A New Perspective on Kant’s Highest Good in the Light of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica

The strict relationship between Baumgarten’s Metaphysica and the development of Kant’s philosophy is nowadays widely recognized. Nevertheless, whilst recent literature on the topic mostly discusses the formal connections between Kant and Baumgarten, it neglects in our view the fact that Kant’s concepts of soul, God and the world are substantially derived from the German rationalist tradition. Addressing some crucial problems relating to Kant’s concept of the highest good, this paper will show that Kant’s arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul are literally derived from Baumgarten’s ones. In view of this, the important and controversial question regarding the type of happiness that is at issue in relation to the Kantian highest good (whether it is a sensible or rational) may be answered by taking into account Kant’s “debt” to Baumgarten’s Metaphysica. According to Kant, a moral action is good in itself. In particular, duty and respect for the law, as the moral motivation for actions, qualify actions as morally right, independently of their consequences, i.e., independently of whether it is expected that the highest good will be achieved. In turn, the highest good is defined as a resulting reward of virtue through happiness, which is to be obtained in the afterlife. Furthermore, according to Kant, its pursuit is a duty and the conditions under which it may be achieved are postulates of pure practical reason. One of the main claims that may be brought against the soundness of Kant’s theory of the highest good is that it is not possible for moral law to require the achievement of the highest good as its necessary outcome if all results of actions are morally irrelevant. A solution to this problem may be provided by stressing the fact that Kantian highest good coincides with God, with the moral law, and with the intelligible world where the moral law is created and respected by its members. This means that Kantian moral motivation and ethical foundation essentially coincide. Furthermore, this is why the Critique of Pure Reason states that the ideas of morality cannot provide moral motives without God and without a world where the highest good rules. A further important issue regarding the Kantian highest good arises in relation to this interpretation. Interestingly, it can be solved by studying Baumgarten’s Metaphysica, and in particular his theory of the soul. Since Kant distinguished between two kinds of happiness – the rational and the sensible – one may ask which one is to be expected in the afterlife as a reward for virtue. This issue is strictly related to the early modern questions concerning the immortality of the soul and resurrection of the body. Although this question is very relevant in assessing the controversial role of sensibility within Kantian ethics, the relevant literature does not give any helpful clues on this point. Indeed, as the paper will show, Kantian theory on the topic is based on §§ 782-791 of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica. Without its conclusions it would be impossible to understand Kant’s account of an afterlife where a bodily life is necessary to moral teleology. In fact, neither Kantian mere sensible happiness nor pure self-approbation are consistent with the author’s model of the afterlife. Kantian afterlife happiness will be shown to be a “complete” happiness (both sensible and rational), which rewards the virtuous man after bodily resurrection in the realm of God.