FREE ESSAY ON KANT

KANT

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had an interesting ethical system for reasoning. It is based on
a belief that the reason is the final authority for morality. In Kant?s eyes reason is
directly correlated with morals and ideals. Actions of any sort, he believed, must be
undertaken from a sense of duty dictated by reason, and no action performed for
appropriateness or solely in obedience to law or custom can be regarded as moral. A moral
act is an act done for the right reasons. Kant would argue that to make a promise for the
wrong reason is not moral you might as well not make the promise. You must have a duty
code inside of you or it will not come through in your actions otherwise. Our reasoning
ability will always allow us to know what our duty is. Kant described two types of common
commands given by reason: the hypothetical imperative, which dictates a given course of
action to reach a specific end; and the categorical imperative, which dictates a course
of action that must be followed because of its rightness and necessity. The categorical
imperative is the basis of morality and was stated by Kant in these words: Act as if the
maxim of your action were to become through your will and general natural law. Therefore,
before proceeding to act, you must decide what rule you would be following if you were to
act, whether you are willing for that rule to be followed by everyone all over. If you
are willing to universalize the act, it must be moral; if you are not, then the act is
morally impermissible. Kant believes that moral rules have no exceptions. Therefore, it
is wrong to kill in all situations, even those of self-defense. This belief comes from
the Universal Law theory. Since we would never want murder to become a universal law,
then it must be not moral in all situations. Kant believes killing could never be
universal, therefore it is wrong in each and every situation. There are never any
extenuating circumstances, such as self-defense. The act is either wrong or right, based
on his universality law. For example, giving money to a beggar just to get him to leave
you alone would be judged not moral by Kant because it was done for the wrong reason.
With Kant?s belief in mind; if the consequence of immoral behavior were dealt with in a
legal structure, people would be prosecuted for EVERYTHING since there are no extenuating
circumstances. Kant's categorical imperative is a tri-dynamic statement of philosophical
thought:(1) So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a
principle establishing universal law.(2) Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own
person in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.'(3) Act according
to the maxims if a universally legislative member of a merely potential kingdom of ends.
In other words, Kant argues that particular action requires conscious thought of the rule
governing the action. Whether if everyone should follow that rule, and if the rule is
acceptable for universal action, it should be adopted. If the rule is unacceptable, then
it should be rejected. In order to understand whether or not an action follows Kant's
categorical imperative, we must prescribe those norms that we wish to be universal laws.
These norms are created through value judgments based on issues of justice between
persons or groups (nations, etc.) of persons. Kant's theories discuss the ethical
questions that determine impartial consideration of conflicting interest in issues of
justice. Kant also states that because we must believe that all things develop to their
fullest capacity, then we can theorize in summary, through cognitive processes we can
create communities, based on moral (ethical) action towards every person, thereby
creating universal ethics throughout the community or republic. With that in mind, it
appears that Kant makes statements that assume all people within like republics can
achieve a level of cognition equal to one another, for without that equanimity of
cognition and judgment, then the conflict issues cannot be rationalized through creation
of universal law. The statement that all people can achieve a similar level of cognition
seems preposterous in our modern world cognition in the sense of like thought. Because we
need the principles of Kant's categorically designed thought and action to have universal
acceptance; we must be willing to accept the undesirable psychological deviants within
the republic. If we can't accept that a person?s cognition is capable of universability,
then we must dominate that person by removing them from the republic. This in itself
contradicts Kant's theory because in order to end domination, we must yield to and follow
our cognitive thought and this cannot be done because the deviant doesn't achieve the
same level of cognition as the rest of the republic. This example seems to point out a
flaw in Kant?s reasoning and his belief of achieving similar or same ethical norms to
follow. We must make the judgment on whether or not universal ethics is possible. I
believe that a bit of universability exists in certain social mores and norms throughout
the world; don't kill your neighbor, be kind to animals, incest is wrong, etc. yet,
individual perception of the world by people prevents the possibility of an
all-encompassing universal code of ethics. Furthermore, we have no way, to prove that our
principles based on perception can be rationally applied. Because of this inability to
prove rational application of perception and thus moral principle based on that
perception, we are unable to demonstrate the rational justification of any universal
principle or ethic. Application of the principles is central to creating universal
ethics, yet it seems that we cannot prove rational application of the principles and thus
fall short of gaining universal consensus on what those should be. To Kant, these
principles can be made applicable through his transcendental arguments, but there remains
the fact that he agreed sensory (and thus transcendental) experience couldn?t be accepted
as empirical givens. This leaves the sensory or transcendental experience open to
interpretation. Empirical evidence creates responses that can be repealed time and again
with identical or nearly identical results. Kant does make arguments for empirical
thought in his, The Postulates of Empirical Thought Section of the book Critique of Pure
Reason, but his questions of an event what became of that? and What brought that about?
fail to argue concisely about real and logical possibilities. Because of his lack of
definite statement, Kant fails to prove through his empirical thought arguments that
empirical thought or action can be universal. Kant followed his book, Critique of Pure
Reason, with Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which he argues at length on
moral judgment, practical reasoning and the like. Without having read the book in its
entirety, it seems that Kant provides example upon example on the possibility of
universal ethics. People attempt to describe good based on virtuous thought. Virtuous
thought supposes that a virtuous person has a fairly explicit conception of what is
called happiness. Kant?s perception skews the person's thought because each person
perceives an event (whatever the event may be) differently. It is this difference in what
people perceive that creates opposing viewpoints on good whether virtuous or not. Any
attempt to provide a universal ethic to the community is impeded by the community itself.
Not only was it an impossible task in Kant's time, but it is still impossible today