ELDEFONSO
B. NATIVIDAD, JR.
Goethe (as cited by Cassirer, 1981)
pronounced a dictum with respect to Immanuel Kant that all philosophy must be
both loved and lived if it hoped to attain significance for life. Hence,
regardless of the school of thought one may belong, the task of life is to make
amend with the metaphysical knowledge from which nobody is exempted. The
Stoics, the Platonists, and the Epicureans each must come to terms with the
world in their own fashion. The philosophers, for their part, like Immanuel
Kant, can bring forth nothing but patterns of life to be able to seek for the
truth and happiness.
Immanuel Kant is the central figure
in contemporary philosophy. He is
generally credited for synthesizing the empiricist philosophy that had
dominated Great Britain and the rationalist philosophy that had dominated the
European continent for the previous 150 years
(SparkNotes Editors, 2016). He did not only set the terms for the nineteenth
and twentieth century philosophy but also exercise a significant influence
today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics,
and other fields (Rohlf, 2016).
Sjöstedt-H
(2016) believed that you can philosophize with Kant, or philosophize against him, but you
cannot philosophize without him.
His
Views
Immanuel
Kant is considered the most influential thinker of the Enlightenment era and
one of the greatest Western philosophers of all times (Philosophers.co.uk,
2012). He was a great theoretical philosopher as well as a great moral
philosopher (O’Neill, 2002). His philosophical views provided another
perspective to better understand the truth about morality, God and free will.
On Philosophy. Philosophy,
according to Kant, is the outcome of the use of human reason, which undertakes
investigations a priori, or
independently of experience. Reason also has both a theoretical and a practical
employment. Reason is theoretical when it is concerned with the way things
really are, and it is practical when it considers how things ought to be. Thus
the two main branches of philosophy are metaphysics, the investigation a priori of the nature of reality, and
ethics, which seeks a priori for
rules governing the way in which beings with free will ought to decide what to
do.
He believed that traditional
metaphysics attempts to describe objects that are completely beyond the scope
of the senses. He claims that the nature of purely intelligible objects can be
understood only by human reason. Ethics, on the other hand, treats the
practical use of reason as if it were concerned only with sensible objects,
most importantly with their relation to pleasure and pain. Kant maintained that
metaphysics must be confined solely to the discovery of those rules which
govern the sensible world, while ethics has nothing to do with anything
sensible.
Kant considered himself to be a
revolutionary thinker. He believed that he brought to philosophy a new method,
which he called criticism. Other philosophers had brought forth their systems
without having examined beforehand the power of human reason to think objects a priori. Criticism reveals the inherent
limitations of reason in its theoretical employment, and as a result it
repudiates transcendent metaphysics. But it also reveals the power of reason
over its own domain of objects, objects of experience. It further reveals that
reason dictates to itself the moral law.
As fundamental as the ‘Copernican
Revolution’ in natural science, Kant saw himself as going in roughly the
opposite direction as he wanted to place humanity itself at the center of his
philosophy, rather than any ‘external’ rational order. He argued that this
rational order is neither something that we discover through experience (as
Empiricists like Locke, Berkeley and Hume believed), nor something which we can
know through reason alone (as Rationalists like Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza
believed). Rather, for Kant, this rational order is something that human beings
themselves impose on the world – both in the construction of our knowledge
(w.r.t. his ‘theoretical’ philosophy, where he called his position
‘Transcendental Idealism’) and through our actions (as we see in his moral
philosophy).
On Good Will.
Some believe that the motivation of our actions is merely the seeking of
pleasure (and avoidance of pain). Against this belief, Kant argues that if
pleasure were the only thing that motivated our actions, then we would only
have instinct to guide us, as instinct suffices for obtaining pleasure (such as
animals). However, humans have reason above instinct, and this means that our
motivations go beyond mere pleasure. So the function of reason is not pleasure
or happiness, but to produce a will that is good in itself. It is the will to
do one’s duty without contradiction of reason – regardless of outcome.
A good will is manifested in acting
for the sake of duty. The good will has three distinguishing features: (a) The
good will is the indispensable condition for the value of other kinds of goods;
(b) The good will is the only kind of thing that is unconditionally good; and,
(c) The value of a good will is incomparably higher than the value of any other
kind of thing whether in isolation or aggregate.
Categorical Imperative
and Maxims.
A maxim is a principle upon which we act. It may be good or bad which is
usually not put into words, but this can be done.
Maxim may be subjective or
objective. A subjective maxim is one that is good for the person while an objective maxim is one which is
every rational person would act upon if reason had full control of his actions.
A good person adopts or rejects a subjective maxim for any action according to
whether or not it harmonizes with an objective maxim of doing duty for duty’s
sake (not for personal sake). An objective maxim is a universal law – our
reverence for it comes from our general reverence for rationality. Kant calls
the objective maxim, the Categorical Imperative.
The Categorical Imperative can be
articulated in two ways: (a) act only in accordance with that maxim through
which you can at the same time will it to become a universal law; and, (b) act
as if the maxim of the action were to become by the will a universal law of
nature. With this, two tests can be applied to appraise an action to be moral
or not: (a) ask yourself if it is ok for anyone else to act in the same way
(morally permissible); and, (b) ask yourself if it would be a good rule so that
everyone else must act in the same way (morally imperative).
The categorical imperative is not
predicated on a conditioned outcome as with a hypothetical imperative – “if you want x do y”. They are not
conditioned (unconditional) because if they did have a condition they would not
be performed from a good will but from a subjective desire and thus would not
be moral (but selfish).
On Duty. One’s
duty is to follow the Categorical Imperative as not doing so would mean that
one acted for one’s own pleasure. This would mean that one is misusing reason –
being irrational. One should therefore follow one’s duty even if it goes
against one’s (pleasurable) desires and certainly not for the sake of desires
(this includes ‘feel-good’ emotions like sympathy or compassion). If a person
does a good deed at a time when he is fully occupied with his own troubles, it
shows that he does it out of duty, not natural inclinations.
On Free Will.
For Kant, morality is only possible if free will exists. If free will did not
exist, then we would not be free to choose which action to take. In which case
we could not be held responsible (in a positive or negative way) for our
actions (we would be like programmed robots).
Free will is free intention. This
is one aspect of what decides whether an action is moral. A shopkeeper who
gives back the right change because he thinks that it is his duty is moral. On
the other hand, a shopkeeper who gives back the right change because he thinks
the person will complain if he doesn’t is not moral. This shows that mere
consequences cannot really explain the morality of an action.
About the Universe.
Kant divides the universe into phenomena
and noumena. Phenomena are the everyday physical things we perceive while noumena are the world behind appearances
and our concepts (things-in-themselves) – how things are beyond our perception
(i.e. beyond even time, space and causality). Phenomena are created by imposing concepts like space, time and
causality onto the world in order to understand it while noumena are driven by free will and is therefore not affected by
prior causes, as causes only exist in the phenomenal world.
On Kant's view, the most
fundamental laws of nature, like the truths of mathematics, are knowable
precisely because they make no effort to describe the world as it really is but
rather prescribe the structure of the world as we experience it. By applying
the pure forms of sensible intuition and the pure concepts of the
understanding, we achieve a systematic view of the phenomenal realm but learn
nothing of the noumenal realm. Math
and science are certainly true of the phenomena;
only metaphysics claims to instruct us about the noumena.
On
the Existence of God. Kant believed in God,
though he was critical of church practice. He was adamant that God could not be
proven in any positive way not
by reason, nor revelation. However, he did argue that one could assume God
existed because morality existed. Kant calls this postulation of God a
‘necessary hypothesis’. It is not knowledge, but an assumption. For Kant, God
is not the motive of our morals, but the assumption of our morals. For Kant, at
the end of reason we discover religion, although it can never properly be known
in a strict sense just assumed to be necessarily true.
On
Summum Bonum. The ultimate goal of reason, the highest good, is a
combination of virtue and happiness – Kant calls this the summum bonum (Latin for ‘highest good’). Nonetheless, the summum bonum is not the reason for being
moral – it is rather merely the later goal as a result of being moral. One is
moral because of rational duty. As a result of following this duty, one
understands that the highest good – summum
bonum – is only attained if one attains harmony between being moral and
being happy. So by being moral, one should ideally also be happy. However, the
harmony itself is not only a logical expectation, but a necessary reward for
being moral.
In many cases, the moral person is
exploited and/or never receives his dues. So, the summum bonum is not often achieved in this life, which leads Kant
to postulate two things: the Immortality of the soul and God. Because morality
is based on reason, and morality logically demands the summum bonum, then the fact that it is not achieved in our
phenomenal life implies that our soul must live on after phenomenal death so that
the summum bonum can later be
achieved. Thus, morality implies the immortality of the soul.
On
Happiness. Kant describes happiness as continuous well-being, enjoyment
of life, complete satisfaction with one’s condition. He expands this idea of happiness
to include power, riches, honor, even health, that complete well-being and
satisfaction with one’s condition. Kant refers to man’s preservation and
welfare as synonymous with his happiness. He calls happiness the complete
satisfaction of all one’s needs and inclinations. He argues that happiness is
the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes
according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical
nature with his whole end and likewise with the essential determining principle
of his will. Happiness
is when a rational will (i.e. moral will) is in harmony with the whole of
nature. Happiness
is not pleasure. It is not the virtuous, joyful feeling associated with living
a moral life. Happiness is simply getting what you want and is not the
supreme good.
On Person. For Kant, persons include “man and any
rational being”. Beings who can act only in accordance to their natural
inclinations and wants are not persons. Rational persons have a freedom of
will. Persons are ends in themselves – they have interests and projects (their
own goals) that are important to them by virtue of their rational nature –
their value is intrinsic. Children, though not fully rational are still
potential persons so though we may make decisions for them, we cannot use them
as tools or objects, nor can we dispose of them or fail to provide sufficient
care for them. Accordingly, Kant argues that we should act as to treat
humanity, whether in his own person or in that of any other in every case as an
end and never as means only.
Kant argues that a person is good or bad depending
on the motivation of their actions and not on the goodness of the consequences
of those actions. Motivation is what
caused you to do the action (i.e., your reason for doing it). Kant argues that one can have moral worth (i.e.,
be a good person) only if one is motivated by morality. In other words, if a person's emotions or
desires cause them to do something, then that action cannot give them moral
worth.
On Lying. Are we ever permitted to lie? Kant’s response is
NO for two reasons: (a) Lying is a contradiction of the categorical imperative:
it cannot be universalized as it would render the very act of communicating,
wanting to be understood and believed, meaningless; and, (b) Lying is a
contradiction of the practical imperative: it is inconsistent with treating
persons with respect; it is a form of manipulation.
On Moral Judgments. All moral judgments must be a priori.
That is, he thought that all judgments of morality have to be completely
independent of any contingent facts about how the world happens to be, and thus
have to be derivable in abstraction from any particular experience, and can
instead be derived from pure reason alone. This means that, for Kant, moral
judgments have to be of a very particular kind: they have to be synthetic a
priori judgments. Kant’s claim was that such judgments were possible, and that
the judgments of morality, philosophy, mathematics, and geometry were all of
this special kind.
On a Personal
and Final Note
Undeniably, German philosopher
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is the most cited philosopher at all times. His works
on epistemology, religion, aesthetics and ethics had a profound influence on
later philosophers, including contemporary ones.
Basically, Kant’s arguments on
philosophy seek to answer these fundamental questions: (a) “What can I know?;
(b) What should I do?; and, (c) What may I hope for?”.
Accordingly to Kant, we can know
the natural, observable world, but we cannot, however, have answers to many of
the deepest questions of metaphysics. We should act rationally, in accordance
with a universal moral law. We may hope that our souls are immortal and that
there really is a God who designed the world in accordance with principles of
justice.
I appreciate Kant for his concrete argument
on human reason as a means to understand life despite its complex nature. I
believe that through human reason we may be able to decipher the truth that
goes even beyond our senses. I also believe that human reason is so powerful
that it can connect us to the Great Beyond even when events do not come into
our favor.
By observing his theoretical
universal maxims of duty of categorical imperatives, we can create a world of righteousness
where man is considered as ends and not as means, where free will channels us
to happiness found not only in the noumenal realm but even in the phenomenal
world, where we can achieve and experience summum
bonum.
I think I will have to ponder
Kant’s arguments again and again, particularly in today’s status quo where humans
lives for personal interests, where the physical world is sacrificed for
pleasure and where true happiness seem impossible to achieve. I think human
progress happens if only we allow Kantian philosophy to guide us. In this
desperate time, we need to redefine our motives especially so that we have been
clouded with our imperfect duties.
I do hope that through Kantian
philosophy, we may sow a seed of goodness in our deeds both in the noumenal and phenomenal worlds. And this seed shall later develop into a new
hope which shall pave way to the ultimate attainment of summum bonum, the highest good.
References
Cabrillo
College. (2013). Deontology: Duty-Based
Ethics. Immanuel Kant. Retrieved June 4, 2016 from http://www.cabrillo.edu/~cclose/docs/Immanuel%20Kant.pdf
Camerling,
G. (2011). Kant: Experience and Reality.
Retrieved June 4, 2016 from http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5g.htm
Cassirer, E. (1981). Kant's life and thought. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hughes, J. L. (2004). The Role of
Happiness in Kant’s Ethics. Aporia, 14(1), 61-72.
Jankowiak, T. (2016). Immanuel Kant. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN
2161-0002
Philosophers.co.uk
(2012). Immanuel Kant. Retrieved June
4, 2016 from http://www.philosophers.co.uk/immanuel-kant.html
O’Neill,
M. (2002). A Beginner’s Guide to Kant’s
Moral Philosophy. Retrieved June 4, 2016 from http://www.roebuckclasses.com/ethics/resources/idea/beginnersguidekant
moral
philosophy.htm
Rohlf, M. (2016). Immanuel Kant. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN
1095-5054
Sjöstedt-H,
P. (2016). Kant’s Ethics – Summary.
Retrieved June 4, 2016 from http://www.philosopher.eu/texts/kants-ethics-summary/
SparkNotes
Editors. (2005). SparkNote on Immanuel
Kant (1724–1804). Retrieved June 4, 2016, from
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kant/
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