Key idea: The principle of the purposiveness of nature
As rational beings we aim to know nature thoroughly as a single system of interrelated laws. This is possible, only if we assume that nature is itself amenable to our systematizing efforts. Such an assumption expresses the basic principle that everything in nature works together, just as if it were operating in view of a single purpose.
More puzzling and philosophically interesting to Kant, is yet another set of relationships that express apparent purposes in nature. These are displayed by living organisms and reveal a kind of non-mechanical causality that seems to operate side-by-side with nature’s mechanical workings. We have seen in Kant’s moral theory that he recognizes two kinds of causality, mechanical causality and causality through concepts, as when an architect imagines a house’s plan, and subsequently constructs the house according to the plan. Of the two, the activity of living organisms more closely matches the latter kind of causality. Since most living organisms appear to lack reason, however, Kant can only explain their activity by postulating an external, divine intelligence that informs their behaviour and defines their purpose. God, so we must think, ultimately accounts for the presence of life in the physical universe.
Let us contrast mechanical causality with this non-mechanical causality which Kant discerns in living beings. One of the main characteristics of mechanical causality is its linear structure, as when, for instance, in a line of dominoes balanced on their ends, the first domino is toppled into its immediately adjacent domino, to set toppling the entire line of dominoes, one after the other.
Contrary to the image of the dominoes falling sequentially in a mechanically straight line, the behaviour of living organisms presents a more circular structure. An acorn grows into a mature oak, the mature oak itself produces acorns, and those acorns grow into other mature oaks. If we think of ‘the oak’ in general terms, as a species, then we could say (as Kant does) that the oak’s overall movement is circular insofar as it is the cause and effect of itself over time. The oak reproduces itself to return continually in the form of a new oak tree. The dominoes in our example do not.
A comparable kind of circularity operates in the interrelationships among the parts of a living organism. In humans and other complex animal bodies, the heart supports the brain, the brain supports the stomach, the stomach supports the lungs, the lungs support the blood, the blood supports muscles such as the heart, in circles upon circles of mutual dependence throughout the organism. Kant concludes that the presence of living organisms in nature consequently requires a style of comprehension that differs from mechanical causality.
Complicating this situation, Kant finds that since their respective structures differ, the presence of living organisms confounds our scientific efforts to understand nature thoroughly and exclusively in terms of linear, mechanical causality. There is a system of organs in a living body, and a system of natural laws, but the respective structures of these systems are not obviously compatible. One is constituted fundamentally by sets of circular relationships of interdependency and self-reinforcing feedback; the other, by sets of linear relationships that do not, as far as we can presently tell, track back or fold in upon themselves.
The circular relationships associated with living organisms are goal-oriented, for living organisms aim to sustain and reproduce themselves. Kant’s observations and reflections on living organisms thus bring to a head, an apparent inconsistency between teleological and mechanical explanation. Whereas inorganic objects embody mechanical causality, organic bodies are teleological. How their respective principles fit together is a mystery.
Kant’s reflections on the distinction between mechanical and teleological explanation eventually present us with two competing, grand-scale models for nature. The first regards nature as an infinitely large machine, like a clock. The second regards it as an infinitely living organism, permeated with a life force, or will. The first model is characteristic of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought. The second becomes popular with nineteenth-century German Idealistic philosophers. It also appears in some varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism.
One might ask immediately and independently which model is correct, but Kant sets the question aside as indeterminable. As the Critique of Pure Reason argues, it is impossible to know how things are in themselves. In Kant’s view, the apparent incompatibility between mechanism and teleology is not situated objectively in nature itself, as if the world were absurd. The conflict is internal to us, and it concerns how our mind projects two opposing ways to comprehend nature as a system.
Key idea: Mechanical versus teleological explanations
Mechanical explanations employ a linear conception of causality, as when A causes B, B causes C, C causes D, etc. Here, we would say, ‘My arm raised because my arm muscles were electronically stimulated.’ In contrast, teleological explanations are expressed in terms of intentions, goals or prior plans, as in ‘My arm raised because I was trying to adjust the picture on the wall.’
Kant understands the apparent opposition between mechanistic and teleological interpretations of nature in reference to the tension between nature and morality: although we inhabit physical bodies that operate mechanically, our actions can nonetheless be interpreted as the effects of free choice. In relation to mechanically operating nature, the teleological structure of our living bodies and the teleological structure of our deliberate action are equally not at home. Neither seems to have a proper place in a thoroughly mechanical world.
In light of these affinities, Kant is led to resolve the tension between mechanism and teleology along the lines he adopted previously. Reiterating his rejection of all claims to metaphysical knowledge – and this includes the teleological argument for God’s existence, especially salient in the present context, given how the mystery of life stimulates thoughts of God – Kant invokes the reality of our moral awareness and draws upon its philosophical implications. Specifically, he reaffirms the reality of our freedom, the consequent legitimacy of teleological styles of interpretation, and the existence of an all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful God, along with the soul’s immortality, as postulates necessary to fulfill our moral duty and to achieve happiness.
Consistent with this morality-centred resolution to the problem of freedom and determinism, Kant asks what the ultimate purpose of nature might be, and states – unsurprisingly at this point – that nature’s purpose is to serve as the grand platform for human moral development. Since he established in the first Critique that nature and freedom are compatible, he remains confident that the two conflicting styles of interpretation, mechanical and teleological, that we encounter in our observations of nature, are compatible as well.
Kant accordin
gly concludes the third Critique by reiterating the moral argument for God’s existence from the second Critique, assuming the compatibility between nature and morality. We thus have across the third Critique, the Critique of the Power of Judgement, in Kant’s discussions of pure beauty, the sublime, aesthetic ideas, beauty as a symbol of morality and the presence of living organisms, the enhancement of the compatibility between nature and morality that he earlier established. These various reinforcements lend a concrete face to the union of nature and morality that the realization of our moral destiny requires.
Spotlight: Intelligent design in contemporary thought
The Darwinian theory of evolution, which mechanically explains the emergence of new species in reference to environmental pressures in conjunction with genetic mutations, has grown popular and influential during the past century. Many also believe that life itself may have originated from the mechanical combination of inorganic compounds. Others disagree with this mechanistic orientation, asserting that living organisms are too complex to have occurred by accident, and that God, or some other form of divine intelligence, created life.
In the third Critique, Kant appears to agree with the creationists when he states that it would be absurd ‘to hope that another Newton will arise in the future, who shall make the production of a blade of grass comprehensible to us according to natural laws which no design has ordered (Critique of Judgement, Section 75).
Kant, however, is merely commenting here upon a hope, consistent with the idea that a mechanical explanation of life exists beyond our comprehension. Since his philosophy is committed to the compatibility between mechanical and teleological explanation and since it resists speculating about metaphysical realities, Kant cannot be counted among contemporary creationists who assert as a matter of metaphysical truth that God created life, and who usually appeal to some version of the teleological argument for God’s existence. At best, Kant is a moral advocate of creationism, fully aware that moral arguments for God’s existence are weaker than the scientific or mathematical proofs that he finds unsuitable for such a metaphysical issue.
Dig Deeper
Paul Crowther, The Kantian Sublime, From Morality to Art (Clarendon Press, 1989)
Paul Guyer (ed.), Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement: Critical Essays (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)
John D. McFarland, Kant’s Concept of Teleology (University of Edinburgh Press, 1970)
Robert Wicks, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Judgement (Routledge, 2007)
Rachel Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgement (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Study questions
1 How do aesthetic ideas direct us towards moral awareness?
2 How does the ‘mathematically sublime’ direct us towards moral awareness?
3 How does the ‘dynamically sublime’ direct us towards moral awareness?
4 In what sense is beauty a ‘symbol of morality’?
5 What are the respective topics of the two main parts of the third Critique and how do these two parts fit together?
6 Why does Kant believe that scientific investigation requires that we assume the existence of God?
7 How are mechanical explanation, inorganic matter and linear styles of thinking related to each other?
8 How are teleological explanation, living beings and circular styles of thinking related to each other?
9 Which model of the natural world is associated with the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Enlightenment outlook? Which model of the natural world is associated with the early nineteenth-century German Idealist outlook?
10 What is the difference between the teleological argument for God’s existence and the moral argument for God’s existence? Which argument does Kant advocate?
Section Five:
For what may we hope?
16
Perpetual peace as the next great step
Kant’s philosophy is devoted to the proposition that our human nature is essentially moral and that through time, we can realize this moral nature in an increasingly consistent way. Up until this point, our exposition of Kant’s philosophy has been primarily to show how he clears the way for freedom by restricting the scope of science to the spatio-temporal world, how he grounds his moral theory in timelessly abstract, rational principles, and how the experiences of beauty and living organisms reinforce our perceptions of the compatibility between science and morality. In this chapter, we will consider Kant’s more pragmatically-oriented approach to realizing our moral nature in the world, where he formulates legislative ideas with the aim of establishing a world republic and ending war on earth. In contrast to these admirable social ideals, we will also reveal some of Kant’s more questionable views in the field of anthropology.
When turning his attention to political philosophy, Kant morally reviews the course of human history – much of it painfully marked by war – and formulates legal regulations to help express, intensify and solidify the presence of rationality in society. Specifically, he sets parameters upon how rational human beings should manage basic worldly issues such as the acquisition of property, contracts, family structure, governmental structure and relationships between nations. The bulk of his reflections appear in the first half of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) entitled the ‘Doctrine of Right’, as well as in his essay, ‘Towards Perpetual Peace’ (1795), both composed around the time of his retirement from teaching in 1796, at the age of 72. The doctrine of right is also sometimes identified with Kant’s philosophy of law.
Kant’s moral theory emphasizes that if we are to be motivated by a pure feeling of respect for ourselves as autonomous, rational beings, we must disregard instinctual inclinations, since they interferingly misdirect our attention to our contingent material bodies and person-specific physical desires. Rather than focusing upon this kind of bondage in his political theory, Kant concentrates on the bondage that groups of people impose upon one another, and attends to these more socially derived obstructions to our quest for autonomy.
In this context, Kant observes that liberation from social bondage requires that we more effectively and self-consciously direct ourselves according to our own reason, as opposed to uncritically allowing the dictates of others to determine our beliefs. In contemporary life, the external influence is recognizable in how television, newspapers and other mass media, as well as much inherited tradition, both religious and nationalistic, impress us with pre-digested viewpoints, taking the place of careful, independent reflection and analysis.
Kant does not recommend merely that individuals should do better to realize their potential to think rationally for themselves; he maintains that as a matter of civic duty, we should speak out publicly in our use of reason. If the views are rational, then they bear publicity and invite agreement. To be ‘enlightened’, as Kant understands the word, is self-consciously to adopt a courageous and determined, publicly oriented attitude. Given the risks that can attend publicizing the truth in the face of opposingly strong powers, he implies that courage is necessary for human moral progress.
In view of our shared humanity, it follows that those who wield potentially oppressive power ought to foster freedom of speech and active debate within the population, so that humanity as a whole can advance. Not only is it benighted to allow cowardice to precipitate one’s enslavement, it is equally so to believe that in the long run, the institution of oppression is socially constructive. With such thoughts in the background, Kant states in his essay, ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’ (1784), that the motto of enlightenment is Sapere aude!, ‘Have the courage to use your own reason!’
Key idea: Two kinds of bondage
Kant identifies two forces against which we must struggle to realize our freedom. The first is our animal nature, which often dominates over reason and intellect. The second is the external condition of society at large, the rules and regulations of which often assume an oppressive and ob
jectionable form. Kant’s political theory is directed towards overcoming the latter kind of bondage.
Kant nonetheless does not leave human destiny to gamble upon whether or not a critical mass of people will summon the fortitude to act rationally, or to rest on the faith that God will eventually bring everything together. He believes that, like an acorn that tends naturally to become an oak, our rational human nature tends to organize people into a reason-respecting, moral society. Although it is up to us to ensure that fear does not trump freedom, Kant speaks with a sense of inevitability that wars between nations will end and that society will progress with diminishing violence and increasing mutual respect towards a thoroughly moral, global society.
With the image of a growing organism in mind, Kant adopts a bird’s-eye or cosmopolitan perspective that reveals to him some of human history’s general contours. He leaves the details for others to assemble (Hegel’s philosophy of world history is a prime example), but upon surveying the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the breakdown of the Roman Empire and developments up until recent times, Kant perceives a war-filled history that exhibits a gradual development in social rationality. He consequently comprehends war as a means to human development, as less enlightened societies are swept away in favour of more rationally coherent ones. Kant expresses this hard idea in the Fourth Thesis of his ‘Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’ (1784):
