Colloquium Series

Colloquium: Lucy Allais (Johns Hopkins University)

Date
Fri February 18th 2022, 3:30 - 5:30pm
Location
This will be a hybrid event.
In person: Room 100-101K
Virtual: Zoom
TOPIC:  Autonomy as the centre of Kant’s account of Human Freedom
 
ABSTRACT: In this paper I am trying to think about Kant’s account of human freedom taking his account of autonomy as the centre of the position, but understanding autonomy by connecting it to the metaphysical and political components of his account. Kant’s complete account of freedom includes metaphysical, practical and political components or characterizations. My hope is to try to make progress in understanding his account by thinking about the relations between these different components of freedom, taking autonomy as the anchor point. Looking in one direction (from practical freedom to metaphysics), my question is how to understand his account of autonomy such that it requires transcendental freedom. Looking in the other direction (from practical freedom to politics), my question is how to understand the relation between Kant’s account of autonomy, his claim that each human has an innate right to be their own master, and his principle of right. I explore these ideas under the assumption that Kant’s account of autonomy is part of a unified complete account which includes transcendental freedom and external freedom. I also want to make philosophical sense of the position, and in doing this I am interested in relating, comparing and contrasting with contemporary approaches. My ultimate aim is to develop a unified account of the different parts of the position, anchored in the idea of autonomy, that is based in the text but that is also, in my view, the most philosophically attractive version of the position in the texts; in this paper I attempt to make a start at this project.