L’idée de Dieu dans la pensée éthique kantienne : entre autonomie de la raison morale et finitude humaine

Abstract

The meaning and legitimacy of the idea of God in Kantian writings, especially those dating from the so-called critical period, raise questions at first sight as to the very necessity of maintaining this idea in a system of thought which claims to be free from dogmatic metaphys­ics, within which the idea of God seems irremediably to belong. This article justifies the phil­osophical importance of the idea of God in Kantian moral thought by showing that this idea is necessary to be able to think of the paradoxical dimension which characterizes the human being as a being capable of morality, a dimension which consists of a tension between the au­tonomy of moral reason and the moral finitude of the human being.