While most of Kant's readers understand that there is a relationship between his theoretical and practical philosophy, I believe that his commentators in general but his English readers in particular often overstress the importance of his epistemology while simultaneously underemphasizing his moral philosophy. In this paper I argue that Kant's epistemology is subordinate to his moral philosophy.  Moral ends are more important for Kant than gaining knowledge for its own sake, and the morally relevant consequences which arise from his theoretical philosophy are not incidental but drive his entire project. The reason for the tendency of Kant commentators to downplay or ignore the clear indications that moral concerns are primary in his thought owes to a difficulty I believe English-speakers in particular have in taking seriously those aspects of human existence which are not amenable to empirical investigation. The empiricism of English language culture, combined with an inclination towards a pragmatic mind set, lead many English speakers to conflate knowledge of sense objects with knowledge of reality simply. Our empiricism often inclines even the most intellectual among us to ignore those elements of a thinker's work which do not fit with what is more often like a prejudice than a well grounded position, namely, that the only objects worthy of study are those amenable to an empirical methodology. As a consequence of this, many of Kant commentators hold, if not that Kant's primary intention is to lay out the limits of reason, that this is the only part of his work which deserves serious attention.

Consciously or not, the tendency to assume that knowledge of reality is the highest good and to downplay or ignore moral issues, and post-Kant that empirical knowledge in particular is exhaustive of the modes by which human beings access reality makes it less likely that Kant's readers will consider the possibility that his epistemology is in a subordinate role to his moral philosophy and to take him seriously in this regard. To the extent that we are influenced by the Enlightenment's tendency to define objects as real by virtue of their being known by a theoretical, or scientific method, to that extent will we be more likely to forget that for Kant, knowledge is not of things-in-themselves, even though he states this repeatedly. Kant does not conceive of the empirical realm as a defacto reality to which we then apply a method to determine its makeup.  Knowledge is explicitly and repeatedly said to be of the phenomenal realm only, and it is only in the synthetic activity of applying the a priori categories of the understanding that this knowledge is gained. We only gain knowledge of an aspect of reality, namely, that part which 'shows up' to sense perception.  The activity of reason by which we gain this knowledge is essentially subjective, meaning 'reflective of the inner workings of reason, and not to be seen as telling us about reality conceived as independent of reason. While these points are obvious for the most part within Kant scholarship, I think they are worth repeating for reasons I noted above concerning particular tendencies among English speakers.

Put in the most simple terms, then, to have knowledge for Kant is not to be conceived as having knowledge of reality simply. When Kant argues that; 1) knowledge is limited to the sense realm and that; 2) knowledge is attained by the application of the principle of cause and effect to objects of sense perception, he does not mean to tell us something which has theoretical importance alone. He has an ultimate purpose in focusing on these issues, and this purpose is neither Cartesian or empiricist but rather moral. Simultaneous to and inseparable from his theoretical analysis of how we know is a consequence for man's highest good: his moral progress.

I begin the first portion of the paper by highlighting what Kant has to say concerning the ends of philosophy. I go on to argue that in order to understand the essential function of Kant's epistemology in his moral philosophy, it is necessary to have a sense of how Plato's distinction between appearance and reality plays a role in both Kant's epistemology and moral philosophy. The function of the distinction between appearance and reality within Kant's system is not of significance primarily for its epistemological import. The epistemological conclusions drawn from Kant's use of Plato's distinction are subordinated to a moral end. The significance of the distinction between phenomena and noumena is that it makes possible a "space" in which it is possible to conceive free will to reside. Epistemologically, this "space" coincides with the realm we can not have knowledge of, e.g. noumena. An essential consequence which arises out of the distinction between phenomena and noumena is the prescription that we are not to conceive objects of our will in such a way that would necessitate the use of the principle of cause and effect when explaining their relation to our will. We are to limit the use of the principle of cause and effect to explaining the relation of sensible objects to other sensible objects, including the sensible aspect in ourselves as beings who also exist in nature.

In the last section of the paper, I analyze Book II of the Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, arguing that this segment of Kant's work in particular supports the thesis that Kant's repeatedly telling us that we have no knowledge of transcendent objects is not primarily done to make an epistemological point. Given the stress he places on knowledge it is reasonable that many read Kant as intending to tell us simply that we cannot know certain kinds of objects, e.g. transcendent objects. I argue, however, that in his repeatedly telling us that we cannot know combined with a stress on the way we conceive objects, he is attempting to persuade us not to think of various moral grounds of the will as if they were sensible. Our inability to know things-in-themselves, as well as the normatively proper subjective epistemic stance towards objects, are together important by virtue of the fact that together they decrease the likelihood that the we will give to our wills sensible incentives, and not for what they say about knowledge of the real or lack thereof.

At the outset of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tells us that the object of his theoretical work is not reality, where reality is conceived as independent of the mind. He states:

At the end of the same work, in the "Canon of Pure Reason" Kant indicates that the purpose of philosophy is moral, saying:

At the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant tells us that he is attempting to "deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."(CPR,Bxxx)  If we are to take Kant seriously concerning what he tells us at both the outset and end of his most important critical work, we cannot assume that he is interested in epistemological questions for their own sake. He reiterates that he is not concerned with attaining such knowledge towards the end of the Critique of Pure Reason, where he argues that the practical ideas of God, freedom and immortality play a role in our moral betterment, not in extending our knowledge. In his words:

To gain a more adequate understanding of both Kant's epistemology and how it is in an integral relation to his moral philosophy, it is fruitful to look at how Plato's distinction between appearance and reality functions within Kant's epistemology. It is reasonable to suppose that the influence of Descartes and the empirical tenor of modernity in general incline many today to read into Plato's work the assumption that knowledge for its own sake is of primary importance. While it may seem that Plato is primarily interested in knowledge of true reality gained in the process of Enlightenment, there are elements within the Allegory in particular which indicate that attaining knowledge of the real is not Plato's primary concern.

The simple fact that there are two kinds of firelight, illuminating qualitatively different objects, indicates that knowledge for Plato is not of reality simply. As a result of illumination by the firelight inside the cave, the released prisoner gains a degree of knowledge. At this point, he will have opinions which could be true, but they could also be false. The released prisoner gains knowledge of reality only when he goes outside the cave, where objects are illuminated by the sunlight. It is well known that the above distinction between appearance and reality plays an important role in Kant's epistemology, and at this point I briefly discuss how this distinction buttresses Kant's moral philosophy, the ultimate end of his entire project.

For Kant, objects of a possible experience are entitled phenomenal and these objects correlate directly to the objects illuminated by the firelight inside Plato's cave. Objects transcendent to any possible experience are entitled "intelligible" by Kant, and in Plato's allegory they are illuminated by the sunlight outside the cave. Whereas Plato holds that a few can gain knowledge of ultimate reality, Kant denies this, saying we can gain knowledge of objects inside the cave, or phenomenal objects only. To say "only" here means to say that these objects are not ultimately real. In contrast to Plato, then, for whom knowledge is of something like a transcendent object, knowledge of such objects is not an option for Kant. The transcendent realm is the ultimate ground of phenomenal reality. For both Plato and Kant, transcendent reality is the basis of empirical experience. But for Kant, we "only" have access to the effects of this ground. We cannot epistemically access the transcendental ground of reality, what he refers to as the transcendental object in some contexts and the thing-in-itself in others.

Kant argues that Plato makes the mistake of reifying his ideas. That is, Plato treated the forms as if they existed wholly independent of reason. When we focus on the referent of a thought which has for its object a ground of being, e.g. moving from viewing the sun as a metaphor for the ultimate cause of nature as well as all goodness to assuming that we can know that ultimate cause, or when we move from holding the idea of a necessary supreme being in mind to positing his real existence, we are incorrectly assuming the existence of a transcendent object. If, on the other hand, we keep front and center that we only have a concept of such objects and do not have epistemic access to these possibly real things-in-themselves, treating these (concepts of) transcendental objects as ways of accounting for a natural or moral unity, we are dealing with a transcendental idea. If we question the tendency in the history of Western civilization to interpret Plato's forms precisely along the line I just argued is mistaken and "adjust" this interpretation by viewing the forms, or Ideas, as moral objects (Objekts) along Kant's lines, they transform into analogs to Kant's transcendental ideas. Particular transcendental ideas are of importance for moral philosophy while others are important for making sense of nature, and he defines transcendental objects as kinds of ‘x' factors we make use of to account for both physical and moral aspects of our lives.

Consequent to the above adjustment, we arrive at the following way of applying Plato's schema to Kant's thought: When reality outside the cave is conceived as an object existing independent of reason, as Gegenstand, it will be conceived to be as an object essentially independent of reason. More generally, it will necessarily be conceived to be in an external relation to the will as its determining ground. As such, when we conceive transcendent objects in this way we place them in a defacto, or a posteriori, relation to reason and thereby the will, thus having a detrimental effect on our moral state. When objects outside the cave, analagous to Kant's things-in-themselves or transcendental objects, are conceived as Gegenstande, they lose their positive moral influence. If, however, we incline away from interpreting the ultimate thing-in-itself in Plato's thought, namely the Idea of the Good, from a thing-like object and towards an Idea posited by practical reason, which Kant himself clearly wants to when he criticizes Plato for reifying the forms, the ultimate ground of reality in this scenario takes the form of a final cause, or a moral object (Objekt). This idea of the good as Idea is in an a priori relation to reason and thus in an inner, or what is the same thing practically, a subjective relation to the will. The idea of the good as Objekt, then, is a transcendental idea. Transcendental ideas are in an a priori relation to moral experience, and are in contrast to transcendent objects (Gegenstände) which are in a merely defacto relation to man.

Transcendental ideas do not refer to empirical realities in the manner of the hard sciences. Transcendental ideas, by their very nature, must be consciously thought, for the purpose of conceiving a whole or attaining moral end, e.g. living virtuously. They are about inner, subjective experience and not the external makeup of the universe as a thing-in-itself. It is by virtue of their needing to be thought, or that is, posited by what Kant calls practical reason, that they are able to have moral import. The difference between an object with moral significance and one with merely theoretical significance is the difference between an object which is conceived and willed and one which is merely described as objectively present. I now go on to show that central to Kant's conception of moral experience is both the conscious activity of willing the object of the will and conceiving that object in a specified way. To properly conceive these objects, which involves conceptually distinguishing Gegenstände from Objekte, one must distinguish moral objects in general as objects which must be consciously thought, on the one hand, from empirical objects which as given are passively perceived and which act on the sensible receptivity of the will, on the other. In the last section of the paper, I discuss Bk. II as an example of Kant focusing on how we are to conceive objects of the will in such a way that makes it possible to attribute moral goodness to the will.

In the section entitled "Phenomena and Noumena" in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant invokes the distinction Plato had made in the Republic between a sensible and intelligible realm. He argues that reason attempts to apply concepts in relation to one or the other of these realms, entitling the application of a concept in relation to the sensible realm an empirical employment of concepts, while the application of a concept to the transcendent realm is entitled a "transcendent employment of a concept". The proper application of a concept is solely to the sense realm. Knowledge for Kant is of phenomenal objects only. It is grasped when an object conforms to the mode of the understanding and manifests itself to the understanding within the a priori forms of space and time and the categories of the understanding. Where our more intuitive idea will tend to be that objects are real independent of reason, or the subject, Kant's argument that we only have knowledge of phenomena does not imply that (real) objects which do not conform to the categories do not exist, but that such objects have no reality for the understanding. He explains:

While Kant emphatically holds that we cannot have knowledge of things-in-themselves, we are not to assume from this that no real ground of objects we perceive with the senses, or phenomenal reality, exists. Reason, he argues, requires that we assume a real ground underlies all appearances. When Kant speaks of this ground as transcendental, he means both that it is beyond the reach of the understanding and that it is necessary to think this ground as real if we are to adequately account for experience. Thinking only the pure form of this ground, we are not to think its content. The primary means by which we merely think the form of a real ground is to refrain from conceiving it in a manner analogous to an empirical object, which would require that we utilize the categories of the understanding, the most important of these for morality being the principle of cause and effect. If we conceive the ground of the will as analogous to a sensible object, we (subjectively) experience it to be in a heteronomous relation to the will. In short, we are not to sensify our concept of the ultimate ground of either nature or the will. We are to consciously think of such a ground as some real ‘x' whose content we have no knowledge of, but which must be thought by the understanding in order to adequately explain, or give an account of the experience of nature and morality. In the following remark, Kant stresses that while there is a real ground of experience, we have no knowledge of it:

One reason for recurring confusion about why Kant posits the transcendental ideas of God, freedom and immortality after he has denied knowledge of such objects as things-in-themselves arises from his inadequate explanation of both that and how the distinction between phenomenal and real objects supports his moral philosophy. I am arguing that this confusion clears up when we realize that moral concerns are guiding Kant throughout his theoretical work. One reason in particular for a tendency to ignore the essential connection between Kant's epistemology and his moral philosophy arises from his calling knowledge of phenomenal reality ‘objective'. English language cultures tend to assume that "objective" means "existing independently of the subject". For Kant, however, knowledge of empirical, or phenomenal reality, is called "objective" not because it is reflective of reality conceived independent of the mind, but because it conforms to rules of the understanding and in particular the forms of space and time and the principle of natural necessity. For Kant, the distinction between "objective" and "subjective" is not so much about things in the world as it is about whether he is stressing the rules of the understanding or the locus of the experience of reason. Grasping this can help clear up the confusion of language usage occurring when Kant refers in some contexts to subjectivity as the condition of the will and in others to the need of the good will to adhere to objective moral laws. This way of articulating the manner in which reason functions underscores two things that are important for Kant's moral philosophy: that reason is not in relation to external reality and that its primary function is inward-oriented. The rules of the understanding are objective in the sense that they remain the same for the understanding, but they are subjective in the sense that they are conditions of our reason and not about reality conceived as a thing-in-itself. In the context of Kant's usage of the relevant terminology, then, it is possible to speak coherently about reason as subjectively applying objective concepts. All this means is that the application of the rules of reason are grounded in the inner workings of reason and not reflective of or meant to be about the external make up of the universe. Whereas theoretical inquiry has as its focus the external makeup of the universe, then, practical philosophy is concerned with the grounds of the good will, and in regards to Kant's usage of the concepts of objectivity and subjectivity we are able to see again how moral concerns are driving him.

While Kant makes the inner workings of reason the focus of both his theoretical and practical philosophy, he does not want to leave us with the impression that there is no objective reality as this concept would be understood by the average person. The relevance to this for his moral philosophy seems obvious: If we concluded that there were no objective reality in this common understanding, we would be much more likely to simply follow our desires. While the raw data of experience is meaningless if it does not fit the categories of the understanding, there must be a ‘thing-in-itself' which grounds this appearance. Kant continues:

From the above line of argument, Kant arrives at the concept of noumenon. The noumenal realm is analogous to the realm outside the cave illuminated by the sunlight in Plato's "Allegory". This realm, importantly, will be the realm not accessible by the knowing mind. This will mean that the principle of causality will not apply when explaining the relation between noumenal objects (Objekt) and the will. Speaking of the derivation of the idea of this intelligible realm, whose objects we are to always keep in mind cannot fit into the categories of the understanding, Kant says:

Emphasizing that one function of the concept of a noumena is to limit knowledge, he adds:

Kant does not say that he is positing the idea of a noumenal realm in order to give us substantive information about reality as independent of reason; to tell us what constitutes reality simply. Rather, in counter-intuitive fashion he tells us that the concept of a noumenal realm is needed to restrict knowledge to the phenomenal realm. As was touched on briefly above, one of the morally significant consequences of the limitation of knowledge to the sense realm is that it entails a limitation on the extent to which we can explain events by the principle of cause and effect. Stated more practically, it limits objects which are subjectively explained in such a way that they constitute external grounds of the will. Effecting this limitation in particular, which regards more how we consciously and subjectively conceive the grounds of our actions and not what we know and do not know about real objects and the objective causal relations entailed therein, is a primary reason for what can seem at times like excessive repetition by Kant that we don't know this or that object. Right at a point where one might expect Kant to make some substantial claim about the real, he continues on a negative way, stressing that we have no knowledge of the real. Telling us that the concept of noumenon limits reason to the sense realm, he says:

While the influence of both Descartes and British empiricism has led philosophy in the English speaking world overall to give priority to attaining knowledge of reality conceived as material and external, as well as how the mind is affected by objects independent of it, for Kant reason itself forms our experience by synthesizing raw data of the sense world into a coherent unity. The primary function of reason for Kant is not to grasp the nature of reality conceived along Cartesian lines or more generally as independent of reason, but to supply the conditions both for the coherent experience and explanation of nature and morality. Moreover, insofar as Kant's limitation of the principle of cause and effect to the phenomenal realm is primarily intended to support the aims of his moral philosophy, this principle as so construed is arguably the most important nexus linking Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. On this view, the limitation of knowledge to the sense realm is of primary significance in Kant's thought by virtue of this support and not as a means of explaining how we attain knowledge, let alone for what it says about the epistemic relation of the mind to reality in general.

I argued above that Kant's restriction of knowledge to a phenomenal realm reveals the influence of Plato. The presence of two realms in Plato's thought contributes to the formation of Kant's negative argument that we only have knowledge of phenomena. On this view, Plato's dualism directly contributes to Kant's system in which we find a phenomenally empty "space". This "space" is constituted out of that aspect of reality which we do not know. The realm of sense is known by the application of the principle of cause and effect, but this realm is ‘only' an appearance insofar as it does not account for the whole of either the natural or human, i.e. moral realm. It is because the principle of cause and effect, or natural necessity, is indicative only of the mode by which we inwardly know, the object of this knowing conceived as appearance and not ultimately real, that it is possible to think transcendental freedom. This transcendental freedom is constituted in a positive causality as distinct from natural necessity by which we explain events in the phenomenal realm and which we can know, e.g. apply the principle of cause and effect for explanatory purposes. The idea of a "space" in which freedom conceived as a positive spontaneous causality is grounded is central to Kant's understanding of man as a moral being.

A primary purpose of this paper has been to show how Kant's epistemology has as one of its primary purposes making the ground of morality conceivable. The conceivability and not the actuality of this ground is necessary though not sufficient for morality. The very concept of free will and obligation requires, indeed demands, that we conceive of the grounds of morality as at most to be necessary and never sufficient to it, for to conceive any set of conditions apart from man's own agency as sufficient to morality would be to negate the very concept of morality, which for Kant and the Western tradition generally is rooted in the supposition of a contingent relation between intention and action. Stated another way, the distinction between noumena and phenomena is a necessary theoretical condition of morality, but what is also needed is a particular way of conceiving objects (Objekte) of the will such that they act as pure and not heteronomous determining grounds of the will. An important purpose in Kant's repeated stress on how we conceive the objects of the will is to fulfill this second requirement of morality.

In the next and last section of the paper, I discuss a portion of Kant's writings which illustrates the arguments above, namely, that Kant's denial of knowledge of transcendent objects has primarily a moral purpose and not a theoretical one. In Book II of the Religion, Kant emphatically tells the reader that we are not to conceive ideas of faith as if they referred to sensible objects. When Kant tells us that we cannot know various objects of the faith, e.g. God and immortality, as well as our own moral goodness, he is not primarily interested in making an epistemological or theoretical point, but in influencing the way we subjectively conceive our relation to grounds of our actions which we profess to be faith-based. At this point, Kant is fully in the realm of practical philosophy, attempting to deal with the negative implications for morality if we conceive the grounds of our will as if they were sensible, thus placing them in a heteronomous relation to the will. We do this when we conceive them as knowable, again because "knowable" means "explainable by application of the principle of cause and effect.". While the theoretical positing of a noumenal realm was necessary for the possibility of transcendental freedom and agency, Kant also sees it necessary to assist in the fulfillment of the sufficient conditions of morality, and this will entail a rhetorical task: increasing the likelihood that the reader will consciously conceive ideas essential to morality in a certain way. This task is essentially practical and prescriptive and not theoretical. Given that Kant has told us we have no knowledge of God, it makes little sense to interpret Kant's long discussions concerning how we are to conceive God as if he were telling us something about God as independently or objectively existent; as Gegenstande. If we take Kant's stress on God and immortality as ontological in nature, we make Kant out to be inconsistent given his emphatic denial earlier on that we have no knowledge of the reality of these objects. We have an obligation to see if there is a way to reconcile what for many English speakers seems to be an inconsistency before we blame him for actually being so. References to how we are to conceive of God and immortality in particular have precisely a moral function and are thus not inconsistent with his also telling us we have no knowledge of these objects. When discussing these ideas, it is reasonable to assume that he is not talking about objects conceived as independent of reason; as Gegenstande, but attempting to accomplish a rhetorical task linked to his practical ends. We are not to conceive these objects as Gegenstande, but as Objekte. These (Objekte) are posited by practical reason and are essential to the fulfillment of the necessary and sufficient conditions of attributing moral goodness to the will.

Conceptions of the Christian Religion, the Purity of the Will, and the Experience of Obligation in Book II of the Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone: Persuading the Reader Not to Conceive Objects of the Faith as Sensible

While it may seem obvious that we are not to conceive religious concepts such as God and immorality as empirical realities, what is not so obvious is that it is detrimental to the good will if we even conceive these ideas as if they are empirical. I argue here that Kant's primary purpose in Book II of the Religion is to persuade us not to interpret the ideas of the Christian religion even as if they referred to sensible objects. Conceiving these ideas either as in fact or as if they refer to sensible objects is detrimental to morality. Examples will be given below of the various ways we do both. When we conceive what Kant calls examples offered by the Christian religion as if they themselves were the source of the moral law, we risk giving the will an empirical incentive. By contrast, when we conceive the ideas of the Christian religion in the right way, as ideas (Objekts) posited by practical reason, we facilitate the realization of both elements of morality: a pure incentive of the will as well as continual striving.

The problem of sensifying the ideas of the Christian religion arises in particular in relation to the moral ideal embodied in Jesus, whom Kant refers to as the Son of God. Given that in the person of Jesus the pure moral idea is represented as analogously sensible, it is all to easy to interpret this idea as if it were grounded in an object in time and space. Kant speaks of this problem here Regarding the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, saying:

The problem that arises given that we have need of a sensible example of a moral ideal is that we will rely in this sensified object as an incentive of the will. Kant warns us against the tendency to conceive God as if He were in time in the form of Jesus, for when we do this we are at risk of conflating the idea of God in our reason with possessing knowledge of God. Knowledge of God would always be subjectively experienced as a relation between the will and a sensible object, for we have knowledge of sense objects only. Referring to the tendency to imagine God as if he were sensible and the injurious results for morality, he says:

Kant does not repeat that we cannot know God simply to make an epistemological point. Within the context of Kant's overall project, there would be no need for him to belabor this point as one with epistemological import primarily. He has already argued this in the theoretical portions of his work, and by this point we can reasonably treat this as a given. The stress here is rather on the subjective effect on the inner relation of the will to the ground of morality when we conceive God as if he were knowable. The qualifier "as if" underscores the practical issue I argue is central to Kant's repeated assertion that we are not to assume knowledge of God in this portion of Religion.

The purpose of telling us not to conceive God as if we had knowledge of his existence is to prevent us from giving our will a sensible determining ground. For Kant, insofar as a sensible determining ground of the will is entailed in a sensibilized conception of the ground of a moral ideal, such a conceptualization would be a sufficient condition of negating morality. In terms of practical action, which requires us to look at the relationship between the will and its object, we can look to the kind of causality determining the will. If that causality is analogous to an efficient cause, or that is, external to the will, this will be an indication that the conception of the object is injurious to morality. When we conceive of God as if he were in time and space, we make Him into an object external to the will. If on the other hand the causality entailed in the relation of the will to the object is analogous to a final cause, the will is in the proper relation to its object. Such occurs, for example, when we conceive of God as an object of pure practical reason. One of the most subtle yet key notions in Kant's moral philosophy is that a necessary condition of the will's goodness is conceiving the relationship between the will as subjective and conceiving the ground of moral goodness in the right way so as to make this possible. Within the conception of the relationship between the will and its object is entailed a conception of causality between the will and its determining ground. By placing pressure on the issue of causality, we can place Kant's emphatic stress on how we conceive objects of the will within a primary issue within the history of western philosophy: what conception of causality are we to utilize when thinking about the universe and our place in it?

Kant begins Section I of Chapter II of the Religion by prompting us to live up to the Christian ideal: "Now it is our universal duty as men to elevate ourselves to this ideal of moral perfection, that is, to this archetype of the moral disposition in all its purity..." (Rel., 54) Although there is a tendency to represent the ideal of moral perfection in sensible guise, this object of the will as a kind of ground which makes moral good possible abstracts from all sensible conditions. When Kant speaks of the idea being valid in itself, he means that we do not need to refer to a result or consequence apart from the activity of the will when the will's action is predicated upon a correct conception of its ground. When we conceive that ground correctly, the will's goodness is entailed in the activity which ensues out of that incentive, and as such is grounded in the relationship between the will and its object (Objekt). We are not to conflate the idea of the moral law with the concept of a sensible object, for to do so changes this relationship into one of externality.

While the "law commands unqualifiedly" (Rel., 56), if we conceive the reason for our action to be grounded in a sensible object, the will is subjectively determined by an object external to it. Stressing how we are to conceive of the ground of the will so as to result in the right kind of relationship between the will and the good, he tells us: "We need... no empirical example to make the idea of a person morally well-pleasing to God our archetype...." (Rel., 56) The ideal of moral perfection, again, does not refer to an external object in time, but rather "this idea as an archetype is already present in our reason..." and "... only a faith in the practical validity of that idea which lies in our reason has moral worth." (Rel., 56) Attempting to assure that we avoid conceiving analogously sensible objects as if they as actually sensible were the source of the moral law, in which case we would be making the concept of an empirical object the determining ground of the will, he adds:

Kant approaches the issue of evil with the same concern in mind. Evil is represented in the Bible as if it were grounded in an empirical object external to our reason. But this does not mean that evil is in fact grounded in an object in time and space - an object which would be in an external relation to the will as incentive. The biblical account of good and evil does not refer to an external, sensible condition of man as historical and which we are to consider theoretically, but to a subjective principle which inclines man to act against the morality. Kant supports his position by quoting the Bible: "‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood (the natural inclinations) but against principalities and powers - against evil spirits'." (Rel., 52) Of this passage, he says:

Through repetition, then, Kant stresses that we are not to conceive good or evil as if they were grounded in empirical objects. To conceive these ideas as if they referred to objects of which we could gain knowledge would make moral good and evil conditioned. We can only know objects which are in an external relation to the will and which entail explanation by means of the principle of cause and effect. Explaining the object of the will on this basis would make it impossible to attribute moral obligation or blame to the will.

In the middle of Book II, Kant tells us that certain moral ideas are regulative only. Analogously to the theoretical philosophy, in which regulative ideas function to give us a coherent explanation of nature, in the practical philosophy, the regulative ideas are to function as guides to moral action. The stress here is on the inner workings of the will and its relation to its ground. Assuming that these ideas refer to external objects of which we could have knowledge is harmful to morality. It is worth repeating the entirety of a remark Kant makes on this issue:

By this point, I hope to have convinced the reader that in the Religion Kant is not telling us we cannot know objects of the faith in order to make an epistemological point, but rather that he is telling us not to conceive these objects in a way which treats them as if they were sensible, and that he is doing so for the complex of reasons discussed above.

While we can have no theoretical knowledge of how we are able to attain the highest good or that we have done so, we have an obligation to continually do what is within our power to bring it about. Referring again to our lack of certitude concerning our ability to obtain our moral end and suggesting that there would be something detrimental for moral experience if we could attain such certitude, Kant adds:

Owing to the mode of presentation of sense objects to the understanding, if we had knowledge of God or an afterlife, or more importantly from a practical standpoint, if we conceived these objects as if they were knowable, Kant suggests that fear and desire would be more likely to constitute the incentive of our will.

To decrease the likelihood that we will conceive objects of faith as sensible or as if they were so, thereby transforming them into objects which affect the sensible receptivity of the will, Kant explicitly construes the elements of faith as regulative ideas only which are derived from reason alone. Attempting to persuade the reader to base his striving on an Idea which the will itself posits, he says:

Furthermore, "each man ought really to furnish an example of this idea in his own person." (Rel., 56)

The Prescribed Conception of the Son of God

Following up on the above line of persuasion, Kant becomes more specific, attempting to dissuade us from conceiving any temporal embodiment of moral perfection as adequate to the moral idea within. So long as we conceive of the person of Jesus as offering us a concrete example of moral purity, and not as perfect human being, we keep the ground of our moral action in the right kind of relation to the will. We are not to conceive him as the hypostasization of a transcendent object, namely moral perfection. Conceiving Jesus as a perfect human is to hypostasize him. When we do this, we risk the will being determined by an external, empirical object. Attempting to get the reader to conceive Jesus as the ground of morality in such a way as to retain the subjective, or inner relation of the will to its ground, Kant says:

Focusing on the actuality of Jesus as a man who is both divine and in time increases the likelihood that we will transform a moral incentive into a sensible incentive.

Kant speaks of Jesus as "a truly God-minded man". By conceiving Jesus as offering us an example of moral purity, and keeping our focus on the pure idea, we avoid hypostasizing the idea of moral perfection. We must limit our concept of this person in this manner to make it possible for an unconditioned condition in the form of the pure moral law to constitute our will's determining ground. The moral law is already present in the mind, and Jesus' function is to remind us of the moral law by the example which he represents. Jesus, as a sensible being in time, is not as such the source of the moral law, and Kant tells us: "the archetype of such a person is to be sought nowhere but in our own reason". (Rel., 56) Furthermore:

In the relevant footnote, Kant repeats that humans have need to make use of analogously sensible ideas in order to grasp moral ideas. He says:

If, for example, we understand Jesus's reference to himself as the incarnation of the pure moral idea to be referring to the immanentization of a transcendent ideal, rather than as attempting to affect our inner disposition, we misinterpret him. Repeating a theme, Kant argues that Jesus uses metaphors owing to man's need for sensible examples:

Parables are a way of making reference by way of analogy to what is not visible. Their import resides in their capacity to motivate the hearer to act on the basis of a moral incentive. In summary, we are to avoid conceiving Jesus as a perfect historical figure and as such to make him a source of the moral law, for this makes it more likely we will give our will a sensible, not a moral, incentive. While some readers may see this line of reasoning as transforming Jesus into a merely subjective concept, in telling us not to "sensify" the key Christian ideas, we are able to locate him within the long history of Western philosophy. Rather than view him as excessively skeptical in regards to religion, we can reasonably see him as following on the Socractic principle that we have no knowledge of "the most important things". In a time of religious fanaticism, this principle is not only not harmful to true religion, it is essential to it. In regards to we modern English speakers in particular, we might get something useful from Kant by viewing him as leaning heavily against the assumption that we can gain knowledge, after all, of everything that is important to us humans. Looked at in any or all of these ways, Kant's epistemology plays an essential negative role in his vision of man and his relation to the world, and in the excerpts above we can see him following up on his stated intention made at the outset of the Critique of Pure Reason to limit knowledge to make room for faith.

When Kant argues that knowledge is limited to the sense realm in the critical philosophy, he is not merely intending to describe what for him would end up having to be a merely theoretical truth. Rather, he ultimately means to influence us to consciously conceive the relation the ground of our actions to both the phenomenal and noumenal realm in a certain sort of a way. This aspect of his overall project, I have meant to argue, is properly understood not as an attempt to get us to understand a correct neutral description of the mind's external relation to the real, but as a prescription for a way of conceiving objects of the will's determining grounds so as to make it possible for the will to be morally good. The prescribed way of conceiving our relation to sensible and transcendent objects has as its end not the attainment of knowledge of a theoretical truth for its own sake, but a practical, or moral end. Both the denial of an epistemic link to the real and the conception of grounds of the will so as to entail a certain kind of relationship between the will and grounds of action are necessary conditions of attributing moral goodness to the individual will. Similarly, we are not to conceive all reality as sensible, or empirical, for this would require that we conceive all possible grounds of the will to be in an external relation to the will. A final point deserves to be made. Anticipating the possible criticism that my stress on Kant's repetition concerning what we cannot and can know is overly abstract, I make this note. Because empirical realities must be explained in relation to one another by the principle of cause and effect, when we conceive of man himself and the grounds of his will as empirical, this would entail the need to explain our actions analogously to the mechanical explanation of the motion of matter. Later in the 20th century especially, this way of conceiving man in relation to the universe can be argued to be the most fundamental implication to come out of Western philosophy, one which can reasonably be argued to have had detrimental effects on the moral and spiritual condition of Western man. If a key part of Kant's project regards the inner, or subjective relation of the will to its grounds, and if the latter is not determined by anything merely objectively present but by our subjective conception of objects of the will, e.g. as Gegenstande or Objekte, then it makes sense that a key purpose of the entire edifice of his theoretical philosophy is to persuade the reader to consciously conceive moral objects in a certain sort of way, a way which both entails certain notions and excludes others. If this line of thinking is right, we might think of Kant's theoretical discussion concerning epistemological issues and the conceivability of freedom which is based on the limits of knowledge as once removed from the conditions of attaining a good will while the conscious conception of the objects as prescribed by Kant in the Religion and elsewhere as flowing out of the theoretical work to be the immediate conditions of the good will.

Footnotes