Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/436

420 freedom is the pure self-activity of reason, and the idea of freedom belongs to the world of noumena. It has no place in experience. Psychological freedom is a piece of self-deception. The noumenon, or transcendental substance, is "the timeless originator of effects in time," the existence of which can only be assumed. Kant's problem is to show that the freedom assumed is not incompatible with natural causality. The reconciliation between freedom and necessity is based on the following thoughts: (a) The objects of nature are only appearances, and therefore there is room for a double law, that of natural causality, and that of causality through freedom; (b) since freedom is the tireless originator of effects in time, the cause is noumenal, the effect phenomenal; (c) since the law of freedom is a "cosmological idea," it is compatible with the law of mechanical causality. The empirical self is the phenomenon of the noumenal self. If empirical character were completely known, future acts would be predicted, but its essential element, rational cause, can never be known. That the idea of freedom, a noumenon, should have intercourse with the phenomenal world can be reconciled only if we understand Kant's language symbolically, that is, a noumenon is represented with phenomenal attributes. Two kinds of criticism, practical and metaphysical, may be passed on Kant's theory of freedom. From the standpoint of practical criticism he is in a dilemma, since he must either make character a rigid thing and introduce noumenal inflexibility into the empirical will, or he must introduce change into the noumenon itself and thus destroy its noumenal character. The metaphysical criticisms are: First, Kant makes a metaphysical error when he attempts to separate outside of experience the two factors to which the mind is committed, namely, the manifold and the synthetic process. Second, he assumes that cause and effect need not be the same in kind. Extrinsic connection is only true of phenomena. Between phenomena and noumena an intrinsic connection must be shown, and Kant has not done this. Third, he has failed to make the categorical imperative a synthetic process capable of being apprehended by us. Fourth, Kant's conception of morality cannot be connected with the actual world. A moral act is one which has been performed out of respect for the idea of necessity and universality, and it cannot be proven that such an act has ever been performed. Fifth, practical moral commands cannot be derived from Kant's formula. Sixth, the conception of an end-in-itself has not been justified, and cannot be under Kant's system, because he failed to grasp the organic idea from which alone the idea of end or purpose can be derived. Finally, the ethical system set forth is individualistic. The social duties in the strictest sense are left out. Kant's influence on morality is due to the emphasis of the moral law as an imperative, the sublimity of its origin, and the personality of the man himself.