Freedom and practical reason › Freedom and the explanation of events

The freedom at issue is not a gap in our knowledge of a person's motives. Ignorance of the causes of an action does not by itself establish freedom. Nor does unpredictability establish autonomy: an arbitrary choice could still fail to answer to a justified principle.

Kant's account distinguishes a person considered within the order of natural appearances from that person considered as a rational agent subject to moral law. The second Critique gives freedom practical reality through the moral law while maintaining the limits of speculative knowledge. It does not offer an empirical discovery of a causally unconditioned object.

This is why wrongdoing must not be described as simply removing agency. A person who acts from self-interest against duty remains a subject of moral assessment. Calling a choice heteronomous identifies a defective basis of determination; it does not automatically excuse the person as someone who never could have responded otherwise.

The distinction is demanding, and it leaves questions about how the two standpoints fit together. Kant's practical argument supplies a form of warrant for freedom. It does not describe a mechanism by which a free cause can be observed operating alongside ordinary natural causes.