IMMANUEL KANT

(Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)

In partial fulfilment for the course

Readings in Philippine History

Prepared by
Marigel Corpin

BSBA HR 1-K

Presented to
Prof. Vhon Villanueva

January 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant is a philosopher who tried to work out how human beings
could be good and kind – outside of the exhortations and blandishments
of traditional religion.

He was born in 1724 in the Baltic city of Königsberg, which at that time
was part of Prussia, and now belongs to Russia (renamed Kaliningrad).

Kant’s parents were very modest; his father was a saddle maker. Kant
never had much money – which he dealt with cheerfully by living very
modestly. It wasn’t until he was in his fifties that he became a fully
salaried professor and attained a moderate degree of prosperity.

His family were deeply religious and very strict. Later in life, Kant did not
have any conventional religious belief, but he was acutely aware of how
much religion had contributed to his parents’ ability to cope with all the
hardships of their existence – and how useful religion could be in fostering
social cohesion and community.

Kant was physically very slight, frail and anything but good looking. But
he was very sociable and some of his colleagues used to criticise him for
going to too many parties.

When – eventually – he was able to entertain, he had rules about

conversation; at the start of a dinner party, he decreed that people
should swap stories about what had been happening recently. Then there
should be a major phase of reflective discourse, in which those present
attempted to clarify an important topic; and finally there should be a
closing period of hilarity so that everyone left in a good mood.

He died in 1804, in his eightieth year, in Königsberg – having rarely felt

the need to spend any time outside the city in which he was born.

**

Kant was writing at a highly interesting period in history we now know as

The Enlightenment. In an essay called What is Enlightenment (published
in 1784), Kant proposed that the identifying feature of his age was its
growing secularism. Intellectually, Kant welcomed the declining belief in
Christianity, but in a practical sense, he was also alarmed by it. He was a

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pessimist about human character and believed that we are by nature
intensely prone to corruption.

It was this awareness that led him to what would be his life’s project: the
desire to replace religious authority with the authority of reason; that is,
human intelligence. Kant pursued this grand project in a major series of
books with fearsome titles, including:

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)

The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

The Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

The Critique of Judgment (1793)

In a book on religion titled, Religion within the Bounds of Reason

Alone (1793), Kant argued that although historical religions had all been
wrong in the content of what they had believed, they had latched onto a
great need to promote ethical behaviour, which still remained.

It was in this context that Kant came up with the idea for which he is
perhaps still most famous: what he called the Categorical Imperative.
This strange sounding term first appeared in a horrendously named
work, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. It states:

“Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will
that it should become a universal law.”

What did Kant mean by this? This was only a very formal restatement of
an idea that had been around for a long time – something we meet with
in all the main religions: “do unto others as you would have them do unto
you”. Kant was offering a handy way of testing the morality of an action
or pattern of behaviour by imagining how it would be if it were generally
practiced and you were the victim of it.

It might be tempting to flitch a few pads of paper from the stationery

cupboard at work. It seems like a small thing. But if everyone did this, the
cupboard and society at large would need a lot of guards.

Similarly, if you have an affair and keep it quiet from your partner you
might feel it’s OK. But the Categorical Imperative comes down against
this, because you would have to embrace the idea that it would be equally
OK for your partner to have affairs and not tell you.
The Categorical Imperative is designed to shift our perspective: to get us
to see our own behaviour in less immediately personal terms and thereby
recognise some of its limitations.

Kant went on to argue that the core idea of the Categorical Imperative
could be stated in another way: “Act so as to treat people always as ends
in themselves, never as mere means.”

This was intended as a replacement for the Christian injunction for

universal love: the command to “love one’s neighbour”. To treat a person
as an ‘end’ meant keeping in view that they had a life of their own in
which they were seeking happiness and fulfilment, and deserved justice
and fair treatment.

The Categorical Imperative – Kant argued – is the voice of our own

rational selves, it’s what we all truly believe when we are thinking
rationally. It’s the rule our own intelligence gives us.

Kant extended his thinking about the Categorical Imperative into the
political sphere. He believed that the central duty of government was to
ensure liberty. But he sensed that there was something wrong with the
ordinary definition of freedom. It should not be thought of
in libertarian terms: as the ability to do whatever we want. We are free
only when we act in accordance with our own best natures; we are slaves
whenever we are under the rule of our own passions or those of others.
As he put it, ‘a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the
same.’

So freedom isn’t an absence of government: a free society isn’t one that

allows people more and more opportunity to do whatever they happen to
fancy. It’s one that helps everyone become more reasonable. The good
state represents the rational element in everyone, it rules according to ‘a
universally valid will under which everyone can be free.’ Government,
ideally, is the external, institutionalised version of the best part of
ourselves.

It might be a bit surprising – at first – to discover that in 1793, Kant

published a major work on beauty and art: The Critique of Judgment. It
might seem like a bit of a sideline for a thinker otherwise concerned with
politics and ethics. But Kant held that his ideas about art and beauty were
the cornerstones of his entire philosophy.

As we’ve been seeing, Kant thought that life involved a constant struggle
between our better selves and our passions, between duty and pleasure.

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Beauty – Kant especially liked roses, vines, apple trees and birds –
delights us in a very special and important way. It is a reminder of, and
goad to, our better selves. Unlike so much else in our lives, our love of
beauty is ‘disinterested’. It takes us out of narrow selfish concerns, but in
a charming, delightful way – without being stern or demanding. The
beauty of nature is a continual, quiet and insistent reminder of our
common universal being. A pretty flower is just as attractive to the tired
farmworker as to the prince; the graceful flight of a swallow is as lovely to
a child as to the most learned professor.

For Kant, the role of art is to embody the most important ethical ideas.
It’s an extension of philosophy. He held we needed to have art continually
before us so as benefit from vivid illustrations and memorable symbols of
good behaviour, and thereby keep the wayward parts of ourselves in
check.
SUMMARY

IMMANUEL KANT

Towards the end of his most influential

work, Critique of Pure Reason(1781/1787),
Kant argues that all philosophy ultimately
aims at answering these three questions:
“What can I know? What should I do? What
may I hope?” The book appeared at the
beginning of the most productive period of his
career, and by the end of his life Kant had
worked out systematic, revolutionary, and
often profound answers to these questions.

At the foundation of Kant’s system is the

doctrine of “transcendental idealism,” which
emphasizes a distinction between what we can experience (the natural,
observable world) and what we cannot (“supersensible” objects such as
God and the soul). Kant argued that we can only have knowledge of
things we can experience. Accordingly, in answer to the question, “What
can I know?” Kant replies that we can know the natural, observable
world, but we cannot, however, have answers to many of the deepest
questions of metaphysics.

Kant’s ethics are organized around the notion of a “categorical

imperative,” which is a universal ethical principle stating that one should
always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in
accordance with rules that could hold for everyone. Kant argued that the
moral law is a truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are
bound by the same moral law. Thus in answer to the question, “What
should I do?” Kant replies that we should act rationally, in accordance
with a universal moral law.

Kant also argued that his ethical theory requires belief in free will, God,
and the immortality of the soul. Although we cannot have knowledge of
these things, reflection on the moral law leads to a justified belief in
them, which amounts to a kind rational faith. Thus in answer to the
question, “What may I hope?” Kant replies that 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.

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In addition to these three focal points, Kant also made lasting
contributions to nearly all areas of philosophy. His aesthetic theory
remains influential among art critics. His theory of knowledge is required
reading for many branches of analytic philosophy. The cosmopolitanism
behind his political theory colors discourse about globalization and
international relations. And some of his scientific contributions are even
considered intellectual precursors to several ideas in contemporary
cosmology.

This article presents an overview of these and other of Kant’s most

important philosophical contributions. It follows standard procedures for
citing Kant’s works. Passages from Critique of Pure Reason are cited by
reference to page numbers in both the 1781 and 1787 editions. Thus
“(A805/B833)” refers to page 805 in the 1781 edition and 833 in the
1787 edition. References to the rest of Kant’s works refer to the volume
and page number of the official Deutsche Akademie editions of Kant’s
works. Thus “(5:162)” refers to volume 5, page 162 of those editions.
CONCLUSION

Kant’s books were dense, abstract and highly intellectual. But in them he
sketched a highly important project that remains crucial to this day. He
wanted to understand how the better, more reasonable parts of our
nature could be strengthened so as to reliably win out over our inbuilt
weaknesses and selfishness. As he saw it, he was engaged in the task of
developing a secular, rational version of what religions had (very
imperfectly) always attempted to do: help us to be good.

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