Kant's Tribunal of Reason: Legal Metaphor and Normativity in the Critique of Pure Reason

210 Pages·2020·2.065 MB·English

by  Sofie Møller

KANT’S TRIBUNAL OF REASON
Kant’sCritiqueofPureReason,hismainworkoftheoreticalphiloso-
phy, frequently uses metaphors from law. In this first book-length
studyinEnglishofKant’slegalmetaphorsandtheirroleinthefirst
Critique,SofieMøllershowsthattheyarecentraltoKant’saccountof
reason.Throughananalysisofthelegalmetaphorsintheirentirety,
shedemonstratesthatKantconceivesofreasonashavingastructure
mirroring that of a legal system in a natural right framework. Her
studyshowsthatKant’saimistomakecognisersbecomesimilarto
authorisedjudgeswithinsuchasystem,byprovingthelegitimacyof
the laws and the conditions under which valid judgements can be
pronounced.Theseelementsconsolidateherconclusionthatreason’s
systematicityislegalsystematicity.
sofie møller is a research associate in philosophy at Goethe
UniversityFrankfurt.
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KANT’S TRIBUNAL
OF REASON
Legal Metaphor and Normativity in the Critique of Pure
Reason
SOFIE MØLLER
GoetheUniversityFrankfurt
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title:Kant’stribunalofreason:legalmetaphorandnormativityintheCritiqueofpurereason/
SofieMøller,Goethe-UniversitätFrankfurtAmMain.
description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY,USA:CambridgeUniversity
Press,2020.|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
identifiers:lccn2019044319(print)|lccn2019044320(ebook)|isbn9781108498494
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subjects:lcsh:Kant,Immanuel,1724–1804.KritikderpraktischenVernunft.|Ethics.|
Judgment(Ethics)|Practicalreason.|Law(Philosophicalconcept)
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But if reason has to be criticised, by whom can it be done? By no-one
but itself, thus it is both defendant and judge. And according to what
can it be judged? Only according to itself; thus it is also law and
witness. The difficulties of this judgeship are immediately evident.
(JohannGottfriedHerder,AMetacritiqueontheCritique
of Pure Reason)
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Contents
Acknowledgements pageix
ListofAbbreviations xi
Introduction 1
TheCognitiveFunctionofMetaphors 5
MethodologicalConsiderations 8
ThePrimacyofPracticalReasonandEpistemicNormativity 10
OutlineoftheBook 13
1 TheCritiqueofPureReasonastheEstablishment
ofReason’sLawfulCondition 16
TheCritiqueofPureReasonasaReviewofLaws 17
TheNaturalRightTraditionandtheNaturrechtFeyerabend 20
TheCritiqueofPureReasonasaLawfulSolutiontoConflicts 22
EstablishingaRightfulCondition 27
2 TheNormativityofLaw 32
NaturalRightandPositiveLaw 33
LawsofNatureintheNaturalSciences 37
APrioriLawsasObjectivelyValidRules 40
LawsandPrinciples 40
UnderstandingasPrescribingLawstoNature 43
3 TheTranscendentalDeductionoftheCategories
andtheTraditionofLegalDeductions 52
QuidJurisandtheTranscendentalDeductionoftheCategories 53
TheAnalogybetweenConceptsandProperty 55
TheTranscendentalDeductionoftheCategoriesasaLegal
DeductionTracinganOrigin 58
TheTraditionofLegalDeductions 62
4 TheQuestionofFactandtheQuestionofLawinJudicial
ImputationandintheTranscendentalDeduction
oftheCategories 65
vii
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viii Contents
QuidFactiandtheTracingofanOrigin 65
QuidFactiandtheMetaphysicalDeductionoftheCategories 66
TheQuestionofFactandtheQuestionofLawinJudicialImputation 69
TheTranscendentalDeductionoftheCategoriesasJudicialImputation 74
5 TheTribunalofReason 81
TheCritiqueofPureReasonasTribunal 81
AntinomyofPureReasonasaLegalTrial 86
EmpiricalExperienceasTestimony 87
TheReaderasJudgeoftheCritiqueofPureReason 89
TheOutcomeoftheCritiqueofPureReasonasVerdict 93
6 MoralConscienceasthePracticalInnerTribunal 96
ConscienceasanInnerTribunal 98
Self-deceptioninMoralConscience 104
TheProblemofanErringConscience 106
ParallelsbetweenMoralConscienceandtheCritiqueofPureReason 109
7 DistinguishingbetweenRightfulClaimsandGroundless
Pretensions 113
HistoricalBackgroundonJudicialAuthority 114
KantonJudicialAuthority 117
TheJudicialOfficeintheLegalMetaphors 121
AuthorityandValidityofJudgementsandInferences 123
8 EpistemicAuthorityasbothIndividualandCollectivelyShared 129
DecreesastheOppositeofVerdicts 129
CognitiveAttitudes 132
EpistemicAuthorityandtheThinkingSelf 134
PoliticalAspectsoftheCritiqueofPureReason 139
TheCommunityofCognisers 145
9 SystematicityandPhilosophyastheLegislationofReason 152
OtherImagesofSystematicity:TheOrganismandtheBuilding 153
LegalMetaphorsasIllustrationsofSystematicity 159
PhilosophyastheLegislationofHumanReason 161
SystematicityintheAppendixtotheTranscendentalDialectic 163
TheCritiqueofPureReasonasaScienceoftheLawsofPureReason 167
Conclusion 170
Bibliography 174
Index 194
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Acknowledgements
Whatdoespurereasonhavetodowithlawsandtribunals?Ihavepuzzled
over this question for years and have been fortunate to be encouraged,
helpedandchallengedbymanypeoplealongtheway.OftheseIwouldlike
tomentionthefollowinginparticular.
I am grateful to Dennis Patterson for guiding my research on law and
legal philosophy. His guidance helped me understand the intricacies of
legalthoughtandthewaysinwhicheventoday’slawyersandlegaltheorists
are indebted to Kant’s metaphors. I thank Paul Guyer for hosting my
research stay at Brown University and for his invaluable support in my
inquiryintotheCritiqueofPureReason.IthankNehalBhutaforhelping
meunderstandthehistoryofnaturalrightandforsupportingthisproject
from the very beginning. To Marcus Willaschek, I am grateful for his
comments on an early version of the manuscript and for his continued
academic generosity. I am thankful to Rainer Forst for supporting and
furtheringmyinquiryintometaphoricalandactualnormativeorders.
This work has greatly benefited from insightful comments and sugges-
tions from many friends and colleagues. Of these, I especially thank:
Reinhard Brandt, Andrew Chignell, Ilaria Cozzaglio, Ruhi Demiray,
Gabriele Gava, Dieter Henrich, Hansmichael Hohenegger, Rolf-Peter
Horstmann, Jakob Huber, Katharina Kraus, Luigi Filieri, Michael
Forster, Colin J. Mcquillan, Reidar Maliks, Alice Pinheiro-Walla,
Konstantin Pollok, Riccardo Pozzo, Ariel Zylberman, my colleagues at
the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Formation of Normative Orders’ and the
membersoftheFrankfurterKant-Arbeitskreis.
IamindebtedtoLeoCatanaforguidingmyfirststepsintothehistoryof
philosophyandtoCostantinoMarmoforintroducingmetotheworldof
semiotics and for encouraging my inquiry into the history of metaphors,
symbolsandanalogies.
I thank the two anonymous readers at Cambridge University Press for
their helpful suggestions on the manuscript and Hilary Gaskin, Sophie
ix
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x Acknowledgements
Taylor and Hal Churchman at Cambridge University Press for their
editorialassistance.
IhavepresentedthematerialbehindthisbooktoaudiencesinFrankfurt,
Berlin,Mainz,Marburg,Providence,Oxford,Keele,York,Florence,Pisa,
Copenhagen, Roskilde and Oslo and I am grateful to the participants at
theseeventsfortheirthoughtsandsuggestions.
Finally, I thank my husband Pablo Karaman for his unfailing encour-
agementandsupport.
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