Kant’s three postulates of morality
The three postulates of morality are given by Immanuel Kant. They have been discussed as below:
Immortality of the Soul
Kant states in his critique, “the belief in God and another world is so interwoven with my moral sentiment.” The postulate of immortality was that the belief in immortality has to be based on the moral disposition and not one hope of future rewards. Kant bases his first argument for immortality. As ‘nothing is purposeless’ each organ into the world has its own specific claim that human life as whole is an end not in this life but in a future life. The moral arguments for the immortality of the soul as stated by Kant:
- The highest good is a necessary object of the will.
- Holiness, or complete fitness of intentions to the moral law, is necessary condition of the highest good.
- Holiness cannot be found in a sensuous rational being.
- The highest good can be made real.
Kant also makes it clear that the postulate of immortality is that which cannot be known but can only be thought and furnish us with only practical and objective truth that can give rise to action-motives worthy of achieving highest good.
Freedom of the Soul
Freedom is one of the postulates, which is considered as logically possible and practically useful and it is the key stone of the whole architecture of the system of pure reason and even speculative reason. Freedom provides a conception of ourselves which motivates us to obey the moral law. As freedom of will can’t be given empirical or theoretical evidence, Kant’s thought on freedom of the will can be seen to pass the following phases.
- Human actions are those that have internal rather than external causes.
- Human actions which are not dictated by deterministic laws of nature cannot be proved.
- Human freedom’s existence can be proved and thereby proving that moral law applies to us.
- The freedom of will form the undeniable fact of our religion.
- Kant says that freedom desires both itself and the freedom of others.
The existence of God
The God postulated by Kant is not the God of religion. The postulate of God is a need or requirement of our moral consciousness or a moral necessity which is subjective and no way connected to the consciousness of our duty. The divine will is the motive to action, not ground of it. The possibility of the existence of a certain object is explained by this hypothesis explained appropriately as a faith and indeed a faith of reason.
Kant stresses that the properties of Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence can be assigned to God to play his moral role of guaranteeing the possibility of the highest good. God is not a metaphysical concept, original being, that functions in the thinking of a moral agent and exercise a real influence on his/her actions.
