10. Tenth Lecture: Noumenal Freedom and the Free Will to Act Morally
In this lecture, we delve deeper into the concept of freedom, particularly its instrumental role in moral decision-making. I am among the scholars who hold that Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason to examine the interplay between freedom, a priori synthetic judgments, and the possibility of their coexistence. This lecture will address the challenge posed by students who perceive a seeming contradiction between causality and freedom, as outlined in the third antinomy of pure reason.
Some individuals adopt new-age or superficial interpretations in an attempt to link Kant to ideas such as ultimate determinism, the "game of life," or spirituality. These interpretations, however, are far removed from a genuine understanding of Kant. Through careful analysis, we arrive at firm conclusions that causality and freedom can coexist. According to Kant, the initiation of causal chains lies in the noumenal realm, along with the capacity to choose between maxims in moral decision-making. This does not, however, render practical reason in moral deliberation secondary. On the contrary, through the exercise of moral decision-making, we gain the ability to disrupt "causal chains," transcend disposition, and ultimately act in accordance with the moral law as expressed in categorical imperatives.
Explanation of Freedom
Based on the previous references, one could get the idea that freedom and practical reason, when it comes to Kant, are completely conditional and fully determined by character. However, that is not the case. Next, we shall see how Kant overcomes the conflict between the concepts of causality through laws of nature and causality through freedom (third antinomy of pure reason).
In the section “Clarification of the cosmological idea of a freedom in combination with the universal natural necessity,” Kant gives a structured approach to how the law of nature (that “everything happens for a cause”) does not contradict intervention by reason exercising one’s freedom. He asks: “Is it nevertheless possible to regard the same occurrence, which on the one hand is a mere effect of nature, as on the other hand an effect of freedom?”
The solution is straightforward. Empirically, every action is certainly an occurrence, and no beginning from itself is possible. Every cause must, therefore, also be an effect of something, connected to a preceding cause, etc. However, the first causes (that produce the causal chains) must not be empirical but purely intelligible (not something we experience, but something we can reason).
Thus, the causes serving as starting points of these chains of linked events must be grounded in pure understanding, not experience. Kant says: “For if we follow the rule of nature only in that which might be the cause among appearances, then we need not worry about what sort of ground is thought for these appearances and their connection in the transcendental subject, which is empirically unknown to us.” The key is that the transcendental starting points of the causal chains remain unknown to us. He adds: “[Transcendental cause] is passed over as entirely unknown, except insofar as it is indicated through the empirical character as only its sensible sign.”
Kant's explanation that leads to resolution, similar to self-analysis, boils down to the interaction between the phenomenal and noumenal realms. Empirically (in the phenomenal world), we have no reason to assume that anything can happen outside the boundaries of natural laws (every effect has a cause). Whereas when it comes to the intelligible first cause (as also when it comes to ourselves as the subject), it belongs to the noumenal realm; it is not subject to the laws of nature (governing the phenomenal realm) and thus, free, non-determined events can take place in this domain. Therefore, the possibility of unconditioned causality and freedom also exists; it is just in the noumenal realm (beyond our comprehension).
In this sense, we (as humans, as subjects) also possess empirical and intelligible features. Therefore, there is also no violation of the rules, and the antinomy will be solved.
Kant describes our causal empirical side: “Thus every human being has an empirical character for his power of choice, which is nothing other than a certain causality of his reason.” Our empirical character is drawn from our previous choices (being the effect of appearances and rules that experience has provided). Thus, this side of the mechanics of our decision-making and action is fully predictable (“there would be no human action that we could not predict”).
Now, when reason comes into play, we can recognize that there are situations in our lives when our actions change because we consciously decide to act differently. Initially, Kant refers to a sudden decision to get up from a chair, stating: “Without the necessarily determining influence of natural causes, then in this occurrence, along with its natural consequences to infinity, there begins an absolutely new series, even though as far as time is concerned this occurrence is only the continuation of a previous series.” He explains: “At times, the ideas of reason have actually proved their causality in regard to the actions of human beings as appearances, and that therefore these actions have occurred not through empirical causes, but because they were determined by grounds of reason.”
In the simplest terms, in the realm of noumena, or the intelligible world, freedom is possible. The noumenal realm is not subject to the deterministic causal laws of the phenomenal realm. However, since the noumenal realm is beyond our direct experience and comprehension, we cannot know the causality within it.
Freedom Within Us
Here, we can again see the nods where the noumenal realm of intelligible (thoughts, ideas, concepts) shakes hands with the phenomenal realm of empirical (natural, experience, appearance). No matter how hard we would want to try to deem a thought a part of the causal sequence, we are unable to do that. The reason is plain: to squeeze a thought into that sequence (as natural empirical experiences), it would have to become an object with temporality (a form of time) – which is impossible. Therefore, it can be seen as a friendly clash of two realms (phenomenal and noumenal). We can explore the thought based on the empirical effects it caused. However, we can never get any experience out of the thought itself because the causality in the noumenal realm is not subject to the conditions of time. Thus, Kant can state: “Pure reason, as a merely intelligible faculty, is not subject to the form of time, and hence not subject to the conditions of the temporal sequence.”
We should also note that the way Kant resolves the contradiction regarding the third antinomy of pure reason can be related to the freedom of the human mind to form a priori synthetic judgments. Also, those two interrelated ideas (freedom and a priori synthetic judgments) can be considered the main reasons why Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason.
Resolving the third antinomy is based on the freedom of the human mind to form a thought without a priori empirical intuition, entirely based on ideas, concepts, and understandings existing within the mind without any direct sensory input through the senses (otherwise, there could be a causal connection to an a priori empirical event). Forming an a priori synthetic judgment also presupposes the freedom of the human mind to form an a priori judgment based on existing concepts and ideas without empirical sensory input. The difference between these lies in the fact that not all thoughts the human mind has the freedom to generate are a priori synthetic judgments. For example, the thought "I am going to stand up now" is sufficient to generate a chain of empirical events to eternity; however, it does not produce new knowledge within the mind as an a priori synthetic judgment does (e.g., "5+7=12").
When we return to the analysis of the proof of the lack of contradiction in the third antinomy, we can conclude that the very fact of our reason not “turning on and off” all the time, which would enable us to consider thoughts as subject to the natural law of appearances, proves the compatibility of freedom and natural laws operating in separate realms. Kant adds that if our reason “arose and started working at a certain time, its causality would then be nature and not freedom.” The fact that the formation of thought within our minds is “empirically unconditioned”; in other words, as Nietzsche put it, the fact that “a thought comes when it will, not when I will,” proves that our mind is capable of initiating “first causes” in the intelligible noumenal realm without any causal link to a priori sensible conditions.
Per Kant, Nietzsche’s statement would read: "A thought comes when the freedom of our reason wills it, and we can only explore the empirical effects of these thoughts, never knowing anything about the noumenal or intelligible realm from which they originate.” No matter how random we consider our thoughts, we do not know, according to Kant, what sort of causality exists within our intelligible realm of mind.
Here, we can also reach a very interesting idea that may be the key to understanding Kant. Although our reason is capable of applying transcendental categories, maxims, and concepts to our understanding, and our understanding is capable of using forms of intuition (e.g., time) to form, for example, a priori synthetic judgments, we cannot apply any of the laws of nature to our reason because, in itself, it never directly produces any appearances (operating in the noumenal realm of things-in-themselves). Kant states: “No temporal sequence takes place in it [reason] even as to its causality, and thus the dynamical law of nature, which determines the temporal sequence according to rules, cannot be applied to it.”
Kant also adds: “Reason is thus the persisting condition of all voluntary actions under which the human being appears.” This means that reason cannot only end but also initiate chains of empirical conditions. Kant exemplifies this well by describing a person who tells a malicious lie that causes suffering for others. When we analyze the causes, we can see the chains of appearances. He adds: “One goes into the sources of the person's empirical character, seeking them in a bad upbringing, bad company, and also finding them in the wickedness of a natural temper insensitive to shame, partly in carelessness and thoughtlessness.” These are all the empirical causal chains that have brought the person to a certain situation, which, in turn, is, according to Kant, “entirely unconditioned in regard to the previous state.” This means that no matter what in the person’s life has led them to that situation, malicious behavior could be avoided with the intervention of reason. Kant states: “In the moment when he lies, it is entirely his fault; hence reason, regardless of all empirical conditions of the deed, is fully free, and this deed is to be attributed entirely to its failure to act,” or, in other words, he adds that “regardless of the entire course of life he has led up to that point, the agent could still have refrained from the lie.”
All this makes sense when we consider the mechanics of how our mind operates—receiving sensory input from the world, processing sensations into perceptions, and then organizing these perceptions into a unified experience by applying the categories of understanding, using imagination in synthesizing these experiences, and connecting them to the concepts provided by our understanding. Judgment is the faculty that mediates between understanding and reason, similar to how imagination mediates sensations and understanding. It helps us apply concepts to the particular instances we experience and think about and assess whether these instances conform to universal laws or principles. Therefore, we can guide our behavior with reason, using practical reason as the spirit of moral principles. In short, when it comes to judgment, we possess the power to interfere; when and how we exercise that is another question.
This description also resolves the question of freedom versus causality, enabling Kant to state in Religion within the Limits of Bare Reason: “That the ultimate basis for the adoption of moral maxims must itself be free; so the basis for it—the explanation for its favoring (e.g., a bad maxim rather than a good one)—can’t come from any natural drive and must involve yet another maxim; this in turn must have a basis, and so we are launched on an infinite series of ever earlier bases for choices.”
When it comes to the actual act of deciding, Kant admits that it must be a free choice; however, he places it into the noumenal: "But this disposition—the ultimate subjective basis for the adoption of maxims—must have been adopted by [‘man’s’] free choice because otherwise he couldn’t be subject to praise or blame for it. But the subjective basis or cause of this adoption can’t be known.”
We can see how Kant systematically explains the mechanics and then respectfully admits that the unconscious primordial subjectivity (the object of which our subjective self as “S1” is) has the final word about our decision. He repeats the same here: “But why the intelligible character gives us exactly these appearances and this empirical character under the circumstances before us, to answer this surpasses every faculty of our reason, indeed it surpasses the authority of our reason even to ask it.”
The more we use our reason to train our minds, the higher the quality of our choices and actions. In the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant adds a description of the repeated use of one’s faculty: “I choose this because duty commands it,” stating that “one cannot explain virtue as skill in free lawful actions, for then it would be a mere mechanism of applying power. Rather, virtue is moral strength in adherence to one’s duty, which never should become habit but should always emerge entirely new and original from one’s way of thinking.” In other words, we must actively apply reason to build the habit of being moral and develop spirally toward being better people through that.
In the simplest terms, when it comes to humans, we have an empirical side of the experience that we can sense and analyze, where there is no freedom and causality is fully predictable; however, with our mind, we can break those causal chains, because it has the freedom to make moral judgments through practical reason.
