350 Kant: A BiographyHerder and Forster, and that had played a large role in Kraus's break with
him, Kant discusses pantheism and theism as solutions to the problem of
teleology. His claim is that both fail. The Spinozistic idea of a unified sub¬
strate that underlies both thought and nature (extension) "can never pro¬
duce the idea of finality," and the concept of a "living matter is quite in¬
conceivable" in any case.^76 While theism also fails, it has an advantage over
all other systems because in "attributing an intelligence to the original be¬
ing it adopts the best mode of rescuing the finality of nature" from being
a merely empty ideal, and it also introduces "an intentional causality for
its production."^77
Teleology is neither a branch of natural science nor a branch of theology.
It belongs to the science of the critique, namely to
the critique of a particular cognitive faculty, namely judgment. But it does contain a
priori principles, and to that extent it may, and in fact, must specify the method by
which nature has to be judged. ... In this way the science of its methodical applica¬
tion exerts at least a negative influence ... in the theoretical science of nature. It also
in the same way affects the metaphysical bearing which this science may have on the¬
ology, when the former is treated as a propaedeutic to the latter.^78The ultimate end of nature as a teleological system is, as Kant had already
pointed out years earlier, a particular kind of human culture, that is, "a
constitution so regulating the mutual relations of men that the abuse of
freedom by individuals striving one against another is opposed by a lawful
authority centered in a whole, called a civil community."^79 This commu¬
nity should be embedded in a cosmopolitan whole.
What justifies the view that man is the end of nature? Morality. Only
human beings are autonomous. Only they are capable of unconditional
legislation, which is an end "to which all of nature is ideologically sub¬
ordinated."^80
Physico-theology is "physical teleology misunderstood."^81 Just as the
teleological system of nature must be understood from the point of view
of moral development, so theology must take its clue from morality. Giv¬
ing a new gloss of the argument for postulating God as a condition for the
possibility of the highest good, Kant argues that "it is as necessary to assume
the existence of God as it is to recognize the validity of the moral law."^82
A theological ethics is almost as much of a "monstrosity" as a theological
physics. What is possible is an ethical theology. Its cornerstone is not the
existence of God but that of human freedom.
Kant was worried that his third Critique would meet with the same fate