The ethics of Kant and religious duties

The paper considers Kant’s judgments in his Metaphysics of Morals concerning human duties to God. The German philosopher distinguishes a formal and a material aspect in the religious conscience and assigns the pure theory of practical duty to the former, and the factuality of human nature in its radical moral character, as well as the “factum” of historical revelation to the latter; therefore he consequently refuses to include the doctrine of religious duties of human beings in the philosophical ethics. As far as to the material aspect of every religion corresponds the reality of God as legislator and party in practical relation, but the reality in Kant’s conception presupposes being given in experience, a fully defined concept of reason about religion necessarily comprises, according to Kant, a philosophical reflection of the moral character of human nature, as well as a relation to revelation and an explication thereof; therefore a philosophical doctrine of religion necessarily turns out to be an empirical philosophy of religion. According to Kant, the competence of reason and philosophy in matters of religion is radically limited; only the subjective side of religious duty is philosophically accessible; the same duty as an objective relation must be a legitimate domain of the “theological department”, which necessarily starts a legitimate debate on this subject with the “philosophical department”.