Groundwork ix-xiv

24 Mar, 2026

Two small points to finish the book's preface.

First, in (xii), Kant says theoretical reason and practical reason are from the same root of pure reason and should unify in a common principle. My use of distributed authorship (theoretical reason) to show the mechanism of human agency (that manifests practical reason) isn't mixing domains that should be kept separate.

Second, Kant makes a point I greatly respect about intellectual honesty and rigorously developing the supreme principle of morality. He says that he won't apply his derived principle to real situations, because showing how well such principle applies to questions of morality would bias the reader into believing in the principle on empirical grounds. Showing its applications would make the principle appear correct, but that doesn't mean its foundation is theoretically valid. Such evidence would "afford no completely safe proof of its correctness." He's deliberately depriving himself of empirical evidence in order to be rigorous.

Kant would warn me that compelling implications can make me overconfident in the foundation. That is, the foundation of distributed authorship has to hold independently of its utility. That's exactly why I'm developing this foundation through a careful reading of Kant and Juarrero on this blog and not relying on how well the principles align with its personal and societal implications.

On to Chapter 1.