Formal Scrupulosity: The Character of Job in Kant’s Moral Religion

Abstract

In his minor late treatise on theodicy Kant delivers a full-scale evaluation of Job, the just man from the Old Covenant, of his peculiar theodicy an his moral disposition, in contrast to that of his friends and comforters. The paper aims to examine the ethical content of Kant’s judgements about Job, to authenticate these judgements with the text of the Bible, and to de­termine the reasons and conceptual outcome of the German philosopher’s reflection upon the character of Job. The investigation focuses on the Kantian opposition between the duty of material truthfulness as objective veracity, and the duty of formal truthfulness or honesty to oneself, as strict conscientiousness of one’s belief. In Kant’s ethics the latter duty consti­tutes the ground for the former, as well as for external contractual obligations. In matters of religion and morality, where, according to Kant, no objectively valid knowledge but merely a moral faith is possible for humans, the formal conscientiousness of the self-con­science has quite particular importance. By contrast, a lack of this formal frankness of be­lief, a reluctance to verify the contents of one’s own moral convictions is a violation of the supreme ethical imperative, equivalent to the denial of one’s own moral personality; therefore a person committing an internal lie is already a “deceitful semblance of a man”. A lack of internal truthfulness makes further dissimulation in moral convictions and feigned beliefs possible. Job’s friends are for Kant a brilliant example of such dissimula­tion, combined with illegitimate claims of theoretical reason. Human nature, being habitu­ally disposed for deviations from the requirements of the law, willingly follows this way. Therefore a reflection upon the character of Job, as a pure example of formal conscien­tiousness in moral dispositions, gives Kant an opportunity for ethical implications concern­ing the routine of oath in court sessions, its sense and the limits of its application. Interest­ingly, Kant’s opinion on this point coincides at length with the view of the Russian philoso­pher I.V. Kireevsky.