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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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3. Kant. The most notable attempt to provide a new
basis for ascertaining immortality of the soul, was
Kant's “moral” argument. His starting point was that
man is not only a rational but also a moral being, and
that human reason has two functions, one “speculative”
or theoretical (“pure reason”), and the other concerned
with moral action (“practical reason”). In his Critique
of Pure Reason
(1781; revised 1787), Kant showed that
God, freedom, and immortality are ideas which specu-
lative reason can form but cannot prove. They are,
however, “postulates” of “practical reason,” that is,
they “are not theoretical dogmas but presuppositions
which necessarily have only practical import... they
give objective reality to the ideas of practical reason
in general.” Thus the immortality of the soul must be
true because morality demands it. In his Critique of
Practical Reason
(1789), Kant argued that the highest
good (summum bonum) is the union of happiness and
virtue. But while happiness can be attained in this life,
perfect virtue (“holiness”) cannot and requires, there-
fore, that the existence of man be prolonged to infinity.
Thus there must be another, future life. Later on, Kant
modified this argument somewhat by stating that we
are required by moral law to become morally perfect.
But “no rational being is capable of holiness at any
moment of his existence. Since, however, it is required
as practically necessary, it can be found in a progress
which continues into infinity.... This infinite progress,
however, is possible only if we assume an infinitely
lasting existence of the same rational being (which is
called the immortality of the soul)” (Critique of Practi-
cal Reason,
trans. L. W. Beck [1949], pp. 225-26).

Unfortunately, there is no absolute necessity that
reality will yield to moral demands unless, of course,
we assume that the world is ruled, as Kant asserts,
“with great wisdom” and with a purpose which in-
cludes the moral perfection of man. This, too, however,
can be “proved” only as a postulate of practical reason.
No wonder, then, that Kant's moral argument for
immortality of the soul failed to impress even his
admirers.