Some Frustrations with Kant

Given the mental effort Kant expends on the separation of rationality into one (pure speculative reason) that can only relate to the formal, and the other, it’s fraternal twin (pure practical reason), which is limited to the anthropological, or material— We can see Kant is engaging in the redefinition of human reason by compounded abstraction so as to allow for the validity of his opening thesis: “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.” Reason, in these two parts, is then conflated by Kant and is said to have the ability (and almost an insinuated teleological purpose) for somehow shaping the human “will” into something that cannot be exceeded in its resultant moral worth. Here, Kant’s assumptions alone place reason in this capacity, imbuing it with strange metaphysical powers which can somehow make other abstract concepts (i.e. the “will”) contain an infinite amount of yet other abstract terms (“good”) so that this mental concept of “will,” now confounded by abstraction upon abstraction, is made, as a purely artificial construct, to reveal itself to the constituents of the empirical domain as being that thing of the greatest possible worth for them. It is only within the border of Kant’s abstract playground that ideas can be fantasized into containing infinity of anything. As soon as an “unlimited” notion of “good” crosses the empirical threshold, it must shed all infinity that was metaphysically attributed to it. So, in our finite actuality, no thing can be “good in itself.” “Good in itself,” is a purely rational concept and may be postulated and played with in the playground of the mind, but it will always remain a potentiality within this mind as the term is held together by circular reasoning, is defined entirely by abstractions and is fashioned together by Coherentism.

When it comes to the moment for Kant to offer a convincing, fundamental truth (whether through the critique of a pure practical reason, or that of a pure speculative reason; we would not begrudge Kant his own tools) about how we might come to see, or even want, ourselves as necessarily linked to his subjugating duty-action theory of morality, Kant honestly replies that he cannot “see what [his] respect” for the Universal Law “is based upon.” It may be that he cannot see the principal which animates respect because he has forgotten that, for it to be intelligible within the constructs of his normative system, he must first, and separately, construct its value and meaning in the abstract chamber so that its definition and function end up being precisely tailored per what is needed for the Categorical Imperative to gain increased favor over the human being. For Kant, the subjugation of humanity to a “pure” moral philosophy is obviously preferred over efforts made in search of the fundamental truths about morality.