Abstract

Kant considered pure reason to be transcendentally free in its legislative ability. I argue that this transcendental freedom is consistent with an naturalist ontologythat recognizes the existence only of objects in space and time. I show that Kant is committed to the natural faculty of empirical reason which would function as part of the natural causal order. I then argue that pure reason is the structure, discovered by transcendental arguments, of that same faculty. The structure of pure reason is embodied in particular instances of empirical reason. Transcendental freedom of pure reason is the fact that its structure is determined independently of the causal order — in the case of pure practical reason, by means of arguments about the very possibility of deliberative action — and this structure contributes to the causal order by means of the causal efficacy of empirical reason. I then discuss the effect this view has on the question of whether Kant is a moral realist.