47 pages • 1 hour read
Immanuel KantCritique of Practical Reason
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1788A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Conclusion Summary
Kant notes that there are two things that “fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence…the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” (129). The first is a reminder of his mortality and insignificance as a physical being, while the second reveals his significance as an intelligence. Both reveal that Kant has a consciousness through which he can work to understand the infinite reality and “countless multitude of worlds” (129) before him.
However, even this admiration for the external universe and the internal moral law can only be a starting point toward reason. In fact, it can lead people astray: Observation of the skies encouraged the false science of astrology, while the study of morals brought about “enthusiasm” and “superstition” (130). Only reason can overcome such dead ends, Kant writes. He holds out the hope that moral reason can be studied scientifically like mathematics or chemistry. A science of morality, supported by philosophy, could one day be established and prevent false ideas from developing.
Conclusion Analysis
Throughout Book 2 of his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant discussed ways in which practical reason and the moral law could be taught. In the conclusion, he makes explicit his belief that morality, including The Nature of Moral Law and Ethical Action, can be studied and taught like a science. This emphasis on the science of morality reflects broader Enlightenment assumptions about how knowledge is legitimated: Kant accedes to the Enlightenment view that only knowledge that can be systematized and subjected to logical proof is legitimate. He argues that the previously abstract and subjective terrain of morality can become as objective as any other science. Those who study and teach morality might then analyze “examples of judging morally” (130) scientifically, as one would in chemistry. Exactly how this would work in practice is not clear, although Kant’s confidence that such a science is even possible does reflect the optimism of the Enlightenment that human and social experience can be empirically understood and improved.
When Kant discusses contemplating both the night sky and the moral law within himself, he is illustrating his understanding of the dual nature of humanity. This helps in understanding Kant’s views on The Limits of Speculative Reason and his philosophy overall. Humans are not beings of pure abstract thought trapped in inconvenient bodies, as Plato may have thought, nor are they simply building their ideas and understandings out of their sensory experiences, as Hume suggests. Just as humans are beings who operate in both the material and abstract realms, so too does Kant’s pure reason require use of both abstract (or, to use Kant’s term, speculative) and empirical reason.
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