Abstract

Kant’s argument for saying that practical reason, if successful, always tells us that we ought to do something rests on an illicit shift from our being unreliable in acting reasonably to our being required to do so. The shift only appears plausible under a theological assumption. In fact, practical reason, as argued in the text that follows, never tells us that we ought to do things. The point is not that ‘ought’ is difficult to understand or to explicate. It is rather that there is no reason to think that we are ever subject to a requirement that we do this or that.