#63: Does Morality Require God? Kant's Categorical Imperative Explained | Prof. John E. Hare

What did Immanuel Kant — the philosopher most credited with founding a purely rational, secular ethics — actually believe about God?

In this episode, Ali Zaka sits down with Prof. John E. Hare, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale, to unravel one of the most misunderstood arguments in the history of moral philosophy. Hare is the scholar most responsible for recovering the theological Kant — arguing that Kant's own ethics, taken on its own terms, cannot stand without God.

We cover:

What Kant's Categorical Imperative actually says, in plain language

Hare's concept of the "moral gap" — the distance between what morality demands of us and our natural capacity to live up to it

Why Kant thought pursuing the "highest good" without God is rationally unstable

The Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory, and Hare's answer: "autonomy as appropriation"

A direct comparison to the classical Islamic debate between the Ash'arites and Mu'tazilites on the nature of divine commands

The strongest objections to Hare's reading of Kant — and how he responds

This is a conversation for anyone who has ever wondered whether morality can really stand on reason alone, or whether — as Kant himself may have believed — it eventually points beyond itself.

Prof. Hare is the author of The Moral Gap: Kantian Ethics, Human Limits, and God's Assistance (1996), God's Call (2001), God and Morality: A Philosophical History (2007), and God's Command (2015), among others.