UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

AN UNSATISFACTORY KANTIAN COMPATIBILISM A CRITIQUE OF ALLEN WOODS APPROACH TO THE THIRD ANTINOMY

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO KONSTANTIN POLLOK IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF PHIL509 KANT GRADUATE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

BY BRETT YARDLEY

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA DECEMBER 2013

Introduction There is no shortage of opinions on Kants solution to the third antinomy on the apparent conflict of subject freedom and natural determinism, but amongst compatibilist interpretations, Kant scholar Allen Woods position in Self and Nature in Kants Philosophy has become one of the key texts on understanding Kants resolution to the third antinomy.1 However, in attempting to defend Kants compatibilism, Woods view goes beyond Kants more reserved claims in the Critique of Pure Reason that the coexistence of subject freedom and natural determinism is merely possible by claiming that freedom is necessary for the production of events, and in so doing renders Kants theory untenable.2 It is the aim of this paper is to show that Woods compatibilism should ultimately be rejected since his view suffers from two major challenges, 1) the necessity of Intelligible causality for Empirical causality and 2) timeless agency. To do so this paper is comprised of two major sections: a survey of Kants stated position on how the third antinomy is actually an illusion since both freedom and determinism can both viably exist in Part I, and then a critique of Allen Woods theory on how best to interpret the compatibilism Kant achieves in Part II. This will show that the compatibilism Wood promotes, while not necessarily dissatisfactory as a coherent perspective, is ultimately unsatisfactory since it essentially disengages freedom from the natural world.

Part I: Surveying Kants Solution to the Antinomy of Pure Reason A. Foundations of the Antinomy In general, there exist two camps of thought in which the opinions on Kants theory on the relation between subject freedom and natural determinism can be roughly grouped: Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism, in: Wood, Allen W. Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.
2 1

Hudson, Hud. Kant's Compatibilism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. 24.

compatibilitists who believe Kants theory achieves harmony between actions being determined by natural causes and actions being free (in order to account for morality and responsibility); and incompatibilitists (typically believers in Libertarianism or Determinism)3 who believe Kants theory fails to balance actions that take place due to free agency and actions that take place as a result of natural causes, in which either the former (Libertarianism) or the latter (Determinism) is an illusion. As a quick introduction, Kant was dissatisfied with Leibnizs compatibilism as not providing enough freedom (Kant believed Leibnizs theory in spirituale provided the freedom of a turnspit),4 and proposed a new theory claiming that actions are marked by both subject freedom and natural determinism (as opposed to either one or the other) via two worlds, or realities, of experience for the same metaphysical entity (c.f. A336/B564).5 Freedom, morality, and responsibility belong to what Kant calls the noumenal world, which is beyond experience outside space and time as things-in-themselves (i.e. things as they actually are).6 Determinism, causality and the laws of nature belong to what Kant calls the phenomenal world, which one can experience within space and time as an appearance of things-in-themselves. This allows Kant to hypothesize the existence of freedom despite evidence from science to the contrary. Kants work with cosmology went far in shaping his theory of the inherent conflict in reason since, unlike the concepts of the soul and God, the idea of the cosmos as spatiotemporal can be experienced.7 The Dialectic serves as his third series of arguments in the Critique of Pure Two incompatibilist positions in metaphysics: Libertarianism views agents as not determined, but as having free will (i.e., they themselves are the source of their own choices regardless of previous contingents), and Determinism views all circumstances, including agent choices, as naturally following from a causal series of previous contingents. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of practical reason (1788), in: Kant, Immanuel, and Mary J. Gregor. Practical philosophy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 5:97. All translations of Kants texts are taken from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant.
6 5 4 3

ding an sich Kants original German phrase

Buroker, Jill Vance. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 226-227.

Reason to promote his theory of Transcendental Idealism (namely the use of the categories of understanding outlined in the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements to refer to that which is beyond possible experience),8 which claims that appearances are nothing outside our representations (A507), in order to escape what he calls Transcendental Realism, the common understanding that the world as a series of mere appearances is a thing in itself (c.f. A504/B532), which produces the four antinomies (what Kant calls the antinomy of pure reason).9 Kants approach to the antinomies is what he terms skeptical10the act of watching a contest of assertions not to declare a winner, but to see if the debate is actually a fools errand based on a deception (c.f. A423-4/B452)in order to show that the conflict is actually dialectical, which is to say that the contradictions merely appear so, but do not truly exist. Kant feels that since the antinomies only arise under Transcendental Realism and not with his dialectical approach, which identifies each antinomy with each of the four titles of logical judgment, this serves as an indirect proof for Transcendental Idealism11 by capturing the fact that the world is pseudoempirical, that is both experiential and beyond experience.12

The distinctions of Transcendental Idealism to remember are that objects include anything that a subject might possibly experience, not just those that have been experienced (which both combine to constitute the phenomenal world), and that the experiences a subject has of an object is not the thing in itself, for these things in themselves are outside of space and time (i.e., experience), and are thus unknowable (to constitute the noumenal world). This paper will maintain the modern nomenclature of the four antinomies over four conflicts of one antinomy, which are: 1) the finitude vs. infinitude of the world in space and time, 2) the part vs. whole nature of metaphysical objects, 3) the free vs. causally determined actions of objects, 4) the appearance vs. existence of a necessary being (complete table on B443). Not to be confused with skepticism, but an alternative to his critical approach to the paralogisms. This is seen most clearly in the first two Mathematical antinomies since they are derived from the experience of Quantity and Quality from the Logical Table of Judgments while the second two Dynamical antinomies derive from the perception of Relation and Modality (Immanuel Kant, Henry E. Allison, Peter Lauchlan Heath, and Gary C. Hatfield.Theoretical Philosophy After 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. <http://site.ebrary.com/id/10030933>. 96-97).
12 11 10 9

Buroker, Jill Vance. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. 227.

B. The Thesis & Antithesis The third antinomy is introduced with the Thesis and the Antithesis along with a rationale for and an argument against each position. The standard interpretation, based on textual remarks according to commentator Jill Buroker, identifies the Theses with Rationalism and the Antitheses with Empiricism.13 Thereby the Thesis proposes that subjects have the ability to be causal origins in themselves, or that actions of rational beings are not purely effects contingent upon previous causes according to the laws of nature (i.e., freedom exists, at least in some form) (c.f. A444/B472); and the Antithesis proposes that subjects are never causal origins in themselves, but that all actions, regardless of origin, are merely effects contingent upon previous causes according to the laws of nature (i.e., freedom does not exist, except as illusion) (c.f. A445/B473). The proof Kant presents for the Thesis attacks the Antithesis by means of reductio ad absurdum to show that if the law of nature consists just in this, that nothing happens without a cause sufficiently determined a priori (A446/B474), then the result is an infinite regress. Instead, there must be a first cause to initiate the causal series, and if such an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself (A446/B474) could begin the series, then there is no ground for ruling out the notion that other spontaneous causes exist, even within the causal series of the phenomenal world. In short, the Antithesis fails to give an account for its causal series. Kant presents the goal of the proof for the Antithesis in the same light by using reductio ad absurdum again to attack the Thesis. Here if a dynamically first beginning of action presupposes a state that has no causal connection at all with the cause of the previous one, i.e., in no way follows it, (A445/B473) then a causally determined series does not follow from a spontaneous action. Instead, the causal law of the series must be allowed to proceed unmolested lest the unity of experience fall apart. In short, the Thesis fails to not only account for the source of an independent cause (a prime mover to begin the world, i.e. God, must be presupposed in contrast to the first antinomy since it cannot be experienced), but also how that first independent cause links with determinism.

13

Ibid., 227.

C. Analysis of the Thesis and Antithesis No small matters are at stake within the third antinomy. On the one hand, freedom, and by extension morality, is tied to the Thesis. Therefore, Kant shows that should the Antithesis be correct and the Thesis wrong, that if our will is not free and our soul is of the same divisibility and corruptibility as matter, then moral ideas and principles lose all validity (A468/B496). Yet on the other hand, predictability, on which science depends, is tied to the Antithesis. Per Kant, if it is the case that the Thesis is correct and the Antithesis wrong, then there is no further need to make observations and to inquire according to the laws of nature, but rather only to think and invent, because understanding is not bound to the laws of nature, but some higher, yet unknowable, viewpoint (c.f. A469/B497). Left with just the options of the Thesis and the Antithesis, Kant sees the only solution as ceaseless vacillation between the conflicting doctrines, or a life marked by inconsistency (c.f. A475/B503). As a result, Kant metaphorically issues a subpoena to the propositions and counterpropositions to come forward to defend themselves before a jury drawn from their own estate (A476/B504) in the courtroom of the mind, assuming that since reason created this conundrum, reason then can resolve it with the aid of Transcendental Idealism (c.f. A479/B507). While Kant feels it is necessary to provide a critical resolution, he caveats that some answers (because the object in question is the pseudoempirical universe) lie beyond our reason (A481/B509). At this point, Kant applies his skeptical approach, stating that since the affirmation or negation of freedom results in such a nonsensical dilemma, the presuppositions of the question itself must be scrutinized. Here he notes that since freedom (or at least some aspect of it) is part of the phenomenal world, and therefore capable of experience, it must fit within our understanding. Since in the third antinomy the Antithesis is too big for the concept of understanding due to the infinite regress the results, and the Thesiss postulation of spontaneous choice behind the empirical universe observed is too small, another option must be sought (c.f. A487/B515-A488/B516). Kant names a third option, his theory of Transcendental Idealism, which he beautifully summarizes from the Transcendental Aesthetic proposed in the First Part of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements (c.f. A19/B33) questioning Transcendental Realism:

Everything intuited in space or in time, hence all objects of an experience possible for us, are nothing but appearances, i.e., mere representations, which, as they are represented, as extended beings or series of alterations, have outside our thoughts no existence grounded in itself. (A490/B518-A491-B519) By adding the noumenal world, Kants theory allows him to reveal the erroneous presupposition causing the antimonies, namely that the world of appearances, and its inherent causal series, is a thing in itself (as opposed to the correct presupposition that the world-as-a-whole in its entirety including its first free cause which can never become an appearanceis a thing it itself). Kant feels that it is this presupposition that is problematic, and thus the apparent conflict is merely a transcendental illusion when the world is appropriately seen not as a thing in itself, but as a mere appearance. As a result, the contradiction becomes merely dialectical because the world, as a thing in itself without time or space, no longer exists as infinite (escaping infinite regress) or finite (escaping the link between spontaneous choice and determinism) (c.f. A504/B532A505/B533) allowing both freedom and determinism to coexist harmoniously.

D. Kants Unique Compatibilism Just as with the first and second antinomies, Kant sees the either/or solution of the Thesis and the Antitheses of the third antinomy as insufficient; however, instead of deeming both conclusions false he now declares both conclusions true.14 In other words, Kant argues that the actions of subjects are not either determined or free, but both determined and free to create a unique form of compatibilism by claiming that effects can originate from two different causes: empirical causes originating from the character of such a thing in appearance in the phenomenal (or empirical) world and intelligible causes originating from its character as a thing in itself in the noumenal (or intelligible) world (c.f. A539/B567). There are two major interpretations of Kants separation of these two worlds. There is the two-worlds interpretation, which makes an ontological distinction between the two separate worlds or realms. In this understanding it could be said that there are two levels of reality in which reside two selves and two worlds: an actual reality which is unknowable to agents and the
14

Ibid., 255.

world created by the mind. A mirror is commonly invoked to illustrate how images can reflect reality (but in so doing distort the image), where subjects only have empirical access to the reflection of objects, or appearances which are interpreted in the mind (i.e., the phenomenal), as opposed to intelligible access the actual objects in themselves (i.e., the noumenal). Alternatively, in the two-aspects interpretation, Kants compatibilism is built on approaching actions from what Kant scholar Konstantin Pollok calls, two distinctive perspectives on one and the same world.15,16 The differentiation may be likened to viewing old 3-D movies with glasses that contained a red lens and a blue lens, where each lens represents the empirical (i.e., phenomenal) and the intelligible (i.e., noumenal). A subject perceives the world through both lenses simultaneously and a composite image is formed by the mind, such that if one were able to remove such transcendental glasses (which in reality is impossible, save perhaps by invoking pure reason), they would instead identify two distinct images (one empirical and the other intelligible) of the same object. From the empirical world, actions must always arise from a previous cause (c.f. A543/B571). Empirical causes, therefore, require little explanation since they are simply those proposed by the Antithesis, namely the necessary laws of nature as experienced in the phenomenal world in which each action is causally determined by a preceding effect in infinitum. Since causality is spatiotemporal it can only apply to the phenomenal world of appearances in which previous causes must also be nothing more than appearances (c.f. A544/B572). The will, or desires of sense, of a subject then is always conditioned or impelled by natural grounds and sensible stimuli (c.f. A548/B576). As a result, causality is the operating principle when it comes to a subjects desires since they are completely determined by physiological, psychological and sociological causes.17 Ergo, as far as the empirical world is concerned there is no freedom and determinism reigns.

Pollok, Konstantin. Naturalism and Kants Resolution of the Third Antinomy. University of South Carolina, Columbia (forthcoming): 1-15. 8. The term world will be preferred over perspective for the purposes of this paper in order to stay true to Kants original language and thereby should not be taken as an endorsement of the two-worlds interpretation.
17 16

15

Buroker, Jill Vance. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction. 260.

However, Kant states that if the world is merely an appearance of representations governed by empirical laws, then they themselves [appearances] must have grounds that are not appearances (A537/B565). Said another way, appearances must be grounded outside the series of empirical conditions in the noumenal world, and thus free from the determinism of the phenomenal world. This leads to the intelligible perspective, from which actions must arise from the faculties of understanding and reason which originate in the noumenal world as opposed to the phenomenal world because they operate according to ought (i.e., imperatives derived from the moral law) and an ought cannot be derived from an is. Kant calls this the intelligible cause, an object of sense which is not itself appearance (A538/B566), yet which still has effects that are encountered in the series of empirical conditions (A537/B565). Kant refers to this ought as a species of necessity and a connection with grounds which does not occur anywhere else in the whole of nature, that is a possible action grounded in a concept and not appearance (c.f. A547/B575). The ought contrasts the desires impelled by nature in that it is pronounced by reason and sets a measure and goala prohibition and authorization. (A548/B576). As such, Kant claims that the natural laws production of will or desires cannot produce the ought; however, those desires function as incentives which can determine the action of an agent as far as the agent acts freely to resist (the negative sense) or acts freely on a non-sensuous desire (the positive sense).18 Kant sees this as the framework of freedom, which largely takes two forms following the negative and positive distinction which he calls Transcendental freedom and Practical freedom respectively. Transcendental freedom is the more foundational and, according to Kant, consists of beginning of a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time in accordance with the law of naturethat is freedom as a first source, as opposed to a subordinate beginning, of actions, (c.f. A533/B561). Transcendental freedom is considered to be freedom in the negative sense since it is the capacity to refuse/deny desire or the pull of the senses. From this stems the idea that agents make heteronomous actions, which are actions that fail to exercise freedom by following sensuous inclinations, not as animals do (arbitrium brutum), but by incorporating inclinations into a choice

18

Ibid., 260.

(that is a reason can be provided even for actions impelled by the senses).19 Practical freedom is the more robust form which Kant describes as the independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility (A534/B562) and is necessary to ascribe moral responsibility to agents. Practical freedom is seen as freedom in the positive sense since, instead of refusing natural inclinations, it makes choices from within the agent, from pure reason. Kant goes on to call this freedom (or at least a form closely akin) internal, and the only innate right of human beings in his later work the Metaphysics of Morals.20 This is because Practical freedom is identical (or closely related) to what are known as autonomous actions, an agents choice as self-legislation according to the moral law. Allen Wood rightly summarizes Kants definition of freedom as the capacity to resist sensuous impulses and to act from nonsensuous motives.21 As a result, for Kant freedom (that is, reason acting spontaneously) is possible since it originates outside of the causal system and yet acts on the effect experienced in the phenomenal world (because reason is aware of the world of experience) (c.f. A553/B581). Kant brings these two causes together by stating that actions performed by an agent have both empirical causes traceable back through the phenomenal world and intelligible causes produced (not caused since they are not spatiotemporal) within itself from the noumenal world (c.f. A538/B566-A541/B569). The consequence of this per Buroker is that subjects, and therefore humans, identify themselves as partly phenomenal, and partly merely intelligible since the transcendental unity of apperception (Kants theory of how experience is possible through synthesizing the self and the world) reveals that acts of understanding and reason cannot originate from the sensible world.22 Kants conclusion is: thus freedom and naturewould both be found in the same actions, simultaneously and without any contradiction, according to whether one compares them with their intelligible or their sensible cause (A541/B569).

19

Such a failure by an agent to enact their freedom does not negate its existence.

Kant, Immanuel. The metaphysics of morals (1785), in: Kant, Immanuel, and Mary J. Gregor. Practical philosophy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 6:2376:238.
21 22

20

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 84. Buroker, Jill Vance. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction. 259.

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Hence, Kant sees causal determinism as playing out in the phenomenal world and freedom as playing out in the noumenal world. Since these worlds are separate from one another (the intelligible world does understand the world of experience in light of reason, but they cannot affect one another), determinism and freedom can take place without being disturbed by the other (A557/B585). Since sciences deterministic approach to nature cannot derive ought from is (and most scientists agree this is according to sciences own admission), Kant sees this as sufficient to assume freedom in order to keep moral responsibility (so long as humans value morality). This is not to say that Kant believes freedom can be proven since no proof for the objective reality of freedom can ever be supplied in Transcendental Idealism, because as illustrated by Pollok, positing the supremacy of the intelligible over causal demonstration in the phenomenal world becomes a contradiction of itself resulting in the antinomy.23 This possible allowance for freedom lets Kant purport that all humans should be treated as free agents, whose intelligible character be held responsible in any case that an action is contrary to what ought to have happened, regardless of the apparent preceding contingents that led to the actual action (as in the malicious liar case in A554-5/B582-3). Kant admits here that reason has a limit, for why would the intelligible character give subjects exactly the world of appearances as it plays out deterministically? Kant simply leaves the matter there, claiming the question is off limits, for to answer this surpasses every faculty of our reason indeed it surpasses the authority of our reason even to ask it (A557/B585). So Kant leaves the relationship between the noumenal and the phenomenal realms as open, content with just the possibility of freedom. However, as Kants view has been attacked by incompatibilists, Allen Wood picks up the matter where Kant left it and in defending Kant commits him to a stronger stance by trying to answer this very question.

Part II: Critique of Woods Interpretation of Kants Resolution to the Third Antinomy A. Foundations to Allen Woods Compatibilism As far as compatibilist theories on Kants third antinomy go, Allen Wood arguably has presented one of the most influential arguments in the aptly named chapter Kants
23

Pollok, Konstantin. Naturalism and Kants Resolution of the Third Antinomy. 9.

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Compatibilism in his book Self and Nature in Kants Philosophy. Wood draws heavily from Kants distinction between relegating freedom to the noumenal realm and determinism to the phenomenal realm, but his claim turns out to be much stronger than Kants original proposal, making transcendental freedom not just possible in light of natural causality, but necessary for certain events in the phenomenal world. Fellow Kant compatibilist Hud Hudson summarizes Woods interpretation as the idea that, without a free act of the will, certain events would not come into being, their natural causes being insufficient in themselves to produce their effects.24 As shall be shown here, the ramifications of such a claim are not only 1) inconsistent with empirical causality and Kants expressed claims as such, but also 2) incoherent as a result of the timeless agency that becomes necessary to maintain the theory. Wood starts with the assumption of a two-worlds (or two-selves) hypothesis, which as introduced above holds that Kant saw an ontological difference between things in themselves and appearances, and also a difference in the reality each inhabit. This is evident by Woods claim that Kant's compatibilism...is based on the aggressively metaphysical distinction between phenomena and noumena; far from unifying our view of ourselves, it says that freedom and determinism are compatible only because the self as free moral agent belongs to a different world from that of the self as natural object, in a way that Wood does not refute may be likened to saying that a married couple is compatible, but only as long as they live in separate houses.25, 26 This is in contrast to the two-aspects (or two-descriptions) hypothesis that, instead of making an ontological distinction between two selves and their two worlds, makes an epistemological distinction between how one self and one world appears according to two different perspectives (or descriptions).27 While it would seem that quotes from within Kants explanation of the third antinomy, such as is it truly a disjunctive proposition to say that every effect in the world must
24 25

Hudson, Hud. Kant's Compatibilism. 24. Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 75.

To be fair, some of Woods passages seem to appeal to a two-aspects view, but this may reflect the ambiguity in some of Kants own wording (see Ibid., 74). In this case, intelligible and sensual aspects of objects only constitute two worlds in a metaphorical sense.
27

26

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arise either from nature or from freedom; or must we rather not say that, in one and the same event, in different relations, both can be found? (A536/B564),28 point to Kant maintaining an epistemological distinction, it is noted that many other plain readings of Kants work seem to suggest the ontological distinction (i.e., The Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals 4:451). Furthermore, since the two-worlds view has a long tradition of interpretation, it is well beyond the scope of this paper to scrutinize the validity of this position underlying Woods theory. In fact, this will be granted to Wood, and in order avoid the debate between the two-worlds view and the two-aspects view, the dichotomy will be treated in what Pollok refers to as a metaphysical problem that has a theoretical and a practical aspect.29 (To put it metaphorically, one sees Kants dichotomy as two sides of the same coin as opposed to two separate coins colliding with one another). The importance of recognizing this distinction in interpretations is that two of Woods claims flow out of the two-world view, and it is these two claims which even Wood recognizes as most problematic, namely: 1) the necessity of Intelligible causality for Empirical causality and 2) timeless agency.

B. Illusory Causality? Despite Allen Woods adoption of the two-worlds view, he still expects some signs of each world to be manifest in the other, or at least the noumenal in the phenomenal. The question created by these mutually exclusive, yet interrelating, worlds is: how is it possible for subjects to have practical freedomthe capacity to will autonomously (i.e. spontaneously) or act from a priori motivesif a natural or empirical cause can always account for what a subjects action is?30 Woods response is that Kants two forms of causality are not strictly parallel, and that noumenal causality grounds phenomenal causality (at least for human actions). A succinct summary might be Woods quote that empirical causality regarding human actions is an effect Jill Buroker also comments that B307 apparently rules out the two-worlds reading of Kants distinction between appearances and thing in themselves. (Buroker, Jill Vance. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason., 204, footnote).
29 28

Pollok, Konstantin. Naturalism and Kants Resolution of the Third Antinomy. 6. Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 85.

30

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of intelligible causality. 31 Wood cites A544, but also appears to be building on Kants claims that the intelligible cause, with its causality, is outside the series; its effects, on the contrary, are encountered in the series of empirical conditions (A537/B565), but whereas Kant was claiming that that intelligible causes have some form of effect, Wood is going further saying that intelligible causes are responsible for the production of all actions (which would mean that no action could be accounted for with any degree of accuracy empirically). In short, Wood claims that an empirical cause is insufficient for its effect since human actions can be viewed from the standpoint of effects of freedom, and thus only come into being with the participation of a free act of the will.32 It would seem then on this view that, at least by themselves, natural causes cannot produce their effects, and their true causal efficacy (at least in regards to human actions) lies outside of the phenomenal world in the intelligible world. Now Wood righty does not go so far as to render empirical causes as apparent causes instead of real causes, in which case all causation would truly exist outside the phenomenal world and everything observed would occur in accord with a form of preestablished harmony. Instead he maintains that empirical causes are real (and not apparent) in that they conform to natural laws. However, Woods real causes seem to create a natural determinism in name only since, even though their causation is a result of Practical freedom outside of time, actions only need to necessarily follow preceding actions in space and time to be called determinism, for nothing more isrequired for them to deserve that title of empirical causes (over apparent causes). 33 It is difficult to assess whether Kant would accept this notion since his aim was merely to establish that such a relationship was conceivable, or merely possible, and Woods view seems to empty real causes of any significance. For the metaphysical naturalist (which here shall be understood as one who holds that anything that exists must be an object measurable by the empirical sciences) this solution is problematic because intelligible causes having effects in empirical causality does not maintain a closed system. At face value, causality becomes an illusion of freedom. For if empirical causes were not alone responsible for their effects, then Kants determinism loses its force, which would
31 32 33

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 86. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 87.

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do irreparable damage to Kants second analogy (concerning the principle of succession in time in accordance with the laws of causality) presented in chapter 2, Book II: Analytic of Principles.
34

In Woods defense, this could be seen in Kants malicious liar illustration, where causal

determinants are seemingly overridden by the law of reason, since regardless of all the empirical conditions[reason] could have and ought to have determined the conduct of the person to be other than it is (A555), for Kant does relate intelligible causes to empirical effects via natural events. However, conflating events and types of causality appears problematic. 35 It might be possible to rescue Wood here by adopting the view proposed by Pollok in his paper Naturalism and the Third Antinomy, which clarifies that what is relevant when Kant considers the possibility of human action is that only a non-physical cause (our will, intention, choice, decision and their cognates) can justify rather than effect the action. The authorship of an action is a non-physical attribute or status.36 This saves causality from illusion, but moves away from Woods two-worlds foundational interpretation. Now some naturalists may note that even this solution introduces the sense of an oughtness implying that the world is not as it should be, which raises the question that if the noumenal and phenomenal operate independently, where did the sense that the world is not as it ought to be originate? Granting such human autonomy even as just a means of acknowledging the moral law applied to actions still presupposes that there is an outside of the series where naturalism cannot go. Thus, it would seem that either the theory of metaphysical naturalism rules out morality, or morality rules out metaphysical Hud Hudson also claims that Woods theory does violence to natural determinism if Wood means by insufficiency of empirical causes that there must be something behind appearances (something that the appearance is of), and thus this becomes the source of transcendental freedom, then everything would be the product of freedom (c.f., Hudson, Hud. Kant's Compatibilism. 27-28). However, it is unfair to attribute such a view to Wood, since nothing of this sort can be found in his explanation of freedom or the relation between empirical and intelligible causality, and is hard to square with his objection to phenomenal causality being nothing more than apparent causes (c,f., Wood Allen W. Kants Compatibilism. 76-82, 87). Hud Hudson illustrates that the difference between Kant and Wood is that Kant relates intelligible and empirical causes through natural events which maintain empirical causality, whereas Wood relates intelligible and empirical causes types of causality, which do not maintain empirical causailty. (Hudson, Hud. Kant's Compatibilism. 27-28). Pollok, Konstantin. Naturalism and Kants Resolution of the Third Antinomy. 4, italics his.
36 35 34

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naturalism. On these grounds, metaphysical naturalists may reject Kants view out of hand since it calls the practicality of their theory into question. In this case Wood may be right in simply acknowledging that stubborn Humeans are likely to reject Kants theory as unintelligible regardless of any compatibilist solution.37 Nevertheless, some determinists should be satisfied with Kants compatibilism since Kant aims to treat metaphysics as a science readily agreeable with measurable experience purporting the existence of the natural law and the causal system that operates it. However, by necessarily grounding empirical causality in intelligible causality, Woods theory does not do justice to Kants explanation of the phenomenal world since his view subordinates empirical causes to intelligible causes by allowing the intelligible to eclipse the sensible, and thereby causality, whenever their horizons meet.

C. Inconsistent Freedom? Since Wood is attempting to defend Kants claim that agents are able to do otherwise than they in fact do, it may help to review Kants argument for freedom before proceeding on to Woods theory of timeless agency. While not as perspicuous as his argument for determinism, Kants argument for freedom appears to be as follows: If the actions of a subject originate from its self (c.f. A533/B561) and the actions are performed because the subject ought to (out of respect for the moral law instead of being impelled by nature) (c.f. A547/B575), then the actions of the subject are the result of pure reason (and not determined by nature) (c.f. A534/B562).38 As covered above, Wood argues that empirical causes are the effect of intelligible causes (i.e., freedom) which originate outside of the phenomenal world and therefore are outside of time resulting in a form of timeless agency since if humans are things in themselves then they are of the noumenal realm and not subject to space and time. This leads to the second challenge: how

37 38

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 89.

Brown, Curtis. Kant: Third Antinomy (on Freedom), Trinity University: Classical Modern Philosophy, last modified April 21, 2009, accessed September 17, 2013, http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/modern/kant-3rdAntinomy.html.

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is it possible to hold moral agents responsible for not acting as they ought to do if every action is predictable and knowable as a result of preceding conditions?39 Wood acknowledges that timeless eternity and timeless beings producing events at different points within time is a metaphysical problem, and one that would render his theory of Kants solution untenable if a coherent version cannot be found. 40 Without settling this issue Wood reveals that such a position requires the postulation of a subset of possible worlds for the actual world (where natural causation orders events according to preceding contingents), from which possible world is selected and actualized according to a subjects intelligible character when it makes a timeless choice regarding its empirical character. This selection impacts the natural world such that everything required for the chosen empirical character is actualized including the subjects moral history and even world events necessary for the determined series of that possible world. According to Wood any specific choice leaves an almost endless variety of counterfactual paths an agent could have selected with their timeless choice other than the one they did, and as a result there is an endless variety of possible empirical selves and personal moral histories that could have been actualized given a different selection.41 To begin, there is no support from any of Kants works or additional writings that he held to any notion of Woods theory of timeless agency, but nor can it be shown that Kant did not hold to this view, and for the sake of argument even if Kant did not hold to Woods theory that would not negate it should the view succeed in making sense of Kants compatibilism. Yet, even if the complexity and seeming improbability of this theory holds, it faces a host of challenges ranging from far-fetched to contradictory. Accepting Woods proposal that each intelligible character has such timeless agency means granting God-like attributes to human subjects, in which noumenal selves have the ability to freely select an empirical nature affecting the phenomenal world both regressively and progressively (and is yet still harmonious with the ramifications of every other human subjects similar free choice). In theory the intelligible character would be responsible for events and natural disasters long before birth, since they
39 40 41

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 85. Ibid., 90. Ibid., 91.

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belong to the causal temporal sequence necessary to actualize the freely chosen empirical self.42 By the same process, future events would become locked as all of a subjects current actions would be determined by the intelligible characters choice to create a form of fatalism. Wood responds to these objections by biting the bullet on the theorys complexity, arguing that an agent cannot be held responsible for what he calls mere side effects of the agents choice, and offers a lengthy response to fatalism.43 However, Hud Hudson brings two additional critiques, stating that Woods hypothesis is internally inconsistent and in conflict with Kant's other views. To demonstrate the internal contradiction of timeless agency, he states: In order to connect the choice of the agent with the empirical event it is supposed to conditionwe are forced to regard the choice as simultaneous with the relevant empirical event. This is simply an outright contradiction. Suppose that some activity x is timeless. Then there is no time at which x occurs. But if x is simultaneous with something y, x and y occur at the same time. Thus, there is no y such that x and y are simultaneous.44 As such, it is hard to expect a convincing form of compatibilism to ignore an internal incoherence. However, Hudson does admit that this internal contradiction assumes that by timeless Wood means without temporal location or duration as opposed to existence at all times.45 Nevertheless, even if this is granted to Wood, such timeless choice disrupts several of Kant's other theories including freedom itself, for since heteronomous choices rest on either resisting or incorporating sensuous inclinations into a choice, they must occur within time. In this sense, it would seem that freedom is relegated to the sole choice of ones empirical character, with no freedom in each subsequent moment. If this is true, then timeless agency also proves more challenging to Kants claims regarding his moral philosophy. If the intelligible character is timeless, then respect for the moral law within time is merely a determined outcome, and the endless progress, or moral striving, towards holiness demanded by duty is lost.46 In his Walker, Ralph Charles Sutherland. Kant: The Arguments of the Philosophers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. 149.
43 44 45 46 42

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 92, 93-101. Hudson, Hud. Kant's Compatibilism. 26. Ibid., 26, footnote 30. Practical Reason. 5:128-129

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parallel response to Woods article on compatibilism, Jonathan Bennett sees this freely choosing of a world including contingents that precede birth as proof that these so-called timeless free choices are nothing like exercises of moral responsibility effectively unhinging morality and freedom.47 Ultimately, he feels that such a solution is an appeal to ignorance. Bennett further reveals that such a solution falls apart if an intelligible character is responsible for choosing an empirical character that contains qualities that cannot act autonomously (thereby negating the ability to choose), such as insanity. As such, the agents insanity could not be the result of a free noumenal choice, since there are no Kantian grounds for claiming this, or for supposing that the results of noumenal freedom come anywhere near to coinciding with the matters for which we regard ourselves as morally responsible.48 If this is true of Woods theory, then in trying to prove Kants first premise for freedom, that actions originate in the subject by means of timeless agency, Wood denies the second premise since the performance of actions can no longer be said to originate solely from ought. Now, Wood himself acknowledges that he is partial agreement with critics who point out problems in reconciling Kants freedom and the more commonsense features of his own ethical theory,49 but if this true, then the very oughtness that allows Kant to argue for the freedom Wood is defending comes under fire. It is also possible that in defending premise two, that actions are performed because the subject ought to, Woods compatibilism between freedom and causality denies the first premise of Kants argument for freedom, since even though actions originate in the subject they are determined by the acknowledgement of practical laws. Kant states of the Intelligible faculties of understanding and reason that every effective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all (A539/B567), and Wood takes this to mean that freedom is compatible with causality in that it is another type of causation simply operating in a different capacity.50 In fact he goes so far as to claim that Kant holds that a holy will is free even though its acts are necessitated, because they are necessitated from within by

Bennett, Jonathan. Kants Theory of Freedom, in: Wood, Allen W.. Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.104.
48 49 50

47

Ibid., 105. Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 75. Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 82.

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reason rather than by the sensuous impulses that are foreign to our rational nature,51 and this origination from within is all that is required for freedom despite being necessitated. Thus, the question becomes, is this true freedom, or has Wood merely freed subjects from one form of causality simply to enslave them to another? In which case, he has turned Kants resolution into a dualism between opposing causal determinisms and not resolved the issue of freedom and natural causality. While Transcendental freedom and Practical freedom appear agreeable on the surface, most libertarians will surely take issue with Woods account of Kants compatibilism as not being free enough.

D. An Unsatisfactory Kantian Compatibilism In light of these challenges, what then has Wood achieved? While many commentators have deemed Kants attempt to reconcile noumenal freedom with phenomenal determinism as a hopeless failure 52 and a theory that itself is worthless,53 Woods proposed theory is a noble attempt to redeem Kants compatibilism, which ultimately achieves far greater harmony than many traditional theories (and no theory is likely to ever satisfy everyone). However, Wood openly admits that his view only creates a form of compatibilism between freedom and causation generally (so much so that freedom is a form of causation driven by the ought of the moral law), but incompatible with natural causation.54 As a result, in going beyond Kant in order to defend freedom, Wood disconnected freedom from the natural world. This is why Woods theory is not dissatisfactory, but unsatisfactory, for if empirical causality is the effect of intelligible causality, then freedom transgresses into contingents that have effects in the determined phenomenal world where ought cannot be derived from is, and if timeless agency is true, then (save the sole choice of ones empirical character) freedom is
51 52 53

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 82 italics mine. Walker, Ralph Charles Sutherland. Kant: The Arguments of the Philosophers. 148.

Bennett, Jonathan. Kants Theory of Freedom, in: Wood, Allen W.. Self and Nature in Kant's Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984. 102.
54

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 82.

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sterilized, trapped in the actualization of the chosen empirical subject. By way of illustration, the difference between the two worlds Kant establishes is likeable to playing a game and the official rule book for that game. The two are completely distinct and yet without one another either would be incomplete: the game without the rule book is unintelligible, and the book without the game would be meaningless. Thus, the game presupposes the rules of the game in order to be played, and the rulebook justifies the actions made in the game. Otherwise there is no way to tell whether the book applies to the actions on the field at all, and random activity certainly would never amount to a rulebook. The two are inseparable, the players must begin the game with an understanding of how the game ought to be played. Conversely, Woodss version of Kants compatibilism bridges two completely separate worlds in which events are determined in the same sense as an athlete providing commentary on what ought to have been done in a select prerecorded game and subjects are free in the same sense as a spectator choosing which player he/she wants to be in the same pre-recorded game. Neither is satisfying. Wood acknowledges that compatibilism theories typically strive to show that there is no real metaphysical problem with free will, and save these two challenges his theory seems to do so.55 Incompatibilist Ralph Walker makes a similar critique of Kant himself stating from a purely formal point of view he [Kant] succeeds in showing that the two ideas are consistent, but at the cost of detaching freedom utterly from the context in which it was originally required that of everyday life and ordinary moral appraisal.56 In this case it is possible that Wood has correctly understood Kant (in that Kant would confirm Woods assessment). Nevertheless, if the facts fail to line up with Woods resolution (even if he has correctly interpreted Kant), then another compatibilisitic solution must be sought (whether on Kantian grounds or not). However, ones does not need to take the critique quite so far, for another theory of compatibilism based on the two-worlds interpretation may be free of the challenges presented above. Yet, it is equally possible that since these questions flow naturally from a two-worlds view this lends credence to the two-aspects interpretation, in which case one could much more easily adopt one of the

55

Ibid., 75. Walker, Ralph Charles Sutherland. Kant: The Arguments of the Philosophers. 148.

56

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compatibilism theories proposed by Kant commentators Lewis White Beck, Robert T. Butts, or Hud Hudson who endorse a version of the non-ontological reading of Kant's distinction.

Conclusion After reviewing Kants argument for a compatibilisitic solution to the third antinomy between subject freedom and natural causation, and assessing Allen Woods interpretation, it should be clear that his view should ultimately be rejected in order to make room for another solution. Wood certainly provides an attractive view to what he calls Kants unique compatibilism, but it seems rather dubious as to whether it accurately represents Kant since despite the theorys complexity the relationship between freedom of rational subjects and causation as it appears in nature is still unresolved. Even Wood himself admits having hope for a simpler and less counterintuitive solution to the free will problem.57 Admittedly, rejecting Woodss compatibilisitic theory reopens the field for the proponent of another Kantian compatibilism, with scholars continuing as hardy knights who are certain of carrying away the laurels of victory if only they take care to have the prerogative of making the last attack and are not bound to resist a new assault from the opponent (A423). In which case even this paper is just the last attack on the dialectical battlefield waiting to be contested by yet another hardy knight.

57

Wood, Allen W.. Kants Compatibilism. 75.

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