Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Contributions to the Correction of Previous Misunderstandings of Philosophers, Volume ii, Concerning the Foundation of Philosophical Knowledge, Metaphysics, Ethics, Moral Religion, and Doctrine of Taste, Jena, 1794

Summary

In his 1794 volume Contributions to the Correction of Previous Misunderstandings of Philosophers, Karl Leonhard Reinhold outlines his theory of free will, which emphasizes the agent’s capacity to choose in conformity with and in opposition to the moral law. Reinhold’s account can largely be seen as a response to Schmid’s conception. Thus, Reinhold considers the Schmidian notion that freedom consists in the self-activity of reason and that reason’s failure to effectively determine the will is due to intelligible obstacles. According to Reinhold, such a conception of free will abolishes moral imputation since merit or blame would be reducible to the absence or presence of those obstacles. Furthermore, Reinhold emphasizes the necessary independence of the will from both the faculty of desire, which supplies the matter of volition, and reason, which supplies the form by means of a formal normative standard, the moral law. As independent from these two faculties, the will is free to choose for or against the moral law. Reinhold maintains that only then can the normative necessity of that law be absolute.