Filosofia de immanuel kant
Rather, we have a choice about whether to conceive of the highest good as possible, to regard it as impossible, or to remain noncommittal — But we can fulfill our duty of promoting the highest good only by choosing to conceive of the highest good as possible, because we cannot promote any end without believing that it is possible to achieve that end Kant argues that we can comply with our duty to promote the highest good only if we believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God.
This is because to comply with that duty we must believe that the highest good is possible, and yet to believe that the highest good is possible we must believe that the soul is immortal and that God exists, according to Kant. The highest good, as we have seen, would be a world of complete morality and happiness. This does not mean that we can substitute endless progress toward complete conformity with the moral law for holiness in the concept of the highest good, but rather that we must represent that complete conformity as an infinite progress toward the limit of holiness.
Rather, his view is that we must represent holiness as continual progress toward complete conformity of our dispositions with the moral law that begins in this life and extends into infinity. Kant holds that virtue and happiness are not just combined but necessarily combined in the idea of the highest good, because only possessing virtue makes one worthy of happiness — a claim that Kant seems to regard as part of the content of the moral law ; But we can represent virtue and happiness as necessarily combined only by representing virtue as the efficient cause of happiness.
This means that we must represent the highest good not simply as a state of affairs in which everyone is both happy and virtuous, but rather as one in which everyone is happy because they are virtuous —, However, it is beyond the power of human beings, both individually and collectively, to guarantee that happiness results from virtue, and we do not know any law of nature that guarantees this either.
This cause of nature would have to be God since it must have both understanding and will. Kant probably does not conceive of God as the efficient cause of a happiness that is rewarded in a future life to those who are virtuous in this one. Both of these arguments are subjective in the sense that, rather than attempting to show how the world must be constituted objectively in order for the highest good to be possible, they purport to show only how we filosofia de immanuel kant conceive of the highest good in order to be subjectively capable both of representing it as possible and of fulfilling our duty to promote it.
So while it is not, strictly speaking, a duty to believe in God or immortality, we must believe both in order to fulfill our duty to promote the highest good, given the subjective character of human reason. To see why, consider what would happen if we did not believe in God or immortality, according to Kant. But Kant later rejects this view His mature view is that our reason would be in conflict with itself if we did not believe in God and immortality, because pure practical reason would represent the moral law as authoritative for us and so present us with an incentive that is sufficient to determine our will; but pure theoretical i.
This final section briefly discusses how Kant attempts to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Reason legislates a priori for freedom and its own causality, as the supersensible in the subject, for an unconditioned practical cognition. One way to understand the problem Kant is articulating here is to consider it once again in terms of the crisis of the Enlightenment.
But the transcendental idealist framework within which Kant develops this response seems to purchase the consistency of these interests at the price of sacrificing a unified view of the world and our place in it. It is important to Kant that a third faculty independent of both understanding and reason provides this mediating perspective, because he holds that we do not have adequate theoretical grounds for attributing objective teleology to nature itself, and yet regarding nature as teleological solely on moral grounds would only heighten the disconnect between our scientific and moral ways of viewing the world.
That is why his theoretical philosophy licenses us only in attributing mechanical causation to nature itself. To this limited extent, Kant is sympathetic to the dominant strain in modern philosophy that banishes final causes from nature and instead treats nature as nothing but matter in motion, which can be fully described mathematically. But Kant wants somehow to reconcile this mechanistic view of nature with a conception of human agency that is essentially teleological.
As we saw in the previous section, Kant holds that every human action has an end and that the sum of all moral duties is to promote the highest good. This harmony can be orchestrated only from an independent standpoint, from which we do not judge how nature is constituted objectively that is the job of understanding or how the world ought to be the job of reasonbut from which we merely regulate or reflect on our cognition in a way that enables us to regard it as systematically unified.
In the Critique of the Power of JudgmentKant discusses four main ways in which reflecting judgment leads us to regard nature as purposive: first, it leads us to regard nature as governed by a system of empirical laws; second, it enables us to make aesthetic judgments; third, it leads us to think of organisms as objectively purposive; and, fourth, it ultimately leads us to think about the final end of nature as a whole.
First, reflecting judgment enables us to discover empirical laws of nature by leading us to regard nature as if it were the product of intelligent design — We do not need reflecting judgment to grasp the a priori laws of nature based on our categories, such as that every event has a cause. But in addition to these a priori laws nature is also governed by particular, empirical laws, such as that fire causes smoke, which we cannot know without consulting experience.
To discover these laws, we must form hypotheses and devise experiments on the assumption that nature is governed by empirical laws that we can grasp Bxiii—xiv. Reflecting judgment makes this assumption through its principle to regard nature as purposive for our understanding, which leads us to treat nature as if its empirical laws were designed to be understood by us — Since this principle only regulates our cognition but is not constitutive of nature itself, this does not amount to assuming that nature really is the product of intelligent design, which according to Kant we are not justified in believing on theoretical grounds.
Rather, it amounts only to approaching nature in the practice of science as if it were designed to be understood by us. We are justified in doing this because it enables us to discover empirical laws of nature. But it is only a regulative principle of reflecting judgment, not genuine theoretical knowledge, that nature is purposive in this way.
Second, Kant thinks that aesthetic judgments about both beauty and sublimity involve a kind of purposiveness, and that the beauty of nature in particular suggests to us that nature is hospitable to our ends. So beauty is not a property of objects, but a relation between their form and the way our cognitive faculties work. Yet we make aesthetic judgments that claim intersubjective validity because we assume that there is a common sense that enables all human beings to communicate aesthetic feeling —, — Beautiful art is intentionally created to stimulate this universally communicable aesthetic pleasure, although it is effective only when it seems unintentional — Natural beauty, however, is unintentional: landscapes do not know how to stimulate the free play of our cognitive faculties, and they do not have the goal of giving us aesthetic pleasure.
In both cases, then, beautiful objects appear purposive to us because they give us aesthetic pleasure in the free play of our faculties, but they also do not appear purposive because they either do not or do not seem to do this intentionally. Although it is only subjective, the purposiveness exhibited by natural beauty in particular may be interpreted as a sign that nature is hospitable to our moral interests Moreover, Kant also interprets the experience of sublimity in nature as involving purposiveness.
Third, Kant argues that reflecting judgment enables us to regard living organisms as objectively purposive, but only as a regulative principle that compensates for our inability to fully understand them mechanistically, which reflects the limitations of our cognitive faculties rather than any intrinsic teleology in nature. The parts of a watch are also possible only through their relation to the whole, but that is because the watch is designed and produced by some rational being.
An organism, by contrast, produces and sustains itself, which is inexplicable to us unless we attribute to organisms purposes by analogy with human art — Specifically, we cannot understand how a whole can be the cause of its own parts because we depend on sensible intuition for the content of our thoughts and therefore must think the particular intuition first by subsuming it under the general a concept.
To see that this is just a limitation of the human, discursive intellect, imagine a being with an intuitive understanding whose thought does not depend, as ours does, on receiving sensory information passively, but rather creates the content of its thought in the act of thinking it. Such a divine being could understand how a whole can be the cause of its parts, since it could grasp a whole immediately without first thinking particulars and then combining them into a whole — Therefore, since we have a discursive intellect and cannot know how things would appear to a being with an intuitive intellect, and yet we can only think of organisms teleologically, which excludes mechanism, Kant now says that we must think of both mechanism and teleology only as regulative principles that we need to explain nature, rather than as constitutive principles that describe how nature is intrinsically constituted ff.
Fourth, Kant concludes the Critique of the Power of Judgment with a long appendix arguing that reflecting judgment supports morality by leading us to think about the final end of nature, which we can only understand in moral terms, and that conversely morality reinforces a teleological conception of nature. Once it is granted on theoretical grounds that we must understand certain parts of nature organisms teleologically, although only as a regulative principle of reflecting judgment, Kant says we may go further and regard the whole of nature as a teleological system — But we can regard the whole of nature as a teleological system only by employing the idea of God, again only regulatively, as its intelligent designer.
This involves attributing what Kant calls external purposiveness to nature — that is, attributing purposes to God in creating nature According to Kant, the final end of nature must be human beings, but only as moral beings— This is because only human beings use reason to set and pursue ends, using the rest of nature as means to their ends — Moreover, Kant claims that human happiness cannot be the final end of nature, because as we have seen he holds that happiness is not unconditionally valuable — Rather, human life has value not because of what we passively enjoy, but only because of what we actively do We can be fully active and autonomous, however, only by acting morally, which implies that God created the world so that human beings could exercise moral autonomy.
Since we also need happiness, this too may be admitted as a conditioned and consequent end, so that reflecting judgment eventually leads us to the highest good Thus Kant argues that although theoretical and practical philosophy proceed from separate and irreducible starting points — self-consciousness as the highest principle for our cognition of nature, and the moral law as the basis for our knowledge of freedom — reflecting judgment unifies them into a single, teleological worldview that assigns preeminent value to human autonomy.
Individual works by Kant mentioned in this article with their original publication year indicated may be found in the following volumes of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant :. Life and works 2. Transcendental idealism 3. The transcendental deduction 4. Morality and freedom 5. The highest good and practical postulates 6. The unity of nature and freedom 7.
Kant expresses this Enlightenment commitment to the sovereignty of reason in the Critique : Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit. Religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. But in this way they excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot lay claim to that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public examination.
Axi Enlightenment is about thinking for oneself rather than letting others think for you, according to What is Enlightenment? As he explained in a February 21, letter to his friend and former student, Marcus Herz: In my dissertation I was content to explain the nature of intellectual representations in a merely negative way, namely, to state that they were not modifications of the soul brought about by the object.
However, I silently passed over the further question of how a representation that refers to an object without being in any way affected by it can be possible…. And if such intellectual representations depend on our inner activity, whence comes the agreement that they are supposed to have with objects — objects that are nevertheless not possibly produced thereby?
Kant characterizes this new constructivist view of experience in the Critique through an analogy with the revolution wrought by Copernicus in astronomy: Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing.
Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest.
Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the object as an object of the senses conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility to myself.
Yet because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as their object and determine this object through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which I bring about this determination also conform to the objects, and then I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the filosofia de immanuel kant thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized as given objects conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is given to me, hence a priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree.
Bxvi—xviii As this passage suggests, what Kant has changed in the Critique is primarily his view about the role and powers of the understanding, since he already held in the Inaugural Dissertation that sensibility contributes the forms of space and time — which he calls pure or a priori intuitions — to our cognition of the sensible world. Transcendental idealism Perhaps the central and most controversial thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason is that human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves; and that space and time are only subjective forms of human intuition that would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of human intuition.
What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being.
We are concerned solely with this. Space and time are its pure forms, sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a priori, i. The former adheres to our sensibility absolutely necessarily, whatever sort of sensations we may have; the latter can be very different. Space and time are not things in themselves, or determinations of things in themselves that would remain if one abstracted from all subjective conditions of human intuition.
Space and time are nothing other than the subjective forms of human sensible intuition. Most readers of Kant who have interpreted his transcendental idealism in this way have been — often very — critical of it, for reasons such as the following: First, at best Kant is walking a fine line in claiming on the one hand that we can have no knowledge about things in themselves, but on the other hand that we know that things in themselves exist, that they affect our senses, and that they are non-spatial and non-temporal.
The transcendental deduction The transcendental deduction is the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason and one of the most complex and difficult texts in the history of philosophy. For they then are related necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, since only by means of them can any object of experience be thought at all.
Its highest principle is self-consciousness, on which our knowledge of the basic laws of nature is based. Given sensory data, our understanding constructs experience according to these a priori laws. Practical philosophy is about how the world ought to be ibid. Its highest principle is the moral law, from which we derive duties that command how we ought to act in specific situations.
Kant also claims that reflection on our moral duties and our need for happiness leads to the thought of an ideal world, which he calls the highest good see section 6. Given how the world is theoretical philosophy and how it ought to be practical philosophywe aim to make the world better by constructing or realizing the highest good. This immediate consciousness of the moral law takes the following form: I have, for example, made it my maxim to increase my wealth by every safe means.
Now I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which has died and left no record of it. This is, naturally, a case for my maxim. Now I want only to know whether that maxim could also hold as a universal practical law. I therefore apply the maxim to the present case and ask whether it could indeed take the form of a law, and consequently whether I could through my maxim at the same time give such a law as this: that everyone may deny a deposit which no one can prove has been made.
I at once become aware that such a principle, as a law, would annihilate itself since it would bring it about that there would be no deposits at all. The highest good and practical postulates Kant holds that reason unavoidably produces not only consciousness of the moral law but also the idea of a world in which there is both complete virtue and complete happiness, which he calls the highest good.
The unity of nature and freedom This final section briefly discusses how Kant attempts to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Guyer and A. Wood eds. Individual works by Kant mentioned in this article with their original publication year indicated may be found in the following volumes of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant : Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces ; in Watkins, E.
Critique of Pure Reasonrevised second edition ; in Guyer, P. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ; in Gregor, M. Critique of Practical Reason ; in Gregor, M. Critique of the Power of Judgment ; in Guyer, P. Toward Perpetual Peace ; in Gregor, M. The Metaphysics of Morals ; in Gregor, M. The Conflict of the Faculties ; in Wood, A.
Other Primary Sources Jacobi, F. Fichte, J. Green ed. Locke, J. Nidditch ed. Reinhold, K. Ameriks ed. Sassen, B. Tetens, J. Secondary Literature Allais, L. Allison, H. Altman, M. Ameriks, K. Aquila, R. Beck, L. Esta filosofia de immanuel kant es clave para entender como construimos el conocimiento. Esto significa que debemos actuar de forma que nuestras decisiones pueden ser seguidas por todos sin contradicciones.
Pregunta al profesor sobre Pensamiento de Kant: resumen. Hola profesor, una pregunta para kant, el hombre debe actuar seguiendo sus deseos pesonal. Ver 1 respuesta Responder. He specifically identifies two "families" of philosophers whose works might be considered relevant to the evolution of such a modern secular philosophy. In one such family, Beck calls our attention to philosophers who utilized an appeal to mankind's scientific and philosophical endeavors in order to impose various limits upon the scope, validity and content of religious beliefs.
In Beck's view, Kantian ethics paved the way toward a more comprehensive modern secular philosophical paradigm in several ways. By specifically rejecting Spinoza's appeal to a strict monismKant parted ways with Spinoza's reliance upon a deity to assume a central role in modern ethical theory. Beck argued further that Kant's ethical theories are in agreement with Hume's assertion that scientific interpretations of nature cannot by themselves serve to confirm religious belief.
Yet, as Beck quickly reminds his readers, Kant also distanced himself from Hume by insisting that mankind is not consequently left entirely adrift without a moral compass. According to Beck's reading, Kant clearly asserts that mankind should regard moral law "as if" it were a divine command which unites people "as if" they were in common allegiance to such a "supposed" deity.
Philosopher Onora O'Neillwho studied under John Rawls at Harvard Universityis a contemporary Kantian ethicist who supports a Kantian approach to issues of social justice. O'Neill argues that a successful Kantian account of social justice must not rely on any unwarranted idealizations or assumption. She notes that philosophers have previously charged Kant with idealizing humans as autonomous beings, without any social context or life goals, though maintains that Kant's ethics can be read without such an idealization.
Conceiving of reason as a tool to make decisions with means that the only thing able to restrain the principles we adopt is that they could be adopted by all. If we cannot will that everyone adopts a certain principle, then we cannot give them reasons to adopt it. To use reason, and to reason with other people, we must reject those principles that cannot be universally adopted.
In this way, O'Neill reached Kant's formulation of universalisability without adopting an idealistic view of human autonomy. From this model of Kantian ethics, O'Neill begins to develop a theory of justice. She argues that the rejection of certain principles, such as deception and coercion, provides a starting point for basic conceptions of justice, which she argues are more determinate for human beings that the more abstract principles of equality or liberty.
Nevertheless, she concedes that these principles may seem to be excessively demanding: there are many actions and institutions that do rely on non-universalisable principles, such as injury. In his paper " The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories ", philosopher Michael Stocker challenges Kantian ethics and all modern ethical theories by arguing that actions from duty lack certain moral value.
He gives the example of Smith, who visits his friend in hospital out of duty, rather than because of the friendship; he argues that this visit seems morally lacking because it is motivated by the wrong thing. Marcia Baron has attempted to defend Kantian ethics on this point.
Filosofia de immanuel kant: Além de sua teoria
After presenting a number of reasons that we might find acting out of duty objectionable, she argues that these problems only arise when people misconstrue what their duty is. Acting out of duty is not intrinsically wrong, but immoral consequences can occur when people misunderstand what they are duty-bound to do. Duty need not be seen as cold and impersonal: one may have a duty to cultivate their character or improve their personal relationships.
She argues that, seen this way, duty neither reveals a deficiency in one's natural inclinations to act, nor undermines the motives and feelings that are essential to friendship. For Baron, being governed by duty does not mean that duty is always the primary motivation to act; rather, it entails that considerations of duty are always action-guiding.
A responsible moral agent should take an interest in moral questions, such as questions of character. These should guide moral agents to act from duty. In her doctoral dissertation The Standpoint of Practical Reasonphilosopher Christine Korsgaard argues that there are four basic types of interpretation of the formula of universal law: [ 71 ]. Korsgaard argues that the Practical Contradiction Interpretation is the correct interpretation.
She further argues that there are two ways a maxim may violate the formula of universal law:. While Friedrich Schiller appreciated Kant for basing the source of morality on a person's reason rather than on God, he also criticized Kant for not going far enough in the conception of autonomy, as the internal constraint of reason would also take away a person's autonomy by going against their sensuous self.
Schiller introduced the concept of the "beautiful soul", in which the rational and non-rational elements within a person are in such harmony that a person can be led entirely by his sensibility and inclinations. However, given that humans are not naturally virtuous, it is in exercising control over the inclinations and impulses through moral strength that a person displays "dignity".
Schiller's main implied criticism of Kant is that the latter only saw dignity while grace is ignored. While he admits that the concept of duty can only be associated with dignity, gracefulness is also allowed by the virtuous individual as he attempts to meet the demands of the moral life courageously and joyously.
Filosofia de immanuel kant: Kant believed that reason is the
German philosopher G. Hegel presented two main criticisms of Kantian ethics. He first argued that Kantian ethics provides no specific information about what people should do because Kant's moral law is solely a principle of non-contradiction. To illustrate this point, Hegel and his followers have presented a number of cases in which the Formula of Universal Law either provides no meaningful answer or gives an obviously wrong answer.
Hegel used Kant's example of being trusted with another man's money to argue that Kant's Formula of Universal Law cannot determine whether a social system of property is a morally good thing, because either answer can entail contradictions. He also used the example of helping the poor: if everyone helped the poor, there would be no poor left to help, so beneficence would be impossible if universalized, making it immoral according to Kant's model.
Because it does not address the tension between self-interest and morality, Kant's ethics cannot give individuals any reason to be moral. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer criticised Kant's belief that ethics should concern what ought to be done, insisting that the scope of ethics should be to attempt to explain and interpret what actually happens.
Whereas Kant presented an idealized version of what ought to be done in a perfect world, Schopenhauer argued that ethics should instead be practical and arrive at conclusions that could work in the real world, capable of being presented as a solution to the world's problems. Because he believed that virtue cannot be taught—a person is either virtuous or is not—he cast the proper place of morality as restraining and guiding people's behavior, rather than presenting unattainable universal laws.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche criticised all contemporary moral systems, with a special focus on Christian and Kantian ethics. He argued that all modern ethical systems share two problematic characteristics: first, they make a metaphysical claim about the nature of humanity, which must be accepted for the system to have any normative force; and second, the system benefits the interests of certain people, often over those of others.
Although Nietzsche's primary objection is not that metaphysical claims about humanity are untenable he also objected to ethical theories that do not make such claimshis two main targets—Kantianism and Christianity—do make metaphysical claims, which therefore feature prominently in Nietzsche's criticism. Nietzsche rejected fundamental components of Kant's ethics, particularly his argument that morality, God, and immorality, can be shown through reason.
Nietzsche cast suspicion on the use of moral intuition, which Kant used as the foundation of his filosofia de immanuel kant, arguing that it has no normative force in ethics. He further attempted to undermine key concepts in Kant's moral psychology, such as the will and pure reason. Like Kant, Nietzsche developed a concept of autonomy; however, he rejected Kant's idea that valuing our own autonomy requires us to respect the autonomy of others.
Under the Kantian model, reason is a fundamentally different motive to desire because it has the capacity to stand back from a situation and make an independent decision. Nietzsche conceives of the self as a social structure of all our different drives and motivations; thus, when it seems that our intellect has made a decision against our drives, it is actually just an alternative drive taking dominance over another.
This is in direct contrast with Kant's view of the intellect as opposed to instinct; instead, it is just another instinct. There is thus no self-capable of standing back and making a decision; the decision the self-makes is simply determined by the strongest drive. For an individual to create values of their own, which is a key idea in Nietzsche's philosophy, they must be able to conceive of themselves as a unified agent.
Even if the agent is influenced by their drives, he must regard them as his own, which undermines Nietzsche's conception of autonomy. Nietzsche criticizes Kant even in his autobiography Ecce Homo: "Leibniz and Kant - these two great breaks upon the intellectual honesty of Europe! He warns against adopting virtues based solely on abstract notions of "virtue" itself, as advocated by Kant, as they can be harmful to our lives, in his quote:.
A virtue must be our invention; it must spring out of our personal need and defence. In every other case it is a source of danger.
Filosofia de immanuel kant: Introducing our new mobile
The Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill criticizes Kant for not realizing that moral laws are justified by a moral intuition based on utilitarian principles that the greatest good for the greatest number ought to be sought. Mill argued that Kant's ethics could not explain why certain actions are wrong without appealing to utilitarianism.
Virtue ethics is a form of ethical theory which emphasizes the character of an agent, rather than specific acts; many of its proponents have criticised Kant's deontological approach to ethics. Elizabeth Anscombe criticised modern ethical theories, including Kantian ethics, for their obsession with law and obligation. In his work After VirtueAlasdair MacIntyre criticises Kant's formulation of universalisability, arguing that various trivial and immoral maxims can pass the test, such as "Keep all your promises throughout your entire life except one.
Roman Catholic priest Servais Pinckaers regarded Christian ethics as closer to the virtue ethics of Aristotle than Kant's ethics. He presented virtue ethics as freedom for excellencewhich regards freedom as acting in accordance with nature to develop one's virtues. A number of philosophers including Elizabeth AnscombeJean Bethke ElshtainServais PinckaersIris Murdochand Kevin Knight [ 91 ] have all suggested that the Kantian conception of ethics rooted in autonomy is contradictory in its dual contention that humans are co-legislators of morality and that morality is a priori.
They argue that if something is universally a priori i. On the other hand, if humans truly do legislate morality, then they are not bound by it objectively, because they are always free to change it. This objection seems to rest on a misunderstanding of Kant's views since Kant argued that morality is dependent upon the concept of a rational will and the related concept of a categorical imperative: an imperative which any rational being must necessarily will for itself.
Furthermore, the sense in which our wills are subject to the law is precisely that if our wills are rational, we must will in a lawlike fashion; that is, we must will according to moral judgments we apply to all rational beings, including ourselves. That is, an autonomous will, according to Kant, is not merely one which follows its own will, but whose will is lawful-that is, conforming to the principle of universalizability, which Kant also identifies with reason.
Ironically, in another passage, willing according to immutable reason is precisely the kind of capacity Elshtain ascribes to God as the basis of his moral authority, and she commands this over an inferior voluntarist version of divine command theorywhich would make both morality and God's will contingent. Kant and Elshtain, that is, both agree God has no filosofia de immanuel kant
but to conform his will to the immutable facts of reason, including moral truths; humans do have such a choice, but otherwise their relationship to morality is the same as that of God's: they can recognize moral facts, but do not determine their content through contingent acts of will.
Kant believed that the shared ability of humans to filosofia de immanuel kant should be the basis of morality, and that it is the ability to reason that makes humans morally significant. He, therefore, believed that all humans should have the right to common dignity and respect. Eaton argues that, according to Kant's ethics, a medical professional must be happy for their own practices to be used by and on anyone, even if they were the patient themselves.
For example, a researcher who wished to perform tests on patients without their knowledge must be happy for all researchers to do so. Medical research should be motivated out of respect for the patient, so they must be informed of all facts, even if this would be likely to dissuade the patient. Jeremy Sugarman has argued that Kant's formulation of autonomy requires that patients are never used merely for the benefit of society, but are always treated as rational people with their own goals.
Hinkley notes that a Kantian account of autonomy requires respect for choices that are arrived at rationally, not for choices which are arrived at by idiosyncratic or non-rational means. He argues that there may be some difference between what a purely rational agent would choose and what a patient actually chooses, the difference being the result of non-rational idiosyncrasies.
Although a Kantian physician ought not to lie to or coerce a patient, Hinkley suggests that some form of paternalism —such as through withholding information which may prompt a non-rational response—could be acceptable. She proposes that a woman should be treated as a dignified autonomous person, with control over their bodyas Kant suggested.
She believes that the free choice of women would be paramount in Kantian ethics, requiring abortion to be the mother's decision. Dean Harris has noted that, if Kantian ethics is to be used in the discussion of abortion, it must be decided whether a fetus is an autonomous person. Cohen believes that even when humans are not rational because of age such as babies or fetuses or mental disabilityagents are still morally obligated to treat them as an ends in themselvesequivalent to a rational adult such as a mother seeking an abortion.
Kant viewed humans as being subject to the animalistic desires of self-preservationspecies-preservation, and the preservation of enjoyment. He argued that humans have a duty to avoid maxims that harm or degrade themselves, including suicidesexual degradation, and drunkenness. He admitted sex only within marriage, which he regarded as "a merely animal union".
He believed that masturbation is worse than suicide, reducing a person's status to below that of an animal; he argued that rape should be punished with castration and that bestiality requires expulsion from society. Feminist philosopher Catharine MacKinnon has argued that many contemporary practices would be deemed immoral by Kant's standards because they dehumanize women.
Sexual harassmentprostitutionand pornographyshe argues, objectify women and do not meet Kant's standard of human autonomy. Commercial sex has been criticised for turning both parties into objects and thus using them as a means to an end ; mutual consent is problematic because in consenting, people choose to objectify themselves. Alan Soble has noted that more liberal Kantian ethicists believe that, depending on other contextual factors, the consent of women can vindicate their participation in pornography and prostitution.
Because Kant viewed rationality as the basis for being a moral patient —one due moral consideration—he believed that animals have no moral rights. Animals, according to Kant, are not rational, thus one cannot behave immorally towards them. Ethicist Tom Regan rejected Kant's assessment of the moral worth of animals on three main points: First, he rejected Kant's claim that animals are not self-conscious.
He then challenged Kant's claim that animals have no intrinsic moral worth because they cannot make a moral judgment. Regan argued that, if a being's moral worth is determined by its ability to make a moral judgment, then we must regard humans who are incapable of moral thought as being equally undue moral consideration. Regan finally argued that Kant's assertion that animals exist merely as a means to an end is unsupported; the fact that animals have a life that can go well or badly suggests that, like humans, they have their own ends.
Christine Korsgaard has reinterpreted Kantian theory to argue that animal rights are implied by his moral principles. Kant believed that the categorical imperative provides us with the maxim that we ought not to lie in any circumstances, even if we are trying to bring about good consequences, such as lying to a murderer to prevent them from finding their intended victim.
Kant argued that, because we cannot fully know what the consequences of any action will be, the result might be unexpectedly harmful. Therefore, we ought to act to avoid the known wrong—lying—rather than to avoid a potential wrong. If there are harmful consequences, we are blameless because we acted according to our duty. However, this new maxim may still treat the murderer as a means to an end, which we have a duty to avoid doing.
Thus we may still be required to tell the truth to the murderer in Kant's example. A filosofia de Immanuel Kant pode ser dividida em dois ramos principais. David Hume era um expoente do empirismo, uma doutrina oposta ao racionalismo. Em vez disso, a liberdade implica moralidade e a moralidade implica liberdade.