Groundwork of The Metaphysic of Morals - Kant's Argument: Autonomy and Freedom

Kant's Argument: Autonomy and Freedom

Why should we want to act morally? That is, why should we will in a rationally consistent manner? Why can one not make an exception of oneself and one's case? Kant's arguments stem from his concept of freedom. He argues that the very idea of morality, the limiting of oneself from engaging in certain behaviours because they are "immoral", is the highest expression of the concept of freedom.

Freedom here refers to liberty from the influence of external forces (external to reason). If an agent is influenced by want of an object or fame or revenge, or for any other reason, Kant believes that he is not free: he is beholden to these outside influences, which state Kant labels heteronomy.

To Kant, freedom also means adherence to the moral law, having one's will determined not, as above, externally but by its own decision. The state of being free is the state of the will being autonomous, literally, in the state of "giving the law to oneself":

Autonomy of the will is the property that the will has of being a law to itself (independently of any property of the objects of volition)

This can be contrasted with:

If the will seeks the law that is to determine it anywhere but in the fitness of its maxims for its own legislation of universal laws, and if it thus goes outside of itself and seeks this law in the character of any of its objects, then heteronomy always results.

If one wishes to be autonomous, one must not be compelled to act by external influences but instead by one's own mind and rational thoughts. One such logical principle is the law of non-contradiction. P and not P (P and ~P) cannot exist simultaneously. Similarly, the snow is either white or not white; it cannot be both white and not white at the same time.

To act rationally is to abide (at least) by the law of non-contradiction, not willing that something be both true and false simultaneously. Thus, if an agent engages in any behaviour that is not governed by rational thought (i.e., is being irrational), he is influenced by external forces and is beholden to them. Immorality, then, is simply and deeply irrational. To be unfree is to have abandoned one's rational faculties. If, by contrast, one's behaviour is governed by rational thought, and is thus not contradictory, it is permissible.

Not all forces external to the will are external to the person, however. Inclinations such as greed and anger can be part of a person but are still external to the will. This is a clear example in which Kant's view of freedom differs from the opposite view, of the freedom to do what one wants. When consumed by anger, people desire to do certain things but, once the haze has cleared, often realise that that desire was for something immoral and that they were driven by factors external to their will. Inclinations, then, sometimes enslave us. Kant's theory of freedom is one of the few that take this into account.