Event Detail

In this talk, I examine Kant’s and Rosenzweig’s views concerning the relationship between moral and religious commitments. In the first half of the talk, I provide three arguments against the standard interpretation of Kant’s approach to the path from morality to religion, according to which God ensures that morality coincides with our interests by distributing happiness in proportion to morality (the proportional distribution view). Then, I provide my alternative interpretation, according to which faith in God provides us with assurance that only the sort of happiness that is consistent with morality is worth having (the transformative view). In the second half of the talk, I argue that in The Star of Redemption (1921), Franz Rosenzweig provides a version of the Kantian argument that morality “inevitably leads to religion.” Because Rosenzweig understands the path from morality to religion in terms that fit the transformative model that I attribute to Kant, he can both help us understand Kant’s own view and dislodge the widely entrenched proportional distribution view. I conclude by offering an interpretation of the Binding of Isaac that is informed by Rosenzweig’s Kantian approach to the path from morality to religion, which provides a response to Kant’s parochial views about Judaism.