Kant’s Philosophy: Enlightenment, Freedom, and Autonomy
Illustration: The Emergence from Self-Imposed Minority
Illustration is the emergence of man from his self-imposed minority. Minority is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This minority is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without the guidance of another. Many men, through laziness or cowardice, remain in this minority throughout their lives, even though nature has long since freed them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes).
Most men find the step into adulthood dangerous and uncomfortable. This could be the fault of guardians who were responsible for directing all their decisions, not allowing them independence. This fostered the belief that taking steps alone was risky. The reality is that it is not inherently risky, but the mistakes one might make are opportunities for learning. Without this trial and error, one is unable to learn to think for oneself.
Therefore, most men find it difficult to escape from this minority, which has become almost second nature. Consequently, few have succeeded, through their own effort, in emerging from minority and achieving a firm gait.
It is possible, and almost inevitable, that if the public is given freedom, it will enlighten itself. There will always be some who have escaped the dominion of their tutors and the minority, and have managed to think for themselves. This occurs when some, unable to choose change, sometimes end up taking revenge on their guardians because they were instilled with prejudice. After this, the public may slowly attain enlightenment, but it is not guaranteed. To reform thinking, others will follow, enforcing their own prejudices, which will serve the majority who lack independent thought.
Enlightenment requires freedom—specifically, the freedom to make public use of one’s reason. Everywhere there are limitations on freedom, some of which hinder enlightenment while others foster it. The public use of reason should always be free; however, private use is often limited. This does not mean that enlightenment is impossible, but only that in matters concerning society, individuals need to act and behave under certain mechanisms passively. In some cases, one is not allowed to reason but must obey.
For example, when a priest speaks to his congregation, he is making private use of reason and is limited to what the church dictates. However, when he expresses his thoughts publicly in writing, he may express everything he knows about worship and speak for himself.
A man may delay his own enlightenment, but to renounce it altogether would be to violate the sacred rights of humanity.
It is important that authorities allow this progression of thought in society. A monarch can never decide for an entire people; instead, he is responsible for enacting the will of the people.
For example, an enlightened prince is one who does not impose anything concerning religion but leaves his subjects free. By doing so, the government removes humans from their minority, leaving everyone free to use their own reason in matters of morality.
The main point of enlightenment, as men leave their self-imposed minority, is the religious issue, as it is the most dangerous (since the arts and sciences are not intended to play a guardian role). In matters of state, heads of state favor freedom and believe it is not dangerous to allow subjects to make public use of reason. The more freedom there is, the more capable people are of acting freely.
We do not live in an enlightened age, but in an age of enlightenment. Much time is still needed before men, as things stand, can use their own understanding without the guidance of another. However, the path toward that goal is now open, and the obstacles to enlightenment are diminishing. There is evidence of this.
Our age is the age of enlightenment, or the century of Frederick.
What Does It Mean to Be Oriented in Thought?
Thinking for oneself means finding the truth within oneself, in one’s own reason. This is a principle of enlightenment.
Illustration is a negative principle in the use of one’s cognitive faculty.
To use it, one must ask why everything should be acknowledged and then consider whether it could become the basis or rule that is, in principle, the use of reason. Illustration is needed to unveil this question.
Education in the institute of illustration is easy, especially when started young. However, it can be hindered by external factors that may prohibit or impede this process.
Autonomy and Heteronomy
Will is a kind of causality of living beings in that they are rational, and freedom would be the property of this causality, which can be efficient. The concept of causality involves the concept of laws by which, through something called a cause, something else must follow, namely the effect. Where there is freedom, there must be causality, according to immutable laws, but of a particular kind; otherwise, a free will would be an absurdity. Natural necessity is a heteronomy of efficient causes, as every effect is only possible according to the law that something else determines the efficient cause to causality.
The will is, in all actions, a law unto itself, marked only by the principle of not acting under any other maxim than that which can be itself a universal law. This is the formula of the categorical imperative and the principle of morality. Thus, free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same.
Freedom and Necessity
The thought of freedom contradicts itself or nature, which is equally necessary. It should be dropped entirely in favor of natural necessity. However, it is impossible to avoid this contradiction if the subject who thinks himself free thinks of himself in the same sense or in the same relationship when he calls himself free as when he considers himself subject to natural law. Therefore, the problem of philosophy is to show that this contradiction lies in the fact that we think of man in a different sense and relationship when we call him free than when we consider him a part of nature subject to its laws. Both must be thought of as necessarily united in the same subject. The claim of common human reason to freedom of the will is based on our awareness and the admitted assumption of being independent of causes that are only subjectively determined, all of which constitute what belongs only to sensation and are therefore grouped under the name of sensitivity.
When man is considered intelligent, he is thought of as endowed with a will and, therefore, causality. When viewed as a phenomenon in the world of sense, his causality is subject to external determination according to natural laws. This man is convinced that both intelligence and will can coexist. There is no contradiction in a thing being subject to certain laws while also being, in itself, independent of those laws. Kant believes in a universal determinism paradigm based on the Newtonian conception of nature. There is no freedom in nature; there is a certain determinism.
Natural Law
Causality (as in, a cause produces an effect) implies determinism. All of nature is governed by causal laws and a chain between cause and effect. For Kant, phenomena are governed by cause and effect. For example: External Causes — Rain — Effect
(Since they are not the phenomenon itself, they are caused by other things)
Causal laws dictate that phenomena occur for other reasons, external to the body (a piece of nature). This is heteronomy in nature.
Wise Law
I am the cause of my own behavior (rational causation). We are free at the level of reason. Autonomy means self-governing, equal rights for all, and free human beings because they are their own cause.
Illustration means to think for oneself, autonomous freedom.
Range: rational laws (self-determining reason is that which determines behavior) are transcendental (beyond the individual being, possessing a priori forms) and therefore common to all human subjects.
Kant’s Conception of Freedom
Kant’s concept of freedom is linked to his conception of morality, his idea of practical reason. This determines a priori the actions of man through a categorical imperative (unconditioned) that points to man, formally, a duty. This duty is the requirement that a particular action be such that it is desirable that it becomes a universal law, or that the maximum subjective principle is in its origin. The idea of being human is freedom: without freedom, moral obligation makes no sense. In the world of nature, everything is governed by necessary laws. Only if man is something more than nature can he be considered free. Man has a sensitive, phenomenal nature, but he is also a thing in itself, a noumenon. In this noumenal nature, he is rational and intelligible. His action has a twofold explanation: as a phenomenon that occurs over time, resulting from actions caused by prior events, and as a manifestation of the human will, responding to a reason that is not psychological motivation but acts on these, imposing a new order, new causal chains.