How Things Work – A Brief History of Reality
Book I – Dualism (Kant & The Categorical Imperative)
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Tuesday, March 1, 2022
“All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?” – Immanuel Kant
CONSIDERATION #20 – “Immanuel Kant” The Categorical Imperative
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
Immanuel Kant fundamentally altered the way Western Civilization came to understand and interact with science, religion, and philosophy. Kant’s influence on the modern world cannot be underestimated. In his work, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant meticulously explores the potential of pure reason for solving all metaphysical problems outside the realm of the senses. The results of his conclusions revolutionized not only the Western world, but the entire world.
Kant essentially invented philosophy as a modern, academic discipline. He distinguished the practice of empirical science from the philosophical question of why empirical science is the paradigm case of knowledge, and what this means for us. The book where he makes the case for this, the Critique of Pure Reason, is one of the great achievements of human culture. It’s a book you want to put in the spacecraft for when human beings destroy the planet, to tell the aliens: “See, we weren’t all idiots.”
For Kant, the basic principle of morals is freedom. Moral law is the principle by which free persons govern themselves, by equally respecting the freedom of all other persons. Freedom plays no role in natural science; nonetheless, the scientific perspective cannot invalidate the idea of freedom. Those were the (negative) conclusions Kant took 800 pages to establish in the Critique. Then he went on to develop his positive account of freedom in his moral and political writings.
Morality concerns how and why we choose our actions; politics is concerned with how our actions affect the actions of others. But in both realms, Kant argues, the guiding principle is the same. The principle of right, or political justice, tells us that we must act only in ways that do not prevent others from acting as we would.
– Tom Cunneff: How an 18th-Century Philosopher is Still Relevant in the 21st Century The College Today, October 10, 2018
The influence of Kant’s philosophy on the Age of Reason and the modern world stems from a deep, complex, rigorous investigation into what constitutes objective truth. In the end, Kant determines that both pure reason and empirical evidence are necessary for establishing objective truth; thereby unifying rationalism and empiricism. For example, geometry represents a rational abstract system of thought. The bridge that you build utilizing that abstract system is the empirical evidence validating its reason. Both are needed and each reflects the other.
That means traditional metaphysical investigations into completely abstract concepts such as God and the soul can never be proven, or disproven. Therefore, in terms of empirical or rational proofs they are meaningless.
Essentially, Kant removes God and other theological considerations from both science and philosophy, leaving religion as the last sanctuary for these once universal principles and ideas. Although Kant agrees that there may be a logical necessity for God; there is no way to prove it empirically. Morality, however, is a different matter.
“Kant develops a universal law of morality called the ‘Categorical Imperative’ manifesting a method for establishing a comprehensive foundation for human behavior.”
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant establishes that God is not inherently necessary for morality to exist. Morality was something that could be understood by reason. Kant develops a universal law of morality called the “Categorical Imperative” manifesting a method for establishing a comprehensive foundation for human behavior. Categorical imperatives represent principles Kant believed to be intrinsically valid. Because these imperatives are “intrinsically good” they must be followed and obeyed universally under all conditions and circumstances. Kant’s Categorical Imperative reflects an all-inclusive moral law, similar to the universal laws of science, such as gravity. Interestingly, it is also reminiscent of Jesus’ “Golden Rule.” However, Jesus said, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto to you,” whereas Kant implies, “Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.”
For Kant there was only one categorical imperative in the moral realm, which he formulated in two ways. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” is a purely formal or logical statement and expresses the condition of the rationality of conduct rather than that of its morality, which is expressed in another Kantian formula: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end and never as only a means.”
Britannica.com
Kant saw following the Categorical Imperative as a moral obligation, or duty. Actions taken for subjective reasons have no moral value. Actions taken without moral value are meaningless. Morality gives dignity to action.
“In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.”
– Immanuel Kant
Essentially, Kant is saying that we should only engage in moral actions that we would want to become universal law. Therefore, we cannot make an exception for our self. If we lie for “personal reasons” to get something, or get out of something, we will have to make lying a universal law; meaning that I would agree that I should also be lied to. Therefore, not lying becomes a categorical imperative, because otherwise lying would have to be the categorical imperative. In this way, human beings can rationally, consistently, and independently choose moral actions that allow them to behave in a moral way. Therefore, the Categorical Imperative replaces the moral authority, and necessity, of the Church.
"Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law."
– Immanuel Kant.
In terms of pure reason, it was self-evident that the long practice of slavery was not a moral practice. First, it violated the premise of the Enlightenment movement that all human beings possessed the divine spark of reason that separated them from “lesser” animals. In addition, it violated the Categorical Imperative because no rational person believed that slavery should become a universal law making all human beings, slaves. Finally, slavery is a self-evident example of using a person as a means, as opposed to an end in themselves; thereby diminishing their humanity, and yours. This is why under the Categorical Imperative you could never sell yourself into slavery; everyone involved in the process is demeaned. Freedom, not slavery, is the rational categorical imperative. For Kant, individual liberty represented the essential component necessary for a transition into the next stage of human development.
“Kant believed that the two main obstacles to this brave new world were the corrupted traditions and institutions of the past, the Church and the monarchies.”
Kant sees the Age of Reason as an opportunity for establishing a new world of pure reason secured by empirical evidence in philosophy, science, politics, and morality. If all individuals could utilize their own inherent reason, they could follow the Categorical Imperative, and conflicts such as war would disappear. Kant believed that the two main obstacles to this brave new world were the corrupted traditions and institutions of the past, the Church and the monarchies. Ultimately, Kant envisioned a world composed of independent constitutional democratic republics based on intellectual freedom and the Categorical Imperative. A new rational world balanced by a new duality of individual liberty and individual responsibility.
CONSIDERATION #20: Immanuel Kant
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant was the rationalist who consolidated the entire Enlightenment movement with his bold assertion, “Dare to know!” Have the courage to use your own knowledge and understanding to “reason” things out for yourself. Kant espoused that in nature people are free to essentially follow their own lead in making their way in the world. However, the institutions of Europe (Church and Crown) corrupted this natural state; causing people to become too weak, too lazy, and therefore too dependent on others because it is easier than having to think and act for themselves. According to Kant, the traditional power structures of Europe purposely kept the individual in a state of “nonage,” or dependent ignorance, making it almost impossible for them to move ahead independently on their own:
“First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.”
― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Kant argues that it is difficult for an individual to escape this practiced and conditioned state of acceptance, and that at some point they may even begin to like it. This is because they never get the opportunity to “practice” thinking on their own in order to gain true independence; therefore, remaining forever an intellectual child:
“Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use – or rather abuse – of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage…”
― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Because most people were effectively in a state of self-imposed mental morass, an enlightened world was impossible. Individuals would have to become aware and responsible for their own thoughts and actions if the world envisioned by the Enlightenment philosophers was ever to take place. For Kant, like most of his contemporaries, the key factor in obtaining individual autonomy, and therefore enlightenment, was freedom:
“This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom… freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters… the public use of one's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind.”
― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Kant throws down the mantle of reason with his clear declaration that borrowed, or handed down, knowledge and tradition are not only worthless, they are impediments. In the spirit of Descartes, Kant declares that there is only one way to reach the truth: “Dare to know!”
POSTSCRIPT
Kant solidifies the concept of freedom as the main factor in promoting the enlightenment of “Mankind” in the Age of Reason. This principle becomes a direct influence in the American Revolution. Kant also severs the last remaining ties between science and religion, making science the only “real” truth that can be demonstrated both rationally and empirically. Rationalism and Empiricism unify behind the objective world of science, forever abandoning their original metaphysical roots to the imaginary world of religion. Even the moral authority of the Church becomes replaced with the pure rationalism of the Categorical Imperative. The Church, and institutional religion in general, was beginning to lose its grip on power and influence in the world. This would open the door of moral considerations to an emerging new entity: the social sciences. The real world was fast becoming a more rational, empirical, scientific world.
"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."
– Immanuel Kant
Next week we will consider the influence of the famous French historian, philosopher, and writer Voltaire regarding freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state.
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