Kant and the Question "Why Be Moral?"

Abstract

In the context of philosophical debate, the question “why be moral?” was first explicitly formulated by Francis Herbert Bradley. This question divides those scholars who seek an answer to it in Kant’s philosophy. Some think, like Gerold Prauss, that Kant flatly denied the possibility of such an answer and stated that morality must simply be accepted as a given fact, the “fact of reason”. However, since such immediatism or “transcendental decisionism” seems unsatisfactory, another group defends the so called “rational agency interpretation”. Conforming to this, rational agency represents a supreme, absolute value which founds morality and, with this, provides the reason why we should be moral. But such an absolute value either already is moral, but then the answer given to the question “why be moral?” is circular; or this value makes morality dependent on something extra-moral. Conforming to Kant, this would destroy all morality at its root. The solution of the problem is the following: Kant does not deduce morality from an extra-moral presupposition, nor does he present morality itself as something simply given. He gives an explanation of the originating of morality. It originates from practical reason when this reason turns onto itself, determining itself and thus constituting its autonomy. In virtue of this originating, morality is not just a derivation of something presupposed, but is something radically new, original an autonomous. On the other hand, there is, in fact, a foundation or “groundwork” of morality, that is, a comprehensible process of its constitution. With this, Kant avoids immediatism: Morality need not be simply accepted as a pure, brute fact, but can be comprehended by reason.