Kant on the Nature of Logical and Moral Laws

Abstract

In this article I engage with a recent debate vis-à-vis Kant’s conception of logic, which deals with whether Kant saw logical laws as normative for, or rather as constitutive of, the faculty of understanding. On the former view, logical laws provide norms for the correct exercise of the understanding; on the latter, they define the necessary structure of the faculty of understanding per se. I claim that these two positions are not mutually exclusive, as Kant held both a normative and a constitutive conception of logic. I also sketch a parallelism between Kant’s conceptions of logic and of ethics: Kant’s twofold conception of logic parallels his view of moral laws as normative (for the human will) but constitutive (of a holy will).