Volume 50, Issue 3, Fall 2020
J?rg Noller
Pages 261-274
https://doi.org/10.5840/idstudies2020821116
From Autonomy to Heautonomy
Reinhold and Schiller on Practical Self-Determination
In this paper, I will shed light on Karl Leonhard Reinhold¡¯s and Friedrich Schiller¡¯s conceptions of practical self-determination after Kant. First, I outline Kant¡¯s conception of freedom as autonomy. I then explain the so-called ¡°Reinhold¡¯s dilemma,¡± which concerns the problem of moral imputability in the case of immoral actions, which arises from Kant¡¯s theory of autonomy. I then show how Reinhold and Schiller tried to escape this dilemma by developing an elaborated theory of individual freedom. I will argue that Reinhold¡¯s and Schiller¡¯s symmetrical account of freedom to act according and against the moral law is not to be confused with freedom of indifference but can be reconstructed in terms of practical self-determination on the basis of first-order desires and second-order volitions.