Autocracy and Autonomy

Autocracy and Autonomy 1

Autocracy and Autonomy

by Anne Margaret Baxley, Blacksburg

Introduction1

While the works containing Kant’s theory of virtue have received increased at-tention lately, this theory of virtue has yet to receive the systematic interpretationand assessment that have been given to the Groundwork of the Metaphysics ofMorals and the Critique of Practical Reason.2 Central to Kant’s theory of virtue is

1 References to the Lectures on Ethics are to Eine Vorlesung über Ethik, ed. Paul Menzer(Berlin: Rolf Heise, 1924). Works cited in the body of the text are referred to by means ofthe abbreviations listed below. The English translations used are listed below and are re-ferred to immediately following the reference to the volume and page of the German text. Inmany cases, I have substituted my own translations of Menzer’s collection for Infield’s.Translations of specific versions of Kant’s lecture notes on ethics are my own.Anth Anthropology from a Practical Point of View, trans. Mary J. Gregor (The Hague:

Nijhoff, 1974)Ethik Eine Vorlesung über Ethik, ed. Paul Menzer (Berlin: Rolf Heise, 1924)

Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981)GMS Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals in Practical Philosophy, trans. and

ed. Mary J. Gregor, introd. Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1996)

FM On the Progress of Metaphysics since Leibniz and Wolff, trans. Ted Humphrey(New York: Abaris Books, 1983)

ZeF “Perpetual Peace,” trans. L. W. Beck in On History, ed. Lewis White Beck (India-napolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957)

KpV Critique of Practical Reason in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary J. Gre-gor, introd. Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)

KU Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987)MS The Metaphysics of Morals in Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary J. Gre-

gor, introd. Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)RGV Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. and ed. Allen Wood and

George Di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)2 Against the backdrop of contemporary attempts to give moral character and virtue a more

prominent role within moral theory, Kant’s defenders have argued that an adequate assess-ment of his considered views about the ethical life, virtue, and character must address histheory of virtue, as it is set out in The Doctrine of Virtue, Religion within the Boundariesof Mere Reason, and the various versions of the lectures on ethics. This idea is suggested inthe work of Henry Allison, Marcia Baron, Barbara Herman, Thomas Hill, Paul Guyer,Christine Korsgaard, Robert Louden, Felicitas Munzel, Onora O’Neill, Nancy Sherman,and Allen Wood. Both Sherman and Munzel have recently offered accounts of Kant’s con-ception of character and virtue. See Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character

Kant-Studien 94. Jahrg., S. 1–23© Walter de Gruyter 2003ISSN 0022-8877

2 Anne Margaret Baxley

the concept of autocracy or self-mastery. Whereas Kant argues in the Groundworkthat the autonomy of pure practical reason is both a necessary and sufficient con-dition for the possibility of morality, in the theory of virtue, he suggests that the au-tocracy of pure practical reason is both a necessary and sufficient condition for vir-tue. This paper offers an analysis of the main features of Kant’s conception ofautocracy and its relation to autonomy. The bulk of the paper (Section I) examinesin detail several passages on autocracy that appear throughout the Kant corpus.Section II considers and rejects one possible interpretation of the autonomy-autoc-racy contrast. An alternative reading, I argue, more adequately captures the differ-ences between these two concepts, and explains why Kant thought he needed to in-troduce autocracy in his theory of virtue as something over and above autonomy. Afinal Section (III) clarifies one crucial feature of this conception of virtue as self-mastery.

I. Autocracy: Kant’s Conception of Virtue as Such

Kant’s fullest discussion of virtue as a character trait appears in The Doctrine ofVirtue (Tugendlehre), which comprises the second part of the Metaphysics of Mor-als.3 Throughout this work, Kant defines virtue in a number of different ways. Whatis common to most of these formulations is the notion of self-constraint or self-mastery, as well as a contrast between virtue and holiness. While the latter is thehighest moral station for perfect beings who are immune to the possibility of trans-gression of the moral law and who therefore need no constraint in order to act inconformity with this law, Kant insists that virtue is the best that finite rationalbeings can strive to attain.4 He describes virtue as “strength of mind,” “soul,”“will,” or “maxims,” and characterizes it in terms of an “ability” or “capacity”(Fertigkeit) or “courage” or “fortitude” (Tapferkeit). The definition of virtue as “aself-constraint in accordance with a principle of inner freedom, and so through themere representation of one’s duty in accordance with its formal law” seems best tobring together the different elements involved in Kant’s conception of virtue (MS 6:

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Two other recent pieces of literature that dealwith these topics are Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics (New York and Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2000) and Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999).

3 The first part of the Metaphysics of Morals is The Doctrine of Right (Rechtslehre), whosesubject is Right, or justice. In this first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant delineatesand argues for a set of duties of right, or juridical duties; in the second part of this work, hedoes the same for a set of duties of virtue, or ethical duties.

4 The type of holy will Kant often has in mind when he contrasts virtue and holiness is the di-vine or infinite will. As we will see, however, Kant also appeals to the notion of a finite holywill, which likewise has no need for virtue.


394; 525).5 The particular term Kant uses to describe the constraint central to virtueis autocracy.6 Thus, Kant’s picture of virtue as a ”moral capacity to constrain one-self,” or ”strength in mastering and overcoming oneself, in regard to the moral dis-position” is best explicated in terms of the autocracy of pure practical reason (MS 6:394; 525 and 27: 300). Accordingly, the first order of business here is to locate someof the appearances of this concept of autocracy in Kant’s various ethical works.Since Kant consistently contrasts the autocracy of pure practical reason with auton-omy, we will want to spell out the distinction between these two concepts, in orderto determine why Kant thinks that we need autocracy, and not merely autonomy,for virtue.

In the Introduction to The Doctrine of Virtue, Kant explains that the principledifference between juridical duties, or duties of right, and ethical duties, or duties ofvirtue, is the type of constraint or legislation appropriate to each. Duties of rightcan be externally legislated, that is, it is “morally possible” to constrain externallyor to compel a rational being to fulfill them (MS 6: 383; 515). By contrast, duties ofvirtue can only be internally legislated, or are “based only on free self-constraint”(MS 6: 383; 515).7 Immediately after offering this analysis of the different type of

5 On this point, see Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990), p. 163.

6 Prior to Kant, this concept seems to have been used almost solely in the political sphere todescribe a state or ruler who governs with absolute, unlimited power. The term “Autokra-tie” comes from Plato and appears in Aristotle and Xenophon. In the 18th century, Chris-tian Wolff used this concept synonymously with the Latin “imperator” and “imperium sum-mum” to describe an absolute form of state and ruler as well as the divine will and hiskingdom (Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, pp. 694–5). Kant uses this term in apolitical context to criticize a form of sovereignty opposed to the ideal form of state that heenvisions. In Perpetual Peace and The Doctrine of Right, he characterizes a form of sover-eignty [Beherrschung] in which one person in the state has power over all as an “autocracy”.This form of state is contrasted with an aristocracy, where several of equal power are incommand, and a democracy, where everyone rules (ZeF 8: 352; 95 and MS 6: 338–9; 479).In The Doctrine of Right, Kant makes the further claim that it is not suitable to substitute“monarchical” for “autocratic” because “a monarch is one who has the highest authority,whereas an autocrat, who rules by himself, has all the authority”(MS 6: 339; 479). Kantpoints out that an autocracy may be the simplest form of the state and that the simplest formof state is best with respect to the administration of right within the state; “[w]ith regard toright itself, however, this form of state is the most dangerous for a people, in view of howconducive it is to despotism (MS 6: 339; 479).

7 Juridical duties, such as the duty to keep a contract, are coercive duties that require or pro-hibit specific types of action. They are imposed on us as subjects of right by the state, andare backed by threat of sanction for noncompliance. Ethical duties, such as the duty of be-neficence, are not duties one can be compelled by another to fulfill. Kant’s claim that exter-nal constraint is not possible with respect to ethical duties can be taken in two ways. Itmight amount to the straightforward idea that I cannot be legally required to be moral; thatis, morality cannot be legislated. Kant may agree with this, but the main point he wants toemphasize in his discussion of the different type of constraint associated with these differentduties is that it is not even possible to compel another to fulfill an ethical duty. As Kant ex-plains, since ethical duties enjoin the adoption of ends, they can only be self-legislated.


constraint involved in the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue, Kant pro-claims that there would be no doctrine of virtue for finite holy beings. He explains:

For finite holy beings (who could never be tempted to violate duty) there would be no doctrineof virtue but only a doctrine of morals, since the latter is autonomy of pure practical reasonwhereas the former is also autocracy of practical reason, that is, it involves consciousness of thecapacity to master one’s inclinations when they rebel against the law, a capacity which, thoughnot directly perceived, is yet rightly inferred from the moral categorical imperative. (MS 6: 383;515)

From the outset, we should note that the type of holy will Kant typically has inmind when he contrasts virtue and holiness is the divine or infinite will. The divineor infinite will has no sensible nature whatsoever, and therefore is not affected bythe feelings and inclinations that affect and burden us. Since the divine or infinitewill has no inclinations that could stand in the way of the conformity of its will withthe moral law, it is, by definition, wholly immune to the possibility of transgressionof the law. In other words, the divine will is perfectly in accord with the moral lawas a matter of course. As a result, the moral law does not take the form of an im-perative for the divine will, and it needs no incentive to follow the law.

By contrast, a merely finite rational being has both a rational and a sensible na-ture, and so is encumbered by needs and inclinations that Kant thinks often provideresistance to the moral law. Because the will of a merely finite rational being is notsubjectively necessitated by practical reason, such a being must be constrained toact in accordance with moral requirements. This notion that constraint is alwaysand only necessary where inclinations can provide real opposition to the law ex-plains why the concept of duty is only applicable to finite rational beings. That is, itis only imperfect beings like us who must be put under obligation to act in accord-ance with the dictates of pure practical reason.

These ethical duties do involve constraint or compulsion, since all duties on Kant’s view in-volve constraint. But since no one can compel me to make something my end, the only con-straint possible here is self-constraint. As Kant explains: “An end is an object of the choice(of a rational being), through the representation of which choice is determined to an actionto bring this object about. – Now, I can indeed be constrained by others to perform actionsthat are directed as means to an end, but I can never be constrained by others to have an end:only I myself can make something my end” (MS 6: 381; 513). This claim makes sense if weconsider, for example, what would be involved in requiring someone to fulfill a contract ver-sus what would be involved in requiring someone to be beneficent. “Forcing” me to upholdmy end of a bargain (with respect to a contract previously agreed upon) through threat ofsanction gives me an incentive to do what I may not desire; if this is legitimate coercion, thisis both morally appropriate and conceptually coherent. By contrast, I cannot be constrainedby another to be beneficent, because this requires me to adopt a general policy of intent topromote the welfare or happiness of others with no expectation of reward or return. Mak-ing this maxim my own involves, in the first place, an internal act of will and, following theadoption of this specific policy of intent, practicing active benevolence through helping acts,which requires seeing the world in a certain way. Thus, any attempt at externally coercingme to be beneficent, apart from being “moralistic” in the sense of holding me legally ac-countable for failing to be virtuous, would also be conceptually incoherent.


It is important to keep in mind, however, that in the passage under consideration,Kant explicitly appeals to the notion of a finite holy being, which would appear to bea strange hybrid that straddles both worlds, as it were. On the one hand, insofar asthis being is finite, not infinite, it has empirical needs and inclinations (as God doesnot). On the other hand, because this being is holy, it always resists temptation, andthis capacity for resistance ensures perfect accord between its will and the moral law.

At this juncture, we might wonder whether Kant’s proclamation that this finiteholy being could never be tempted to violate duty is overstating matters a bit. Thecontrast we have just set out between the infinite and the merely finite rational willrevealed that, in the case of the former, the very condition that makes transgressionof the law possible (a sensible nature), is not available; hence, by definition, theinfinite will is entirely immune to temptation and could not conceivably act contraryto the law. This appeared to indicate that possessing a sensible nature is sufficient forraising the specter of contra-moral action. Hence, if a finite holy being has a sen-suous nature, as we do, why is Kant entitled to this claim that, in its case, transgress-ion of the law is inconceivable? For if this being is saddled with an empirical nature,and it is this empirical nature that appears to pose the problem of temptation for us,it seems strange to insist that it could never be tempted to violate the moral law.

This puzzle requires us to distinguish more carefully between temptation andtransgression and to stipulate two different ways transgression of the law can beruled out. Fortunately, Kant’s lengthier discussion of the notion of a finite holybeing in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason provides just this solutionto our puzzle.

In Religion, Kant describes the “God-like human being” or the “divine humanbeing” of the Scriptures, on the one hand, as encumbered by needs and the temp-tations they can bring, but, on the other, as possessing an innate purity of will thatmakes transgression of the law unthinkable. Kant explains that, insofar as we con-sider this “human being well-pleasing to God” as human, we can think of him as“afflicted by just the same needs and hence also the same sufferings, by just the samenatural inclinations and hence also the same temptations to transgression, as weare” (RGV 6: 64; 82). Nonetheless, insofar as we consider this finite holy being asdivine, we are to think of him as “superhuman, inasmuch as his unchanging purityof will, not gained through effort but innate, would render any transgression on hispart absolutely impossible” (RGV 6: 64; 82).

Here, as in the passage from the Introduction to The Doctrine of Virtue, Kantinsists that, for the finite holy being, transgression of the law, or violation of duty, is“impossible,” and it is this fact that sets him apart from us.8 But Kant’s characteri-zation of the human side of this finite holy being confirms that this impossibility of

8 As Kant remarks in Religion, immediately after accounting for the holy nature of this being,“The consequent distance from the natural human being would then again become so infi-nitely great that the divine human being could no longer be held forth to the natural humanbeing as an example” (RGV 6: 64; 82).


contra-moral conduct is not, as it is for God, a result of being immune to temptation.Because the divine human being has needs, experiences, and inclinations in commonwith us, he can be tempted. Moreover, Kant explicitly states that he is tempted. But al-though his inclinations sometimes provide resistance to the law, just as they do for us,this divine human being has no tendency whatsoever to subordinate moral require-ments to inclination, because he has a perfectly pure moral disposition.9 Thuswhereas the infinite or diving being is wholly immune to the possibility of temptation,the finite holy being is constitutionally incapable of succumbing to temptation. Eithercondition is sufficient for ruling out the possibility of contra-moral action.10

This tells us that having no inclinations, as God has no inclinations, is sufficient,but not necessary, for having a holy will. That is, the existence of inclinations isperfectly compatible with a will’s being holy because either its inclinations alwaysaccord with reason and thus never pose any temptation to act contrary to reason’scommands, or even if inclinations do sometimes pose such a temptation, as Kantnotes in Religion they sometimes did for Christ, the rational will in question has nopropensity whatsoever to prefer incentives of inclination to those of reason whenthe two part company.11

9 The various versions of the temptation stories are instructive in the way they enable us tounderstand how Kant conceives of this finite holy will. Jesus is mortal, of the flesh, and thusis susceptible to the same experiences and temptations as humans, but because he is divine,he is always able to resist temptations. In non-ideal circumstances, he is tempted, forexample, to turn stone into bread to feed himself, etc., but he resists.

10 This claim that transgression of the moral law is ruled out in the case of both species of holi-ness of will amounts to the claim that, for them, violation of the law is impossible. That is,there are no conditions under which either could act contrary to the moral law, and so wemight say that, for any form of holy will, violation of the law is metaphysically impossible.For the infinite will, this is true because such a being has no sensuous nature and so is nevereven tempted to begin with. For the finite holy being, violation of the moral law is also im-possible in this wide sense, because, even though under some conditions he will experiencetemptation, he is constitutionally incapable of succumbing to temptation. In non-ideal con-ditions where he is tempted, he always resists, because he never prefers inclination to moralconsiderations. In short, because of their ontological status as holy beings, transgression ofthe law is metaphysically impossible, that is, impossible in the widest sense. By contrast, formerely finite beings, who can be tempted by inclinations and can succumb to these temp-tations because of our propensity to subordinate the moral incentive to incentives of incli-nation, it is certainly metaphysically possible to act contrary to the moral law. But it doesseem that this kind of possibility is compatible with never actually transgressing the law, andis even compatible with never actually having contra-moral inclinations. In the hypotheticalcase of such a perfectly virtuous agent, we could say that, under actual conditions, she nevertransgresses the moral law, and we might even say that, in this more narrow sense of im-possibility, “she couldn’t violate duty.” I would like to thank David Brink for suggesting thisdistinction between a wide and a narrow sense of possibility in attempting to spell out whatKant is committed to in claiming that transgression of the moral law is ruled out in the caseof holiness of will, but always possible for us.

11 I would like to thank an anonymous referee at Kant-Studien for helping me clarify this pointabout the two species of holiness of will and the compatibility of holiness with the mereexistence of inclinations.


Having set out this taxonomy of the various types of rational wills Kant discusses,there are several questions the passage under consideration requires us to explore.First, why would a finite holy being need neither a doctrine of virtue nor the autoc-racy of pure practical reason? Second, why would a doctrine of morals, which isconnected to the autonomy of pure practical reason, pertain to this finite holybeing? Third, what does this passage tell us about the relation between autonomyand autocracy?

Since a finite holy will is always determined by the concept of the good, in thesense that its will always conforms completely to the law, it has no need for virtue,which Kant understands in terms of the autocracy of pure practical reason, thatis, as a capacity to master inclinations that rebel against the law. While this finiteholy being has inclinations and while these inclinations of themselves do not alwaysconform to the moral law, the finite holy being has the purity of will always to resisttemptation, because he never takes inclinations as inducements to violate moralcommands. In other words, we might say that since virtue presupposes both thatinclinations offer resistance and that the will in question might take resisting incli-nations as sufficient reasons to act even when they conflict with duty, the finite holybeing, who is constitutionally incapable of subordinating morality to inclination,does not need virtue.12

Kant captures clearly this notion that virtue is only applicable to merely finiterational beings when he qualifies his definition of virtue as “moral strength of will”.He warns that moral strength of will does not exhaust the concept of virtue, forsuch strength would certainly seem to belong to a holy being who has no recalci-trant inclinations and who thus gladly does everything in conformity with the law(MS 6: 405; 206). Kant explains, “Virtue is, therefore, the moral strength of ahuman being’s will in fulfilling his duty, a moral constraint through his own lawgiv-ing reason, insofar as this constitutes itself an authority executing the law” (MS 6:405; 533).

It should be clear, then, why this finite holy being would have no need for a doc-trine of virtue, which Kant understands to contain a set of ethical duties, as well asan account of how to acquire virtue. As we have seen, because virtue presupposesinclinations that rebel against the law and the real possibility of violating duty, aninnately pure being will not need to acquire virtue. In addition, since Kant holdsthat there is no distinction between the objective and subjective necessitation of thewill by practical reason for any species of holiness of will, the finite holy being willhave no duties whatsoever, because in its case, moral laws do not take the form of

12 See MS 6: 228, 394–5, 397, 405, 477; 382, 524–5, 527, 533, 591. Kant’s characterization ofvirtue as “the force and herculean strength needed to subdue the vice-breeding inclinations”gives us yet another way to formulate this thesis (MS 6: 376; 509). Since a divine humanbeing would be incapable of vice, he has no need for strength to quiet vice-breeding incli-nations.


imperatives.13 As Kant explains in an important passage from the Groundwork, noconstraint of will is necessary in the case of an infinite or a finite holy will, and somoral laws for them do not appear as duties.14

A perfectly good will would, therefore, equally stand under objective laws (of the good), but itcould not on this account be represented as necessitated to actions in conformity with law,since of itself, by its subjective constitution, it can be determined only by the representation ofthe good. Hence no imperatives hold for the divine will and in general for a holy will: the“ought” is out of place here, because volition is of itself necessarily in accord with the law.Therefore imperatives are only formulae expressing the relation of objective laws of volition ingeneral to the subjective imperfection of the will of this or that rational being, for example, ofthe human will. (GMS 4: 414; 67)

Next, what is the connection between a finite holy being, the autonomy of purepractical reason, and a doctrine of morals? Reconsidering how Kant conceives ofautonomy in the Groundwork best approaches the answer to this question. In thatwork, Kant defines autonomy as a property or character (Beschaffenheit) of the will“by which it is a law to itself (independently of any property of the objects of voli-tion)” (GMS 4: 440; 89). Autonomy is contrasted with heteronomy in which casethe will “does not give itself the law; instead the object, by means of its relation tothe will, gives the law to it” (GMS 4: 441; 89). Following Allison’s lead, we mustfocus on the parenthetical remark in Kant’s formulation of autonomy, which tells usthat for the will to be autonomous, it must impose laws or maxims on itself in a par-ticular manner, i.e., “independently of every property of the objects of volition”.15 Ifwe take an object of volition in the parenthetical remark to refer to a possible stateof affairs an agent desires, Kant’s claim is that, in the case of heteronomy, an objectgives the law to the will. This means that the agent desires to realize that particularstate of affairs, and it is this prior interest in the object that is the condition of thelaw. Under this scenario, the self-imposed laws or maxims that an agent is moved to

13 On Kant’s view, the will of every rational being is determined by practical reason in onesense, because a free will is one governed by the moral law (which is itself self-imposed).This means that the every rational will is objectively necessitated by practical reason. Butfor imperfect rational beings who must be constrained in order to act in accordance withmoral requirements, there is a distinction between the objective and subjective necessitationof the will by practical reason. This is why moral requirements take the form of imperativesfor us.

14 As Kant puts this point at the beginning of the Introduction to The Doctrine of Virtue: “Thevery concept of duty is already the concept of a necessitation (constraint) of free choicethrough the law … The moral imperative makes this constraint known through the categori-cal nature of its pronouncement (the unconditioned ought). Such constraint, therefore, doesnot apply to rational beings as such (there could also be holy ones) but rather to humanbeings, rational, natural beings, who are unholy enough that pleasure can induce them tobreak the moral law, even though they recognize its authority; and even when they do obeythe law, they do it reluctantly (in the face of opposition from their inclinations), and it is inthis that such constraint properly consists” (MS 6: 379; 512).

15 The following analysis of autonomy and the way Kant contrasts it with heteronomy islargely indebted to Allison’s discussion in Kant’s Theory of Freedom, pp. 85–106.


act on are based on her empirical inclinations. These maxims, therefore, reflect herneeds as a sensuous being, and it is these needs that provide her with the only avail-able reasons to act.

By contrast, in the case of autonomy, the will can impose principles on itself thatmake no reference to a state of affairs an agent desires to bring about, or thus to anyinterest stemming from her sensuous nature. Such principles do not reflect a priorinterest in an object as their condition. This means that a will with the property ofautonomy has reasons to act that are independent of her needs as a finite being.

A finite holy being is clearly autonomous in this sense of being self-legislating, forit always acts in conformity with moral laws. It thus possesses the capacity to givelaws to itself that are not directed toward satisfying any interest in an object of vo-lition, and is able to act on principles that command merely because of their form.16

This enables us to see why Kant thinks that a doctrine of morals is applicable in itscase. Kant understands a doctrine of morals as a body of universal and necessarypractical principles that apply to all rational wills. While these principles will nottake the form of duties in the case of a holy being, they nonetheless apply to it, andindeed describe, without prescribing, how this being acts.

We are finally in a position to address our third question, which is what ouranalysis of this passage from the Introduction to The Doctrine of Virtue tells usabout the connection between autocracy and autonomy. At this point, it should beapparent that while autonomy and autocracy are distinct properties or character-istics that might be attributed to the rational will, there is nevertheless an intimateconnection between them. This is evident from Kant’s remark that although a doc-trine of morals is strictly associated with the autonomy of practical reason, a doc-trine of virtue is “also” connected with the autocracy of practical reason.17 Not allpossible rational wills (or all autonomous wills) will be under an obligation to be-come autocratic, for neither the infinite nor the finite holy will has inclinations thatprovide real opposition to the moral law or a propensity to take such inclinations asincentives to act contrary to the dictates of this law.18 Nonetheless, autonomy is anecessary condition for autocracy. Only an autonomous will, a will capable of giv-ing itself law independently of every property belonging to the objects of volition,can cultivate self-constraint “in accordance with a principle of inner freedom, and

16 Of course, this is true of all possible rational wills, and so also applies to both the infiniteholy will and the finite imperfect will.

17 There are two other passages where Kant indicates that the strength of will that characterizesvirtue involves autocracy in addition to autonomy. In Moral Mrongovius II, he says: “If rea-son determines the will through the moral law, it has the force of an incentive, and in that casehas, not merely autonomy, but also autocracy. It then has both legislative and executivepower” (29: 626). In the Vorarbeiten to the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains: “Virtue ismoral strength (fortitudo moralis) in following one’s duty. It presupposes objective necessitythrough law, i.e. duty, and is thereby distinguished from holiness. However, it is conscious ofthis necessary cause as contained in the will of the subject and an autocracy (not merely an au-tonomy) of moral laws against all conflicting impulses of sensibility (inclinations)” (23: 396).

18 Presumably, a holy being is under no obligations whatsoever.


so through the mere representation of one’s duty in accordance with its formal law”(MS 6: 394; 525). Put simply, only a will capable of self-legislation in accordancewith pure practical reason can acquire the requisite strength to have pure practicalreason consistently determine the will, even in the face of countervailing incli-nations.

The next passage we will consider is found in a section from the Lectures onEthics entitled “Self-Rule” [Oberherrschaft], which Kant refers to as the highestduty to oneself.19 In this extended discussion, where Kant emphasizes the necessityof cultivating mastery over ourselves, he defines autocracy in the following manner:

The power that the soul has over all faculties and one’s entire condition [den ganzen Zustand]to make them submit to its free will [freie Willkür], without which the soul is constrained, is anautocracy. If man does not strive for this autocracy, then he is a plaything of other forces andimpressions contrary to his free will [Willkür], and he is dependent on the chance and free runof circumstances. (Ethik 175; 140)

In this portion of the text, Kant describes autocracy as the power of the soul orthe mind to rule over, or to force, one’s faculties, one’s condition, and one’s incli-nations to submit to the authority of one’s free will. Failure to acquire autocracyis characterized in terms of surrendering authority over one’s self, becoming a“plaything” of sense, or allowing the “rabble” of sense to reign. The autocraticagent disciplines and masters her sensible nature, instead of yielding to it, and indoing so is portrayed as having securely subordinated her sensible to her rationalnature.

After setting out this picture of the autocratic agent as sovereign over herself,Kant goes on to distinguish two different types of authority we can have over our-selves. He explains:

Our authority over ourselves is both productive and disciplinary. As executive authority it can,in spite of every obstacle, compel us to produce certain effects, in which event it has might. Asdirecting authority it can only guide the forces of character. Thus, for instance, a motive toslothfulness within us cannot be suppressed by the directing but only by the compulsive auth-ority. Again, if we have prejudices, it is not enough to guide our hearts; we must use the force ofauthority, or we shall be carried away by them. (Ethik 175–6; 140)

The claim here is that we have a productive authority, which Kant refers to as“executive” or “compulsive”, as well as a disciplinary authority, which is charac-terized as “directing” or “guiding”. The latter involves the capacity to give rules to

19 The German term here [Oberherrschaft] translates as sovereignty and not strictly as self-mastery, but it is clear throughout this discussion that self-mastery is precisely what Kanthas in mind. The version of Kant’s lectures on ethics to which I am referring is the one firstpublished by Paul Menzer in 1924 and translated by Louis Infield in 1931. The lectures inthis volume are from the manuscripts of three students: Theodor Friedrich Brauer, GottliebKutzner, and Chr. Mrongovius. Menzer used the Brauer manuscript as the basis of his trans-lation, checking it against the other two. According to Lewis White Beck, these manuscriptsprovide us with an accurate transcription of Kant’s lectures on ethics as he gave them duringthe period from 1775 to 1780. See Foreword by Lewis White Beck in Lectures on Ethics,trans. Louis Infield (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981), p. x.


and to direct the will, whereas the former signifies self-governance in accordancewith this guiding authority, or the power to do what is necessary to determine thewill to act in accordance with this directing authority. What is important for ourpurposes is that Kant explicitly connects the executive authority of practical reasonwith autocracy:

Autocracy, therefore, is the power to compel the heart in spite of every obstacle. Mastery overoneself, and not merely directing authority, belongs to autocracy. (Ethik 176; 141)

Elsewhere, in a passage from Moral Mrongovius II, Kant makes the very samepoint:

When reason determines the will through the moral law, then it has the power of an incentive,then it has not merely autonomy but also autocracy. It has legislative and also executive power.(29: 626)

The picture, then, is that autocracy of mind or soul is this executive authority wecan have over ourselves: it is the power to govern ourselves in accordance with purepractical reason, or the power to force, or to master, our sensible nature so that itconforms to the guidance of our directing or legislative authority. Whereas the legis-lative authority gives rules to point the will in the proper direction, whether or notwe possess the proper control over our sensible nature so that we obey these dictatesand do so consistently is contingent upon autocracy as executive authority.

While Kant does not specifically refer to the autonomy of pure practical reason inthis extended passage from the Lectures on Ethics – he has not yet arrived at theview that autonomy is the supreme principle of morality – it is evident that the di-recting authority we have over ourselves, or the legislative power of practical rea-son, with which autocracy is contrasted, is precisely the property of the will thatKant will later refer to as “autonomy”.20

If it is correct to think that this legislative power of the will corresponds to au-tonomy, we can characterize the autocracy-autonomy contrast in the following way.Autonomy, on the one hand, designates the property of the will to give particularsorts of laws to itself (universal and necessary practical laws), and this presumablyentails a capacity to take a pure interest in the moral law (to have the law itself de-termine the will). Because we, as rational beings, are autonomous, we are self-legis-lators. We provide norms of pure practical reason to ourselves, and also possess therequisite freedom of will to act out of respect for the law alone. Autocracy, on theother hand, describes the executive power of the will to enforce principles that havebeen given (issued or legislated) by this directing or guiding authority. Insofar as wehave acquired autocracy, we possess the strength of will to have pure practical rea-son (subjectively) determine our will consistently. While autonomy, on Kant’s view,

20 The introduction of autonomy as a property of the will in the Groundwork (1785) is an es-sential ingredient in Kant’s fully critical moral theory, and it marks a significant modifica-tion of Kant’s account of rational agency in the first Critique. See Allison, Kant’s Theory ofFreedom, Chapters 1–4 for an analysis of Kant’s account of rational agency in the Critiqueof Pure Reason.


is a property of every rational being, autocracy represents the strength that arational autonomous being must strive to acquire so that she is master over her in-clinations and is able to act consistently on universal principles that apply to her asa moral being.21

21 Since Kant uses this legislative-executive contrast to describe these two different types ofauthority we can have ourselves, a natural question to ask is whether there is a connectionbetween the autonomy-autocracy distinction and the Wille-Willkür distinction, for manycommentators have captured this latter distinction in terms of a legislative-executivecontrast. We will explore this briefly, but should keep in mind that there is no direct map-ping between these two contrasting couples, for the Wille-Willkür distinction applies to thedual functions of the will itself in legislating laws and choosing maxims of action, whereasthe autonomy-autocracy contrast, as we have seen so far, signifies two sorts of powers thatcan be attributed to the will taken as a whole.Kant first spells out the Wille-Willkür distinction in the MS. (This distinction is implicit inthe KpV and operative in RGV, but Kant does not explicitly formulate the distinction untilthe MS.) In the Introduction to that work, Kant presents two formulations of the distinc-tion. See MS 6: 213–14, 226; 374–5, 380. According to both of Kant’s formulations, Wille(narrow) represents the legislative function of volition and is equated with practical reason.It is the source of the laws that it presents to the faculty of free choice, Willkür, as impera-tives. Willkür represents the spontaneous function of the will to choose, to decide, or to acton maxims under the normative guidance of Wille (narrow). The notion of one aspect ofWille (broad) providing the norm and one aspect choosing or failing to choose in light ofthis norm helps resolve an ambiguity noted in the GMS, where Kant both equates the willwith practical reason and speaks of practical reason determining or failing to determine thewill (GMS 4: 412; 66). The account of Wille (narrow) providing norms of practical reasonand Willkür choosing in light of these norms allows us to see both how it is that the willgives laws to itself (or is a law to itself) and how reason can determine or fail to determinethe will. That Wille (narrow) is the source of laws and legislates maxims explains why will isidentified with practical reason. Correlatively, since Willkür, or the faculty of choice, canchoose to act in accordance with or against the dictates of Wille (narrow), Kant can speak ofreason determining or failing to determine the will.In spelling out precisely what sense of freedom can be attributed to the different aspects ofthe will, Allison insists that only Wille in the broad sense is autonomous, because only Willein this sense can be said to be a law to itself. This stems from the fact that Wille in the nar-row sense is not a law to itself, but to Willkür. (For Allison’s analysis, see Kant’s Theory ofFreedom, pp. 129–36.) Further, Allison wants to characterize Willkür as free in the negativesense of being independent of causal determination and in the positive sense of having thecapacity to act on the basis of the dictates of practical reason. Allison’s conclusion is that ifWillkür does select its maxims in virtue of their conformity to universal laws, pure reason ispractical and Wille (broad sense) is autonomous as a result of the spontaneity of Willkürbeing exercised in the correct way. This analysis might leave us with the following puzzle.The claim that Wille (broad) is autonomous insofar as Wille (narrow) legislates moral dic-tates to Willkür entails attributing to every finite rational will the property of autonomy.This much is undoubtedly Kant’s view. The puzzle arises, however, when we see that we canattribute the property of autonomy to every rational will (and thus see all rational agents asfree in this sense), without saying anything about whether we, as moral agents, actually ex-ercise our capacity for free choice in the morally correct way. In the case where an agent rec-ognizes the valid norms Wille (narrow) presents, but fails to follow its guidance, the agent’swill is not subjectively determined by pure practical reason and is therefore heteronomous.But this forces us to say that such a will is both autonomous in the sense of being self-legis-


Finally, it is important to keep in mind Kant’s analysis of why we require thisexecutive authority in addition to the guiding authority of the mind or soul. Hisclaim is that while we have the power [Kraft] to direct the mind [Gemüt], we lackthe power to govern it [zu beherrschen] (176; 140). As Kant explains it, this is a re-sult of the fact that “there is an element of habit which resists the dominion and freewill of the thinking subject” (Ethik 176; 141). Thus, the strength we need in orderto execute the morally good choices our guiding authority generates must be ac-quired and cultivated. In virtue of our autonomy, we all stand under the moral law,which we recognize as authoritative; but because of our tendency to take incli-nations as reasons to act when they conflict with duty, we must be constrained inorder to follow its universally valid dictates. Autocracy represents the acquiredstrength to govern oneself so that this tendency is held in check and one consistentlyfollows the dictates of pure practical reason.

One remaining issue needs to be discussed in our analysis of Kant’s conceptionof autocracy, and this concerns autocracy as a sense of freedom. The notion that au-tocracy signifies some sense of freedom that can be attributed to the finite rationalwill is suggested in several passages throughout the Kant corpus. First, we might re-call that in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant treats freedom,together with God and immortality, as a postulate of practical reason, even though heclaims to have already provided a deduction of freedom in the Analytic. Several Kantcommentators have suggested that this puzzle is resolved if we recognize that Kantis using freedom in two different senses in the two parts of the second Critique.22

lating (by being the source of universal practical principles it gives itself), and heteronomousinsofar as it has chosen against the moral law. The locus of the problem appears to be thatautonomy is being used in two different senses: (1) as representing the ability to be self-legis-lating; and (2) as signifying the power to be self-governing in the sense of following thenorms of practical reason. My suggestion is that autocracy might have an important placehere in characterizing the power of the unified faculty of volition to be self-governing, in thesense of executing the morally good choices Willkür adopts as maxims under the guidanceof Wille (narrow). When the rational will in question consistently exercises its capacity forfree choice in accordance with the guidance of legislating Wille (narrow) and therefore ex-hibits constancy in having pure practical reason determine its will (both objectively and sub-jectively), the will is autocratic. For precisely the same reason that only Wille in the broadsense can be said to be autonomous, only Wille in the broad sense can be said to be auto-cratic. Although the will being autocratic is contingent upon Willkür exercising its capacityfor free choice in the morally correct way, it is necessary that Willkür chooses in accordancewith the dictates of the legislative aspect of will, or Wille (narrow). Thus, both aspects of thewill are involved when we say that the will is autocratic. On this view, we can see that virtuerequires autocracy in addition to autonomy, for virtue, as the highest moral station obtain-able by finite rational wills, consists in reason having both legislative and executive author-ity. As Kant puts this point, “The perfection of men, however, consists in this, that reasonhas not only administration, but also empire over inclinations” (27: 201–2).

22 See Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, p. 285 f35, Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s“Critique of Practical Reason” (Chicago: Chicago University Press), pp. 207–8, and Ber-nard Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine of Freedom, trans. David Booth, (Chicago:Chicago University Press), pp. 116–21.


The freedom deduced in the Analytic, where freedom is supposed to be the condi-tion of the moral law, is autonomy. By contrast, the freedom postulated in the Dia-lectic is autocracy. Here freedom is not a necessary condition of taking oneself asbound by the moral law, but rather is a necessary condition of the attainment of vir-tue and thus a necessary condition of the realization of the Highest Good (thenecessary object prescribed by the moral law).23 Freedom in this latter sense is notdeduced, but rather is postulated as an article of practical faith. Thus, in the Dia-lectic of Practical Reason (where it is not identical to the law but postulated throughthe law), the freedom Kant considers is the strength of will we need for accomplish-ing our moral task, or the power to achieve what morality prescribes.24 The ideathat autocracy is connected to the notion of freedom as a postulate makes sense ofthis interpretative puzzle, and is clearly reflected in the following passage from Onthe Progress of Metaphysics:

That is, even here in the earthly life, amidst all the hindrances that the influences of nature mayplace upon us as sensible creatures, still at the same time as intelligible beings this autocracy isassumed as the ability to achieve what pertains to the formal condition of freedom, morality.(FM 20: 295; 125)

Additionally, we might spell out the distinct senses of freedom that characterizethe autonomy-autocracy contrast in terms of the different kind of independenceeach represents. Because of its capacity to impose universal laws or to adopt maximsthat have no relation to its needs as a sensuous being, the autonomous will is able tobe motivated independently of these needs.25 By comparison, autocracy involves not

23 In the second Critique, Kant defines the Highest Good as the union of virtue and happiness,where the former is the condition under which happiness is to be allotted. Kant’s view is thatsince we are morally required to do everything we can to reach the Highest Good, we mustassume that it is possible for us to do so. What is a necessary condition of the realization ofthe Highest Good is postulated as an article of practical faith. There Kant treats God, im-mortality, and freedom as postulates of practical reason. He explains that while it is not inour power to dispense happiness in proportion to virtue (only God can accomplish that), weare capable of attaining virtue. Freedom and immortality are postulated as necessary con-ditions for our attainment of virtue.

24 On this point see Delbos, La philosophie practique de Kant, third ed. (Paris: Presses Univer-sitaires de France, 1969), p. 400 as quoted in Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’s Doctrine ofFreedom, p. 119.

25 As Allison explains this capacity for self-determination, “a will with the property of auton-omy is one for which there are (or can be) reasons to act that are logically independent of theagent’s needs as a sensuous being” (Kant’s Theory of Freedom, p. 97). This is not merely thethesis that autonomy involves independence of determination by empirical motives in theabsence of an agent’s rational deliberation and endorsement, for, on Kant’s view, this sort ofindependence belongs even to heteronomy of will. Kant insists that in addition to thenegative conception of autonomy as “independence from being determined by sensible im-pulses”, its positive conception is “that of the capacity of pure reason to be of itself practi-cal” (MS 6:214–5; 375). When pure reason is of itself practical, it supplies both the prin-ciple and the motive that determines the will to act in accordance with this principle. Thismeans that autonomy involves a capacity for self-determination independently of empirical


only a capacity to be motivated independently of reasons stemming from one’s sen-suous nature, but, in addition, a significant degree of (acquired) independence fromthe temptations one’s sensuous nature can provide.26 This idea that autocracy in-volves a certain independence from being tempted by one’s sensible nature to trans-gress the moral law is clear in a section on self-mastery from Moral Philosophy Col-lins where Kant warns:

Without disciplining his inclinations, man can attain to nothing, and hence in self-masterythere lies an immediate worth, for to be master over oneself demonstrates an independence ofall things. Where there is no self-mastery, there is anarchy. (27: 361–2)

Elsewhere in the Lectures on Ethics, Kant echoes this idea that the capacity formastery over inclinations, which is constitutive of autocracy, results in a significantdegree of independence from inclinations and sensuous needs that conflict withmoral considerations:

It has already been said that man has in himself a source of happiness. This happiness can cer-tainly not consist in man acquiring a complete independence from all needs and externalcauses; but this independence may be such that he needs little in order to be happy. In order toattain this, however, man must have an autocracy over his inclinations; he must curb his incli-nations for things which he cannot have or which he can have only with great difficulty; if hedoes so he is independent with respect to them. (Ethik 216; 171)

These passages reveal that autocracy involves a type of independence beyondthe independence connected with autonomy. The finite imperfect being who hasacquired autocracy is not burdened by those aspects of his sensuous nature thatcould conflict with duty, and is largely secure against the risk of becoming a “play-thing” of external circumstances. He is, therefore, independent of the kind of temp-tations the non-virtuous agent experiences. In short, autocracy involves a certainfreedom from influences that provide resistance to the law and a significant degreeof freedom from the tendency to act in ways contrary to the dictates of pure prac-

motives, a capacity to be motivated by a non-empirical determining ground or a “pure in-terest”. See GMS 4: 441; 89–90 and KpV 5: 29; 162. What should be clear in this discussionof Kant’s conception of autonomy is that autonomy presupposes a non-naturalistic concep-tion of freedom. This, of course, is a controversial thesis about the conditions of autonomy,but I am in agreement with Allison in taking this to be Kant’s considered view.

26 These remarks about the different kinds of independence associated with autonomy and au-tocracy are intended to apply strictly to finite imperfect beings – that is, what kind of inde-pendence do we ascribe to a finite rational being in virtue of the autonomy of pure practicalreason and in virtue of the autocracy of pure practical reason? We have already seen thateven the finite holy being experiences temptation, and certainly it is Kant’s view that we arenever wholly immune to temptation, nor are we immune to the possibility of violating duty.While a complete independence from temptation of the sort that characterizes the infinitewill is obviously not something we could ever attain, Kant does think that the truly virtuousagent possesses a significant degree of freedom from the kind of temptation the weak-willedagent experiences. In short, the virtuous person does not experience the sort of psychic con-flict that the non-autocratic person does, and, as result, is able to do her duty with a cheerfulheart.


tical reason.27 Whereas we can understand autonomy in terms of motivational in-dependence, we might understand autocracy in terms of temptation independence.

Our analysis of these various passages in which Kant discusses this concept ofautocracy enables us to make at least four claims. First (and most obviously), thisconcept is only applicable to merely finite rational beings. Kant’s view is that weare never above needing to be compelled or constrained to follow the moral law,because there are obstacles that stand in the way of the conformity of our will withthe law, and these obstacles connected to our sensuous nature present a potentialproblem that we must constantly guard against. No matter how morally good webecome, we always require autocracy as moral strength of will to keep inclinationsin check and to ward off new temptations they might present, because, unlikeeither form of holy will, it is always conceivable that we could violate the morallaw.

Second, autocracy signifies moral strength of will as self-governing, not merelyself-legislating.28 In virtue of our autonomy, we have the capacity to give ourselveslaws that are universally valid, laws that do not presuppose a prior interest in an ob-ject of volition as their condition and that are chosen for their universal form. Bycontrast, if we have acquired autocracy, we possess the power or strength over oursensuous nature that is necessary for executing our morally good choices, or for ac-tually obeying these self-legislated universal laws consistently.

Third, while autonomy is the condition of the possibility of morality, or, as Kantsays in the Critique of Practical Reason, “the sole principle of all moral laws and ofall duties conforming to them”, autocracy is the condition of the actual observanceof our particular duties.29 As Kant puts this point in Practical Philosophy Powalski,self-mastery “is the condition under which we are able to fulfill all duties” (27:201). Here we might appeal to Kant’s language in the Groundwork as he explainsthat unless we have grounds for attributing to ourselves the freedom associated withautonomy, morality, as Kant conceives it, would be a mere fiction. Thus, we mightsay that whereas morality would be a mere phantom of the brain [Hirngespinst] if itweren’t for autonomy as the supreme principle of morality (since we would not beentitled to attribute to ourselves the requisite freedom to act on the basis of the Cat-egorical Imperative), the consistent observance of duties (their actual fulfillment)would likewise be a mere fiction if it weren’t for the autocracy of practical reason(since we would not possess the self-mastery required for governing ourselves andfor acting in conformity with moral requirements).

27 Of course, Kant thinks that we can never be entirely secure against this tendency, and sowe must always be on guard against this enemy of virtue. Nonetheless, he does think thatthe virtuous person has the strength of will to hold this tendency in check.

28 When the will is self-governing it has executive and legislative power; it is thus wholly self-determining in accordance with principles of pure practical reason.

29 See Ethik 178, 184; 142, 147.


Finally, autocracy can be understood as a sense of freedom for Kant, both interms of its connection to the idea of freedom as a postulate and in terms of the no-tion of temptation independence.

II. The Capacity vs. Its Realization Reading

The picture that has emerged from the analysis of autocracy set out in Section Itells us that central to Kant’s conception of virtue is a distinction between actualstrength of character or self-control and the mere capacity for it, which Kant clearlythinks we all possess as rational agents. It might seem that this distinction betweenactual self-mastery or self-constraint and the mere capacity for it is, at bottom, whatthe autocracy-autonomy distinction amounts to. That is, an autocratic agent is afinite being who not only has the capacity for autonomy and thus the capacity toaccomplish her moral task, but also actually is autonomous in the sense of havingher will conform to the moral law. If this view is correct, autocracy would really justbe a special case of autonomy, in that it is the realization of autonomy for finitebeings. And this would suggest that there really is no essential difference betweenthese two notions.

The idea that the contrast between autonomy and autocracy is straightforwardlybetween a capacity and its realization is explicit in Allison and Carnois’s respectiveanalyses of this contrast:

Also central to Kant’s conception of virtue is the distinction between actual strength of char-acter or self-control and the mere capacity [Vermögen] for it. The latter is possessed by allrational agents, no matter how weak or evil, in virtue of their moral autonomy; the formermust be acquired through a process of self-discipline […] This difference between capacity andcontrol is just the difference between the autonomy of practical reason (which is possessed byall moral agents), and its autocracy, by which is understood its power to master inclinationswhen they run counter to the law. (Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, p. 164)

Grounded on the autonomy of our legislative will, autocracy is nothing but our capacity forrealizing this autonomy by submitting to the rational law. (Carnois, The Coherence of Kant’sDoctrine of Freedom, p. 120)

Admittedly, this capacity versus its realization interpretation appears to be the ea-siest way to explicate the autonomy and autocracy contrast. It also seems correct tothink that since autonomy is a sense of freedom that involves both independencefrom determination by inclination and also a capacity to motivated by a pure inter-est in the law, there is a sense in which autonomy entails a form of self-control.Moreover, the idea that autocracy is the realization of a capacity we have in virtueof autonomy seems to be implied by Kant’s remark in the passage from the Intro-duction to The Doctrine of Virtue that autocracy, as a capacity to master one’s in-clinations when they rebel against the law, is a capacity “which, though not directlyperceived, is yet rightly inferred from the moral categorical imperative” (MS 6: 383;515). Nevertheless, I believe that our detailed analysis in Section I shows this inter-pretation to be inadequate. Apart from neglecting Kant’s repeated suggestion that


autocracy is really something beyond autonomy, this reading fails to capture thelegislative-executive thrust of the distinction, and it equates autonomy with a ca-pacity for self-control, which seems wrong.30

Once again, we can understand why Kant thinks he needs to introduce autocracyin his theory of virtue as something other than the realization of autonomy if we re-consider how Kant understands the autonomy of pure practical reason. As alreadystated, in the Groundwork, Kant defines autonomy as “the property the will has ofbeing a law to itself (independently of every property of the objects of volition)”.Thus, autonomy is foremost a capacity for self-legislation, which Kant understandsas a capacity to make universal law through one’s own will, that is, to adoptmaxims that are valid for oneself only because they are valid for all other rationalagents. With this conception of autonomy, the laws we give ourselves are prescrip-tions of our own reason, through which we constrain ourselves in virtue of the rec-ognition of their validity for all rational agents.

In the Groundwork, Kant assumes that morality requires acting on the basis ofthe Categorical Imperative. He then introduces autonomy as the supreme principleof morality in the sense of being the necessary condition of its possibility. The keypoint to Kant’s argument in the Groundwork is that action on the basis of the Cat-egorical Imperative presupposes a capacity to determine oneself to act indepen-dently of, and even contrary to, one’s particular interests as a sensuous being withneeds, i.e., one’s empirical interests. The idea of such a capacity for self-determi-nation is built into the characterization of autonomy as a property of the will. A willand only a will with the property of autonomy is capable of acting on the Categori-cal Imperative, because only a will capable of determining itself independently of itsneeds as a sensuous being can act in accordance with a practical principle that com-mands unconditionally because of its mere form.

This reminder tells us that the distinction between autonomy and autocracy is notone of a capacity for self-control versus its realization, because autonomy for Kantis not a capacity for self-control. Rather, the difference here is more adequately cap-tured by distinguishing between a capacity for legislating laws that are universallyvalid and an actual ability to observe such laws consistently because they are uni-versally valid. The former we all possess as autonomous beings, and this is what de-fines our moral personality; the latter we can acquire through a process of self-dis-cipline, and it describes our actual moral condition.

Finally, while this legislating versus observing universal laws formulation ex-plains the way in which autocracy is something over and above autonomy, we mustremember that autonomy is a necessary condition for acquiring autocracy. That is,in order for us to acquire this capacity for self-mastery or self-governance according

30 Of course, neither Allison nor Carnois claims that autonomy is a capacity for self-control.My suggestion is simply that thinking of autonomy in this way is a consequence of embrac-ing this capacity versus its realization interpretation.


to reason so that we actually observe the dictates of morality, we must possess thiscapacity for self-legislation or the capacity for creating universal law. Thus, a willcan be autonomous without needing autocracy (as in the case of the infinite or finiteholy will), and a will can be autonomous and fail to have acquired autocracy (as inthe case of weakness of will or “frailty” [Gebrechlichkeit]), but autocracy presup-poses the autonomy of practical reason.31

III. The Enemy to be Conquered: Radical Evil, not Inclinations per se

What is apparent from our analysis so far is that, for Kant, virtue is foremost aform of self-mastery or self-constraint in accordance with moral principles that con-sists in the sovereignty of the rational will over one’s sensuous nature. The virtuousagent is vigilant in mastering her inclinations so that she does not take them astemptations to transgress the moral law, and is constant in having duty always bethe sufficient motive of action. It might seem, however, that this amounts to a rigid,repressive form of self-governance, for on this model of self-legislation, the propercontrol of the soul by reason appears to demand that inclination always be held incheck and subordinated to duty. One worry that might arise, then, is that this con-ception of virtue as autocracy appears to be a form of moral self-mastery that woulddeny any positive role to emotions and appetites within virtue. If this is true, Kant iswholly at odds with Aristotle’s more intuitive view that emotions and appetites (cul-tivated in accordance with correct choice) are partial constituents within virtue, andhe might not be able to distinguish between virtue and mere continence. That is, justas the Groundwork example of the unsympathetic, moral man might seem like arecipe for continence, not virtue, so, too, if autocracy involves the extirpation orsuppression of inclination, it might likewise appear to be a recipe for mere conti-nence.32 Fortunately, this potential objection distorts Kant’s view, and rests on afailure to come to terms with one fundamental feature of his moral psychologywhose significance must be underscored.

What Kant objects to in the nonautocratic person is not the presence of feelingand inclination as such, but her tendency to treat them as sufficient reasons for ac-tion when they conflict with moral requirements, where the latter, on Kant’s view,are always overriding. Thus the problem, and the obstacle that must be overcome inthe moral struggle to attain virtue, is this tendency. This propensity is what Kant

31 In The Doctrine of Virtue, Kant claims that moral weakness, as lack of virtue, can coexist“with the best will” (MS 6: 408; 535).

32 In this example from the Groundwork, Kant claims that this man is indifferent to the suf-ferings of others, but nevertheless does good from duty. In assessing this person’s conduct,Kant insists that this man has “a source from which to give himself a far higher worth thanwhat a mere good-natured temperament might have” (GMS 4: 398; 54).


refers to as “radical evil,” and this doctrine of radical evil is, in a sense, the back-drop for understanding Kant’s conception of virtue.33

By “radical” evil, Kant means the root or ground of the possibility of moral evil.For him, this amounts to the tendency to adopt maxims that are contrary to themoral law. In Religion, Kant sets out his doctrine that there is a propensity to evil inhuman nature, or, as he puts it, that “the human being is by nature evil” (RGV 6:32; 55). There he explains, “the statement, ‘The human being is evil,’ cannot meananything else than that he is conscious of the moral law and yet has incorporatedinto his maxim the (occasional) deviation from it” (RGV 6: 32; 55). In other words,radical evil amounts to the tendency to give priority to the principle of happinesseven when it conflicts with the dictates of morality.34 Kant describes this propensitywith reference to the distinction between good and evil in the following way:

[T]he difference, whether the human being is good or evil, must not lie in the differencebetween the incentives that he incorporates into his maxim (not in the material of the maxim)but in their subordination (in the form of the maxim): which of the two he makes the conditionof the other. It follows that the human being (even the best) is evil only because he reverses themoral order of his incentives in incorporating them into his maxims. (RGV 6: 36; 59)

The idea that it is not inclinations simpliciter that must be extinguished or sub-ordinated by reason, but rather our tendency to privilege them by granting thempriority over duty when the two conflict, is implicit in numerous passages whereKant describes the strength required for the attainment of virtue. He characterizesvirtue as “a struggle against the influence of the evil principle in a human being”and “a moral preparedness to withstand all temptations to evil, so far as they arisefrom inclinations” (MS 6: 440; 562, and 29: 604).35 This notion that the source ofmoral evil is the value we place on inclinations explains Kant’s qualificationsthat the obstacles that must be conquered if we are to attain virtue are inclinations

33 This thesis is prominent in Allison’s interpretation of Kant’s conception of virtue. In light ofour analysis of the notion of a divine human being, it seems fair to say that this propensity toevil is the condition under which virtue is necessary for (and even applicable to) the merelyfinite rational will.

34 The roots of this conception of evil are present in the Groundwork, and are articulatedclearly in a striking passage where Kant explains the need, on practical grounds, for a meta-physics of morals. He insists: “The human being feels within himself a powerful counter-weight to all the commands of duty, which reason presents to him as so deserving of the hig-hest respect – the counterweight of his needs and inclinations, the entire satisfaction ofwhich he sums up under the name happiness. Now reason issues its precepts unremittingly,without thereby promising anything to the inclinations, and, so, as it were, with disregardand contempt for those claims, which are so impetuous and besides so apparently equitable(and refuse to be neutralized by any command). But from this there arises a natural dialectic,that is, a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty and to cast doubt on theirvalidity, or at least upon their purity and strictness, and, where possible, to make thembetter suited to our wishes and inclinations …” (GMS 4: 405; 59–60).

35 In a section on self-mastery from Practical Philosophy Powalski, he explains, “The highestdegree in the stage of morality consists in mastery over oneself. This mastery over oneselfconsists in this, that man overcomes the attempt to do something for his advantage andtherefore overcomes self-interest” (27: 201–2).


an agent “puts in the way of his maxims” and that impulses of nature involveobstacles “within man’s mind to his fulfillment of duty” (MS 6: 394, 380; 525,513).36

Clearly this doctrine of radical evil stands in need of explanation and defense.37

But it reveals that the mere fact that we have inclinations or empirical interests isnot what prevents us from attaining a pure moral disposition.38 The problem spe-cific to us as imperfect rational beings is what Kant perceives as a tendency we allhave to give priority to inclinations when they conflict with the claims of morality.

The significance of this feature of Kant’s moral psychology is that the suppressionof this tendency to give priority to emotion and appetite unregulated by duty doesnot require extirpating, suppressing, or being independent of one’s sensible natureas a whole. Autocracy requires the proper ordering of the soul according to reason,whereby reason is the sovereign of one’s sensuous nature. This undoubtedly in-volves weakening or limiting the scope of feelings and inclinations that are foes ofduty. But, at the same time, other feelings and inclinations that have been cultivatedby reason might be allies of duty. This notion – that autocracy, as the ideal state ofmoral health for us as finite rational beings, requires not just the regulation of feel-ing and inclination by reason, but, in addition, a sort of ethical cultivation of sen-sibility according to reason – makes sense of Kant’s positive claims in The Doctrineof Virtue that we are obligated to cultivate certain affective and conative states thatenable us to act in accordance with our morally obligatory ends.

Kant’s analysis of affects [Affekte] and passions [Leidenschaften], which he char-acterizes in the Critique of Judgment, The Doctrine of Virtue, and Anthropology aspernicious states that interfere with the self-mastery required by virtue, captures thepicture of autocracy requiring the virtuous agent to control and to limit the in-fluence on her will of affective and conative states that interfere with her moral ob-ligations. With respect to affects and passions, which obscure our judgment andlead to emotional excitement that might tempt us to neglect or to violate our duties,Kant explains that virtue presupposes a kind of moral apathy [Affektlosigkeit]. Thisapathy amounts to an immunity to passion or agitation that can incite an agent indirections contrary to duty.

But while pathological affects and passions that interfere with the self-governancerequired by virtue must be controlled and limited by reason, Kant is able to distin-guish between pathological and practical feelings and inclinations.39 Practical feel-

36 In addition, see MS 6: 440; 562.37 For two competing analyses of Kant’s perplexing doctrine of radical evil, see Allison, Kant’s

Theory of Freedom, Chapter 8 and Idealism and Freedom, Chapter 12 and Allen Wood’smost recent analysis in Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2000), pp. 283–290.

38 After all, if this were the case, Kant would have to treat the very notion of a finite holy beingas inconceivable.

39 This distinction is at least implicit in the following places: GMS 4: 399; 55, KpV 5: 83; 207,MS 6: 401, 452–457; 530, 571–576, and Anthro 7: 236; 104.


ings and inclinations have been shaped and transformed by reason, and are respon-sive to the authority of reason as the ultimate source of moral value, so that they aregood and helpful from the perspective of morality.

In his theory of virtue, Kant gives affective and conative states a morally signifi-cant role when he says that we should cultivate moral feeling, conscience, love, re-spect, and sympathy, all of which seem somehow to assist us in following the morallaw. He explains that moral feeling, conscience, love, and respect are moral endow-ments that enable us to feel the pull of obligation. In Kant’s terms, they are “sub-jective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty”, which we have an indi-rect duty to cultivate (MS 6: 399; 528). These practical feelings are products of purepractical reason, and they are conditions for full moral agency, without which wewould not be moral agents at all. In addition, he suggests that certain feelings fa-cilitate the development of particular virtues, like beneficence (MS 6: 399; 528).Kant says that we have an indirect duty to cultivate sympathy, which is an impulseof nature implanted in us “to do what the representation of duty alone would notaccomplish” (MS 6: 457; 576). The cultivation of our sympathetic feelings (whichincludes an obligation to visit scenes of human misery such as hospitals and debtors’prisons) increases our sensitivity to human suffering so as to render us better able tofulfill the duty of beneficence.40 It is beyond the scope this paper to investigate theprecise role these practical feelings play within virtue and how Kant’s willingness togrant them moral significance is consistent with his repeated insistence on thenecessity of the duty motive within the virtuous character. Nonetheless, this subtletyin Kant’s account of the enemy that must be conquered as we acquire virtue tells usthat this conception of virtue as self-mastery is consonant with a moral psychologymuch richer than readers of the Groundwork and the second Critique might expect.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we might recall that a consistent theme that runs throughout all ofKant’s major ethical writings is that the real problem for us in the moral life is notthe problem of recognizing what duty demands; the real difficulty lies in our abilityactually to act as duty requires. This gap between recognizing what is required of usby pure practical reason, which Kant thinks is a capacity we all have in virtue of ourmoral personality, and actually possessing the strength of will to act in accordancewith the dictates of pure practical reason highlights the fact that autocracy plays a

40 In The End of All Things, Kant indicates that love might play a similar role in facilitating thefulfillment of the duty of beneficence. He says, “When it is a question not merely of the rep-resentation of duty [which is the task of the Critique] but of its execution, if one asks aboutthe subjective ground of action on which, if presupposed, one can at least expect what manwill do and not what on the objective ground he ought to do, it is love which is an indis-pensable supplement to the imperfection of human nature, as a free assumption of the willof another under one’s own maxim (8: 337–8).


central role in Kant’s ethical theory. Indeed, autocracy, as the capacity to control theinclinations that Kant says we put in the way of our maxims and to resist the uni-versal tendency to subordinate duty to inclination, is the overriding concept at workin Kant’s characterization of virtue as a character trait. Any attempt to come togrips with Kant’s considered view about the ethical life will thus need to begin witha careful analysis of this concept.41

41 I would like to thank Henry Allison and David Brink for helpful comments they made on anearlier draft of this material.

Autocracy and Autonomy

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