stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

necessarily their empirical recommendations) are always mutually exclusive, in the sense that
only one of them can be adopted into the will’s determining ground, in which case the other is
automatically rejected or ejected from that function (Yovel 284).
For Kant the transcendental subject acts freely. But what is the transcendental subject? I
hope that we have arrived at a point where the words transcendental subject no longer denote
some kind of mysterious entity that inhabits the human body. The transcendental subject is
reason. Kant argues that reason acts freely. But what is reason? Reason is an ability, in other
words, an inherent possibility. But how can an ability, an inherent possibility act freely? It
cannot. For this reason, it is more appropriate to say that reason acts freely as the actualized
ability, in other words, as the activity called the autonomous will. This is how we get to the
following conclusion. It is the autonomous will that acts freely. This is why in the Groundwork
of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant himself cannot quite decide whether it is reason or the will
that acts freely. “Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being has
the power to act in accordance with his idea of laws—that is in accordance with principles—and
only so has he a will. Since reason is required in order to derive actions from laws, the will is
nothing but practical reason” (Gr 412). This indecision is consistent throughout this work. “A
rational being counts himself, qua intelligence, as belonging to the intelligible worlds, and solely
qua efficient cause belonging to the intelligible worlds does he give to his causality the name of
a ‘will’” (Gr 453). Kant also echoes this same point in the Critique of Practical Reason: “a being
capable of actions in accordance with the representation of laws is an intelligence (a rational
being), and the causality of such a being in accordance with the representation of laws in his
will” (CPrR5:125). Also this point of indecision has been recognized in the literature. For
example in “Will and Reason: A Critical Analysis of Kant’s Concepts” Nathan Rotenstreich
109