La doctrine kantienne du Faktum de la raison et la justification de la loi morale

Abstract

Abstract: According to a widespread view, Kant abandons in the Critique of Practical Reason the attempt to justify the moral law. This paper argues against that view and presents a new interpretation of the doctrine that deals with the justification problem. The paper seeks not simply to affirm what the predominant view denies; it seeks instead to show that Kant’s argumentation isn’t an alternative that the predominant view allows for. On the predominant view, the impossibility of providing the relevant kind of proof, i.e. a transcendental deduction, amounts to the impossibility of providing a satisfactory justification. The paper shows that one thing doesn’t entail the other. Kant can resolve the justification problem without providing the relevant kind of proof because the mere exposition of that law already accomplishes what a proof would have accomplished. The purpose of the Fact of Reason is to point to the characteristic of the moral law – its particular relation to the act of willing –, which accounts for this convergence of exposition and justification. This new interpretation of the Fact of Reason sheds light both on the overall structure of the second Critique and on the second Critique’s relation to the Groundwork.