The importance of free will and the experience of duty in the thinking of Karol Wojtyła and Immanuel Kant

Abstract

By the ignorance of the motives of the critical philosophy Kant’s, many interpreters see his aim not in the rescue, but in the destruction of metaphysics. Kant’s practical philosophy is often misunderstood, as long as the expositors deny the unconditional validity of the moral law, “the only factum of pure reason”. The article tries to point out the similarities (the importance of free will and the experience of duty) in the thinking of Karol Wojtyła and Immanuel Kant. The moral experience, the demand of duty of the categorical imperative (Kant), personalistic standard (Wojtyła), shows the importance of self-determination/will decision towards the human act. Although Wojtyła admits in his work „person and act“, that just the Kant studies have helped to emphasize the will as a self determining factor of the person and the primacy of the will to the feelings, there is no lack of interpreters who like to overemphasize the great influences of Thomism and phenomenology (such as Max Scheler) on the thinking of the Krakow philosopher. Many interpreters ignore the cantian approach without comment. The goal of the article is therefore at least begin to fill this glaring omission. Wojtyła’s and Kant’s thinking is determined by the question of the freedom of the people. In the practical affirmation of the possibility of free actions – in the deed – the morality and dignity of human, which points to the unconditional – God – immortality of man – is revealed. Also Wojtyła, in the sense of Kant, stresses that the mind itself and with its own power is unable to reach the deity and man must engage on the uncertainty and the abyss of faith, when he leaves the island of pure reason. For Wojtyła, the ability to free, responsible, self-determining act is a sign of the inviolability of personal dignity and for Kant (similar to Augustine and Thomas) a determination of each person to the realization of the highest good. The two thinkers see the people in the light of the experience of duty – commandment of love – that can materialize only through action and deed. For Kant, implicitly for Wojtyła also the deference to God is done explicitly by the act.