Published papers

About 200 years prior to the publication of the "Critique of Pure Reason", the Scholastic theologian and philosopher Luis de Molina (1535-1600) developed a striking libertarian account of human free will in terms of what today would be called "counterfactuals of freedom". In Molina’s opinion, there are truths about how a finite free agent would act in any fully-specified situation. Moreover, Molina thought that although God has no control over these truths, he has knowledge of them in the so-called scientia media which informs his creative activity of playing his part in bringing about a world. The aim of this paper is to suggest that while Kant’s indebtedness to the early modern Scholastic legacy is perhaps not universally acknowledged, it is fair to say that Molinist ideas are indeed animating key elements of Kant’s doctrine of freedom. These elements are: his conception of the intelligible character, his theologically inflected altered-laws compatibilism, his doctrines of grace and radical evil, and various metaphysical assumptions about divine rational agency at the foundation of his philosophy of history.

In his new book, Rossi (2019) emphasizes the prominent role of enlightened religion in the political project of establishing perpetual peace. My paper discusses Rossi’s stance on the question as to whether Kant, in his later years, moved to an immanentist conception of the highest good. Kant’s own position in this regard can arguably be better described as comprehensive, according to which an immanent and a transcendent conception of the highest good are upheld as realizable side by side. Rossi’s account looks perfectly consistent with such a view. One of the reasons for such a comprehensive reading is that “immanent” and “secular” do not coincide in Kant in the first place. Seen in this comprehensive way, and while a version of the highest good ought to be realized immanently, we cannot be certain that this will indeed happen. If it does indeed happen, the immortality postulate, which Kant never abandoned, renders it rational to believe that the immanent version of the highest good is merely a step towards its transcendent realization. Affinities of Rossi’s approach to the suggestion that Kant subscribes to a political theology based on what has been called “Molinism minimally defined” will also be explored.

While Kant’s position concerning human freedom and divine foreknowledge is perhaps the least Molinist element of his multifaceted take on free will, Kant’s Molinism (minimally defined) is undeniable when it comes to the threat ensuing from the idea of creation. In line with incompatibilism and with careful qualifications in place, he ultimately suggests regarding free agents as uncreated. Given the limitations of our rational insight, this assumption is indispensable for granting that finite free agents can acquire their intelligible characters by themselves. Nonetheless, Kant concedes that creation may, as a matter of fact, be compatible with what for Molina is the pre-volitionality of the counterfactuals of freedom.

forthcoming

forthcoming

forthcoming, online pre-edition available