Kant took the notion of a will that is not subjected to a chain of predetermining causes as the lynchpin of his moral system. Kant recognized that it is because we happen to be to some extent free to choose our courses of action that it makes any sense at all to speak of praising or blaming us for those actions. However, we also saw that Kant admitted there to be a faculty of choice by which our desires and beliefs—the things that we experience ourselves as having and that are caused by prior events—shape and cause the decisions we make. What this means therefore is that, according to Kant, human choice is problematic because it is capable of being viewed from two separate and seemingly incompatible perspectives, simultaneously:
1. As part of a chain of causes and so, being determined by it.
2. As standing outside a chain of causes.
- Provide a description of human choice that can be seen to exemplify both of the above perspectives.
- Do you think it is possible, as Kant did, to view human choice and action as being both free and caused, or was Kant mistaken, and are these positions mutually exclusive?