On Act-Types and Act-Tokens: or, the Distinction between Practical Reason and Practical Judgment in Kant

While there is an extensive literature on Kant’s conception of practical reason, there is comparatively little on his conception of practical judgment. In addition, commentators have yet to take up the question of what the distinction between practical reason and practical judgment amounts to, for Kant. My aim in this paper is to provide an answer by bringing the type/token distinction to bear on Kant’s theory of moral agency. I argue that practical reason is concerned with determining the moral status of act-types, while practical judgment is concerned with picking out some act-token that instantiates the former. What this reveals, I claim, is that pure reason cannot be practical without the help of judgment.