Kant's theory of action /

This clearly written, persuasively argued book swims against the tide of recent Kant scholarship. In particular, it provides an instructive contrast to Henry Allison's broadly endorsed views in Kant's Theory of Freedom (CH, Apr'91, 28-4451). In order to explain how Kant's moral law not only can justify but also can explain action, McCarty (East Carolina Univ.) argues that Kant espouses psychological determinism, the view that the will is thoroughly determined by competing, subjective incentives of varying strength. The moral law explains action when it is an incentive of sufficient strength to outweigh competing incentives. Consequently, McCarty disputes Allison's widely accepted "incorporation thesis," which claims that for Kant the human will has a reflective distance from its incentives, and has the freedom to choose among them regardless of their relative strength. Rather, according to McCarty, Kant's conception of human freedom depends on the timeless causation of a noumenal "choice," which makes people responsible for their empirically determined actions. This commits McCarty to a metaphysical interpretation of Kant's distinction between appearances and things in themselves, in opposition to Allison's "two standpoints" interpretation. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. A. N. Bunch Washington State University