KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Freedom of the Turnspit 119
Leibniz denies, that such an indifferent situation can ever occur.
There cannot be two equivalent things that are equivalent in every
respect and in every relation to the subject; there must be some difference
that in fact makes a difference and provides grounds for a
decision: 82
To assert also, that the mind may have good reasons to act, when it has no
motives, and when things are absolutely indifferent, as the author [Clarke]
explains himself here; this, I say, is a manifest contradiction. For if
the mind has good reasons for taking the part it takes, then the things are
not indifferent to the mind.
Even a free action is determined by sufficient reason: 83
It is true, that reasons in the mind of a wise being, and motives in any mind
whatsoever, do that which answers to the effect produced by weights in a
balance.
Kant was not satisfied with either of these positions. Clarke's
solution grounded freedom in the ability to act without a motive and
without a rational ground. Furthermore, this freedom of humans
(and the spontaneity of animals) seems to consist in the ability to
abrogate the conservation of force, to act against the laws of nature.
Such a clear violation of the principle of the second analogy was of
course out of the question for Kant.
Leibniz's arguments, on the other hand, are acknowledged to
be in principle correct: "For if appearances are things in themselves,
freedom cannot be upheld" (B564). This is argued at length in
the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant denies, however, that the
determination by motives deserves the name of freedom and, accordingly
the antithesis reads simply: "There is no freedom ..." Even if
one were to say that an action is not determined by an external
mechanism but by internal representations, one is only distinguishing
between an automaton materiale and a Leibnizian automaton
spirituale. Leibnizian freedom, says Kant, "would at bottom be
nothing better than the freedom of the turnspit, which, when once
wound up, accomplishes its motions of itself." 84
82 Leibniz, 5th Letter §16.
83 Leibniz 5th Letter §3.
84 Critique of Practical Reason, A174; Ak 5,97; W 4,222.