5oo Notes to Page 368
former is acquired and the latter innate. Character is a moral achievement and
thus something over which we do have control.
- Again, there are misconceptions in the current literature. In Kant's Theory of Free¬
dom, Allison, conflating character and Gesinnung, claims that "in the Critique of
Practical Reason and other later writings Kant seems to go even further by refer¬
ring to a timeless noumenal choice of one's entire character (Gesinnung)" (p. 48).
Allison recognizes that "the notion of intelligible character operative in the sec¬
ond critique cannot be equated with that of the first," and therefore argues that
"the introduction of the conception of Gesinnung marks a significant deepening
of the first Critique theory of freedom." Gesinnung is to "consist of a choice of in¬
telligible character ... in the adoption of'unchangeable principles'" (p. 140). It
"refers to the enduring character or disposition of an agent which underlies and
is reflected in particular choices" (p. 136). While in the Foundations and other
earlier works "Kant creates the impression that Kant conceives of [particular] ac¬
tions as free-floating, isolated decisions (for the law or inclinations) that stand in
no connection with an enduring moral agent with a determinate nature and in¬
terests" (p. 136), his discussion of Gesinnung in the Religion fixes that problem. It
shows that "the choices of rational agents, or in his terms the maxims they adopt
must be conceived in relation to an underlying set of intentions, beliefs, interests,
and so on which collectively constitute that agent's disposition or character"
(p. 136). Yet, this is not a problem that needs fixing, as long as we understand
maxims as character-constituting devices, i.e., as the rules that "constitute that
agent's disposition or character."
- Ak 5, pp. 56, 327, for instance.
- Ak 5, p. 116.
- Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, p. 7m (Ak 6, p. 2in).
- Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, pp. 71, 92 (Ak 6, pp. 21, 48).
- Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, p. 74 (Ak 6, p. 25).
- Allison tries to save Kant from the accusation that he thereby has committed
himself to a notion of "noumenal choice" or the "choice of a noumenal charac¬
ter." He claims that Kant can be saved by construing Gesinnung as "an agent's
fundamental maxim with respect to the moral law" (Kant's Theory of Freedom,
p. 140). Though we are "choosing ourselves" in a sense (p. 142), this is not a meta¬
physical but a conceptual claim. As soon as we exercise our freedom, we already
have chosen or adopted a certain kind of fundamental maxim. Allison finds that
Kant's claim is perfectly appropriate, if we understand that the pretemporal or
nontemporal acquisition amounts to nothing more than the claim that our Gesin¬
nung is coextensive with our moral personality. Since it is nothing more than "the
internal principle" of the maxims themselves, there is no problem with nontem-
poral choice.
- This is a good thing, for how can one "choose" oneself before one is a self? More
importantly perhaps, one may ask how changing "Gesinnung" (or "the ultimate
subjective ground of the adoption of maxims") into a maxim solves any problem.
If Gesinnung is itself a maxim, then it presupposes another Gesinnung, and so on
ad infinitum. Kant himself points out that this is no solution (Ak 6, pp. 22-23n).
- Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, p. 109 (Ak 6, p. 67).
