We usually can't know how, and we probably should not even ask, how our lives contribute to a better world.

If the problem of free will is to see how freedom fits into the order of nature, then Kant's basic view about the free will problem is that it is insoluble.

Not only in order to act morally, but even to formulate theoretical questions, devise experiments, choose which ones to perform and what conclusions to draw from then - we must presuppose that we are free. That's the sense in which it is true that for Kant "we must assume we are free."

What are we to think of the shortsightedness of the great mass of people who are content to do nothing about it, and even worse, the greed or venality of the rich and powerful who deliberately bar the way to human survival?

Kant thinks of judgment as a special faculty or talent of the mind, not reducible to discursive reasoning but cultivated through experience and practice.

Kant thinks we can show that there is no contradiction in supposing we are free.

In my acquaintance with John Rawls, I found him to be a simple and honest man, who just by chance also happened to be the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century. I would like to think that I could emulate at least his modesty - his refusal to exaggerate his perception of himself and his place in the larger scheme of things - even if my work never compares with his in its importance.