Kant was a Lutheran (Pietist) who strove 'to limit reason in order to make room for faith' and so his practical reason (e.g. deontology) was faith-based, no?

I'd be hesitant to go that far, but you're right about him being a Pietist.

He believed in faith, but wanted it to also be limited by reason, at least by my understanding.

It's his belief, which he doesn't claim is knowledge or necessary but just how he sees things, that we must believe in those three things -- god, immortality, free will -- that makes me think he's a protestant.

Maybe Christian is better. It's more the focus on interiority and belief that made me think protestant.

and so his practical reason (e.g. deontology) was faith-based, no? — 180 Proof

I'll say no. Deontology - and his categorical imperative(s) - are reason based. Near as I can tell it's all reason-based, in so far as anything can be based/founded. Of course he makes clear there are ideas of irresistible interest that reason can address but cannot resolve. And for these, faith - though operating with the machinery of reason.

One might ask which for Kant came first, God or reason. More than I know, but I suspect reason. Maybe this way: that God might have got us all here, but it is by reason (alone) we know him and figure things out.

It's not so much about the baptism into community but about how God influences your ethical life as an individual rational being. — Moliere

I’d say this is pretty close to a Kantian ethical perspective, but I’d hesitate to call it Protestant.

“…. Accordingly he would feel compelled by reason to avow this judgment with complete impartiality, as though it were rendered by another and yet, at the same time, as his own; whereby man gives evidence of the need, morally effected in him, of also conceiving a final end for his duties, as their consequence. Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of creation) which at the same time can and ought to be man’s final end…”
(Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, 1793, in Greene/Hudson, 1960)

Still, while morality leads inevitably to religion by means of pure speculative reason, pure practical reason, the ground of morality writ large, has no need of such inevitability, and thereby no need of religion as such.

It should be clear, the dichotomy between whether religion grounds our morality, the rationality of organized church domains generally, or, individual morality grants personal religious inclinations, the merely subjective philosophical approach.
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Deontology - and his categorical imperative(s) - are reason based. — tim wood

Absolutely; couldn’t be otherwise and still have Kant authorship. Still gotta be careful though, insofar as just reason isn’t quite enough, there being both theoretical and speculative reason and thereby the cognitions and principles derived from each. Only speculative reason, albeit of pure practical interest, justifies Kantian moral philosophy, subsequently deemed as deontological, as reason-based.

I’d say this is pretty close to a Kantian ethical perspective, but I’d hesitate to call it Protestant. — Mww

Fair. Maybe it'd be better to say -- as I read Kant it seems his motivation for writing the ethic comes from that religious perspective, but he is, of course, attempting to universalize beyond his own perspective.

The thought came from a casual conversation I was having with someone who is not really into philosophy, but the analogy seemed to work to make sense of some of the ideas -- the person seemed to be struggling with the idea that one should believe in God but cannot know that God exists (talking Kant here -- the practical vs. the theoretical reason). My thinking on Kant is that while it's intended to be universal, it's still sort of the old Protestantism at heart -- while it's all rationalism and duty you are still free to pick your maxims. So, in a sense, it's the conscience that's the guide, though morality only comes from following our maxims that are in accord with the categorical imperative out of a sense of respect for the moral law itself.

It's like an inward-facing version of Rousseau's social contract: the necessary conditions for forming a moral society from the perspective of a rational agent choosing.

(though posting it here to see if it's a bad analogy after all)

It is impossible to understand Kant's ethical doctrine if one does not take into account the convictions and the fundamental inspiration he derived from his pietist upbringing. He prided himself on founding an autonomous morality; he took great pains to that end. But in fact his accomplishment was dependent on fundamental religious ideas and a religious inspiration he had received in advance. That is why, however we may regret not being able to keep the analysis within exclusively philosophical bounds, we are obliged, if we wish to grasp the real significance of the moral philosophy of Kant, to take note of all the points of reference to traditional Christian ethics in its essential structure. It is not with the idea of opposing the two systems to each other that we shall have recourse to this kind of confrontation. We would have preferred to avoid it. But it is forced upon us in spite of ourselves by the exigencies of the subject, and because without it the historian of ideas cannot form an accurate notion of what Kant's moral system really is.

The religious background of which we have just spoken is the source of what characterizes Kantian ethics from the outset, namely, its absolutism, the privilege it assigns to morality as revealer of the absolute to man, the seal of the absolute which it impresses upon morality, the saintliness with which it is clothed. The saintly and absolute value of moral obligation and of the ought; the inverse value -- sacrilegious and absolute -- of moral wrong; the saintly and absolute value of good will; the saintly and absolute value of purity of ethical intention: so many traits whose origin lies in the influence of revealed ethics, and which have been transposed therefrom. But since at the same time the whole universe of objective realities on which that revealed ethics depended in its own order and in the supra-rational perspective of faith had been eliminated, along with the universe of objective realities which metaphysics imagined itself to know, the saintly absolutism of morality required a complete reversal of the bases of moral philosophy and rational ethics. Moral philosophy became a-cosmic. The world of morality had to be constituted purely on the basis of the interior data of the conscience, while severing itself from the world of objects -- confined in sense experience -- which our knowledge attains, and especially from that search for the good, the object of our desires, which also belongs to the empirical order, and to which up to this point the fate of ethics had been tied. — Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Philosophy - The Ethics of Kant

('while severing itself from the world of objects' is a point that John Vervaeke stresses about Kant in various of his lectures. )

(Incidentally I don't know why this topic has been relegated to the Lounge, it is really an interesting question in history of philosophy.)

Oh, I posted it here because it was something of a half-baked thought, but I thought it interesting enough to still talk about.

OK this was nice to read because it's giving me better words to what was kind of just a feeling that seemed to work for making sense of theoretical/practical belief, though kind of roughly parellel to what I was thinking.

I think recognizing its formal expression is important too though because I think Kant's deontology sets up existential thinking: to understand Kant as Kant writing Kant, we should pay heed to his religious background (and this "fills out" the formal ethic quite a bit), but looking at it as a formal system if all one needs to do is be consistent and wish everyone else would follow the maxim you can justify a bit more than Kant seemed to believe possible.

…..to understand Kant as Kant writing Kant, we should pay heed to his religious background….. — Moliere

If Kant doesn’t implicate his own religious background for the a priori pure metaphysics of his moral philosophy, why do we need to pay heed to it?

I think Kant writing Kant wanted Kant to be understood as a pure rational being, “….worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends….”, rather than a religious man.

But then, the conditions which grant the moral good may not adhere in rational beings in general, but only specify how he is necessarily so.

Do you "buy" Mr. Maritain? I don't. It reads to me like straight-out co-opting and arrogation (that is, propaganda and thereby disingenuous and unworthy on its face).

But in fact his accomplishment was dependent on fundamental religious ideas and a religious inspiration he had received in advance. — Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Philosophy - The Ethics of Kant

If you buy it, perhaps you'd like to defend this? It seems to me a variety of Big Lie, the which always starts with a kernel of truth.

My own five-cent analysis is that Kant, whom we're told was brought up Pietist, at some point found it no-longer nourishing; yet finding some of it compelling, tried to reason out why it should be compelling. It being helpful to remember that he is among humanity's strongest thinkers, as well as a professional grade mathematician and world class in physics.

If Kant doesn’t implicate his own religious background for the a priori pure metaphysics of his moral philosophy, why do we need to pay heed to it? — Mww

I'm thinking the Critique of Practical Reason here where he talks about the three ideas which cannot be known theoretically, but which -- for the summum bunnum -- must be assumed for a practical reason at all. Immortality, Freedom, and God seem to fit with the overturning of an authority in a church to put the authority in the person who wills. (which is the bit I got from thinking that Kant is protestant -- the centering of the subject over an authority)

Take this passage from the Critique of PurePractical Reason, where we can see some obvious Christian lineage in his ideas:

Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum, then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason (by which I mean a theoretical proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an unconditional a priori practical law.

It also makes sense of his insistence on truth-telling as a universal rule, I think: Whereas most would say sometimes expediency justifies lying, the universal nature of prescriptions gets along well with the Christian faith. (one of the reasons the "specificity" argument doesn't hit too hard for Kant's deontology, to me -- the one where you can make a maxim so specific that it can always be generalized. It makes sense according to the metaphysic -- but it goes against the spirit)

I think Kant writing Kant wanted Kant to be understood as a pure rational being, “….worthy to be a legislative member in the kingdom of ends….”, rather than a religious man. — Mww

Oh he certainly wants, and even demonstrates, that he is a rational person -- though I'm not so keen on pure rational being. But I think most importantly to Kant is that he'd assert that being a religious man is not in conflict with being a rational, scientific man. It seems to me that's almost a "in a nutshell" explanation of Kant: How to believe in both science and religion without destroying either. (OR, for thems who want to fight, while destroying both :D )

My own five-cent analysis is that Kant, whom we're told was brought up Pietist, at some point found it no-longer nourishing; yet finding some of it compelling, tried to reason out why it should be compelling. It being helpful to remember that he is among humanity's strongest thinkers, as well as a professional grade mathematician and world class in physics. — tim wood

Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational?

And if that were so, why would Kant claim that it's important for practical reason, in general, to believe in God or the immortality of the soul, for instance? (the focus on the intent of an actor is also something important here -- something that fleshes out the choosing of maxims in the formal system)

Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational? — Moliere

Is Pietism rational? From online: "... is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life." Depends maybe at first on what you believe, but later on what you grant and presuppose to be true, and how and in what way. Thus the rationality contingent on what the ground is and how it is determined. Nourishing? To whom, in what way, for what purpose?

And if that were so, why would Kant claim that it's important for practical reason, in general, to believe in God or the immortality of the soul, for instance? (the focus on the intent of an actor is also something important here -- something that fleshes out the choosing of maxims in the formal system) — Moliere

You will find that ably answered in Kant's Preface to his Critique of Pure Reason, the beginning of which, here:

"Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

'It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic."

And soon enough he gets to denying knowledge to make room for faith, because knowledge won't answer, but faith can. And he goes on to make sure his faith is built on, with, and from reason.

This a short answer. Is it enough?

Do you "buy" Mr. Maritain? — tim wood

Professor Maritain. It's not a matter of whether I "buy" the argument, @Moliere asked the question and I happened to know of that essay by him. I will say I've barely scratched the surface of Maritain, who was a monumental figure in 20th century Catholic philosophy, and not much more so of Kant, but I believe Maritain's analysis has merit.

I think most importantly to Kant is that he'd assert that being a religious man is not in conflict with being a rational, scientific man. It seems to me that's almost a "in a nutshell" explanation of Kant: How to believe in both science and religion without destroying either. — Moliere

My thoughts also.

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Going back to the souce I quoted, there's a useful synopsis of Maritain's argument in footnotes 15-16, from which:

Kant tried to transpose revealed morality as the Judeo-Christian tradition presents it to us into the register of pure reason. He sought to retain the Judeo-Christian absolutization of morality in an ethics of Pure Reason, which rid itself of any properly supernatural or revealed element in order to replace it with the authority of a Reason not grounded on the real and on nature.

….being a religious man is not in conflict with being a rational, scientific man. — Moliere

But one would conflict with the other, without sufficiently critical examination of the differences in the conceptions and principles by which each obtains its respective truth.

“…. it is only in this way that the doctrine of morality and the doctrine of nature are confined within their proper limits. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which (…) establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena….”

…and to be confined to its own limits just indicates, by extension, our own cognitive limits, relative to the possibility of experience of any of the objects of one or the other, science or morality. Experience being, of course, the final arbiter of empirical knowledge, all else being merely logical inference.

sharing this bit from ye olde SEP:

The postulate of immortality is typically found alongside Kant’s discussions of the postulate of God. He regards both as necessary conditions for the realization of the highest good, though the function of this postulate undergoes a number of revisions through the Critical period.

(Also, that article opens with life details and highlights some concepts which come from Pietist influence)

Still plan on responding, but that's what I have time for this morning.

- god, immortality, free wil[ — Moliere

He certainly wasn't a Calvanist then.

Is Pietism rational? From online: "... is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life." Depends maybe at first on what you believe, but later on what you grant and presuppose to be true, and how and in what way. Thus the rationality contingent on what the ground is and how it is determined. Nourishing? To whom, in what way, for what purpose? — tim wood

I'd say that, at least by way of my understanding of Kant, that Pietism could be rational in Kant's system insofar that one doesn't claim to have a scientific knowledge of it, but rather employs the practical power of reason which is at least a legitimate use of reason if not the same as scientific knowledge.

This a short answer. Is it enough? — tim wood

I'm more thinking on the 2nd critique than the first -- not that they are separable, but their topics are different. The questions of reason that reason cannot but help to ask about are all with respect to theoretical knowledge. With respect to practical knowledge they take on a different . . . uh.. . role? It's hard to generalize when already talking at such a level of generality.

So no -- the short answer is not enough! :D

The part I'm questioning at the moment is whether or not it's correct to call it protestant, after all. The connection and similarity to Pietism is surely there, so it's fair to say there's a Lutheran influence but it might generalize enough -- to say Buddhism, which I'm much less familiar with -- to not just be protestant, and obviously there are inward-facing Catholics too it might be unfair to get that specific -- perhaps I'm relying too much on Kant's particular religion to classify the ethics, even when it's filled out.

But one would conflict with the other, without sufficiently critical examination of the differences in the conceptions and principles by which each obtains its respective truth.

“…. it is only in this way that the doctrine of morality and the doctrine of nature are confined within their proper limits. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which (…) establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena….”

…and to be confined to its own limits just indicates, by extension, our own cognitive limits, relative to the possibility of experience of any of the objects of one or the other, science or morality. Experience being, of course, the final arbiter of empirical knowledge, all else being merely logical inference. — Mww

I agree with respect to theoretical knowledge. And you're right that this is the sort of conflict Kant mitigates with his philosophy: theoretical knowledge of science, practical knowledge for ethics (which surely must assume Christianity, he indicates at times).

But I think there's more to the use of practical reason -- and then more confusingly, later, the powers of judgment -- than inference alone. That's what the first CI is about, right? And I think the first CI is complemented by the 2nd CI, even though Kant claims they are equivalent.

The part I'm questioning at the moment is whether or not it's correct to call it protestant, after all. The connection and similarity to Pietism is surely there, so it's fair to say there's a Lutheran influence but it might generalize enough -- to say Buddhism, which I'm much less familiar with -- to not just be protestant, and obviously there are inward-facing Catholics too it might be unfair to get that specific -- perhaps I'm relying too much on Kant's particular religion to classify the ethics, even when it's filled out. — Moliere

As far as focusing more on the individual's own ability to reason, rather than relying on a hierarchical decision, this might be something to consider. The 'Protestant Work Ethic" for example is an example of individuals showing how much they were in God's favor by the fruits of their labor. However, this also is contradicted by the fact that this "favor" was always meant as that they were "The Elect" and thus predetermined, which would be Calvinist, and against the notion that anyone had free will in regards to where one would end up. One simply is following "divine providence" in the Calvinist conception. This is a hard determinism, and not a compatibilist one which Kant might argue.

That'd disqualify it from strict Calvinists (although, funnily enough, I'm reading a book going over some of this history right now -- has to do with Locke and the history of the work ethic -- and the reaction to the strict Calvinist doctrine actually took off because they somehow monkey-logicked their way into believing in both the importance of good choices and predeterminism -- the work ethic was very much still part of their culture. (it basically amounted to evidence that you were among the elect -- you're predestined, but if you're not even good then surely you're not elect!)

Though then that's a Some Protestants are Calvinists. Calvinists are Protestants (flipped it about in my head, I always do that)

Must an ethic obtain for all sub-sets, or can the set of sets have properties separate from the sets it contains?

I'm trying to configure where specifically, "Protestant" comes into view here.. And I was trying to get at it from an "individualistic" way. However, that particular way of "Protestant Work Ethic" where one gains favor for oneself through one's labor is actually specifically Calvinist, not just "Protestant", so didn't work, but I still think some "individualistic" angle, can be used as opposed to Catholic/Eastern Orthodox, which might rely more on institutional knowledge.

I think the orientation of his overall philosophy is clearly influenced by Protestantism. It wouldn't be accurate to say that he was Protestant, as he wouldn't even set foot in a church, but that his cultural and religious background establishes the parameters of the underlying assumptions of his ethical theory, as Maritain argues.

(By the way, John Calvin was Protestant, and Calvinism one of the main schools of Protestantism. I'm not sure where pietism fits into the scheme, though.)

I'm trying to configure where specifically, "Protestant" comes into view here.. — schopenhauer1

You can imagine that Kant would have no truck with Aquinas' 'five proofs' or any of the other argumentarium of Scholastic philosophy. They would all be subject to the kinds of critiques he had of other rationalist philosophers. He was famously dismissive of the ontological argument ('existence is not a predicate'). I think intellectually he was very much a product of the Reformation, even if he then went even further than the Reformers in questioning the very existence of the Church.

You can imagine that Kant would have no truck with Aquinas' 'five proofs' or any of the other argumentarium of Scholastic philosophy. They would all be subject to the kinds of critiques he had of other rationalist philosophers. He was famously dismissive of the ontological argument ('existence is not a predicate'). I think intellectually he was very much a product of the Reformation, even if he then went even further than the Reformers in questioning the very existence of the Church. — Wayfarer

Nice.

I'd say that, at least by way of my understanding of Kant.... — Moliere

Where I am in this is that I do not think Kant is understood through religion, on the one hand, and on the other, for religion to try to claim him is - for lack of a better term - Trumpian. Especially when he wrote a book called Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. That is, religion being essentially irrational and unreasonable, it seems to me to border on insult to try to view him through that lens.

And his practical arguments, or reason - his making room for faith - as a matter of "as if" for the efficacy of the idea. Not to establish that god exists, but rather to wrest from the idea of god a basis of reason for freedom.

…..the sort of conflict Kant mitigates with his philosophy. — Moliere

He sure had this proclivity to reduce a concept further than the average philosopher even considered. Who woulda thought general reason had so many qualified reductions, and it’s not that easy keeping them properly separated.

Ever notice, of all the tables of this and that Kant comes up with to facilitate his metaphysical intent, he doesn’t create one for reason? Like a pyramid…..reason at the apex, under it is branched pure/empirical, under pure is transcendental/practical, under empirical is theoretical/speculative. Or something like that.

But maybe he didn’t, because there aren’t any qualified reductions; there is only reason, and its singular role in a tripartite cognitive system. But, while it does have such singular role, it has it only in that kind of system, but is not restricted to that role in the entirety of it applicability, insofar as it is itself the originator of ideas, which rely nonetheless on the cognitive system for their representations.

It can get very confusing.
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But regarding the thread title and its ramifications, I’m really not that interested in it. While he does say morality inevitably leads to religion, albeit in his post-critical prime, hence the possibility of leading to Protestantism, if one studies his moral philosophy in and for itself alone, he doesn’t need to find out how it leads to religion.

It's like an inward-facing version of Rousseau's social contract: the necessary conditions for forming a moral society from the perspective of a rational agent choosing. — Moliere

Peter Simpson makes this point almost exactly.

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- Excellent - I need to read more Maritain. I have been reading John Deely, a well-known semioticist, and he references Maritain often.

The religious background of which we have just spoken is the source of what characterizes Kantian ethics from the outset, namely, its absolutism, the privilege it assigns to morality as revealer of the absolute to man, the seal of the absolute which it impresses upon morality... — Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Philosophy - The Ethics of Kant

I am told that in Kant's later work he makes exceptions to the unknowableness of the noumenal on account of morality.

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My own five-cent analysis is that Kant, whom we're told was brought up Pietist, at some point found it no-longer nourishing; yet finding some of it compelling, tried to reason out why it should be compelling. It being helpful to remember that he is among humanity's strongest thinkers, as well as a professional grade mathematician and world class in physics. — tim wood

There is a Lutheran priest named Jordan Cooper who has at least one lecture on Kant which digs into his Pietism a bit. Kant's religious orientation seems to me obvious, as well as colors of Protestant fideism.

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Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational? — Moliere

Right: that is the crucial (anti-religious) assumption at play.

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The part I'm questioning at the moment is whether or not it's correct to call it protestant, after all. — Moliere

I didn't quite follow that conclusion, either. But it is Protestant at least insofar as it is individualistic, subjectivistic, and arguably fideistic.