Comparing Kant's Views On The Teachings Of Hume And Locke

Hume and Kant offered two differing views on morality. Hume's philosophy regarding moral theory came from the belief that reason alone can never cause action. Desire or thoughts cause action. Because reason alone can never cause action, morality is rooted in us and our perception of the world and what we want to gain from it. Virtue arises from acting on a desire to help others. Hume's moral theory is therefore a virtue-centered morality rather than the natural-law morality, which saw morality as coming from God. Kant's notion of morality stems from his notion of one universal moral law. This law is pertinent to all people and can be used at all times before carrying our actions According to Kant, you ought to act according to the maxim

Kant wants us to support the dignity of each human being and that everyone is owed a level of respect because of these traits and that rationality and autonomy supports this. he began to make sense of a number of deeply held moral beliefs.

The concept of freedom has long been a popular tenet for philosophers to explore. From ancient Greek origins to the present day, many individuals have discussed the importance of freedom and the role it plays within society in an effort to define its relationship to the human condition. Two philosophers that have studied freedom in depth are John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Both philosophers viewed freedom as playing a major role in society; however, they conceptualized it in different ways, particularly in relation to its role with the nation. Perhaps the most notable aspect of these stances is Kant’s definition of the relationship between freedom, reason, and morality.

John Locke and David Hume, both great empiricist philosophers who radically changed the way people view ideas and how they come about. Although similar in their beliefs, the two have some quite key differences in the way they view empiricism. Locke believed in causality, and used the example of the mental observation of thinking to raise your arm, and then your arm raising, whereas Hume believed that causality is not something that can be known, as a direct experience of cause, cannot be sensed. Locke believed that all knowledge is derived from our senses, which produce impressions on the mind which turn to ideas, whereas Hume's believed that all knowledge is derived from experiences,

Kant and Mill both articulate thoughts that praise the use of reason as the ultimate good, that which leads to enlightenment (in Kant’s terms) and a general understanding and certainty, as Mill would put it. The two political philosophers, while both striving to reach the same goal, ultimately achieve their goals in a different sense, and even demonstrate a slight discrepancy in what they ultimately mean to attain. Mill’s path toward certainty and understanding is dependent on dissenting opinion, and is asymptotic to truth; one never achieves the complete enlightenment that Kant describes so vividly as the individual’s end on a linear path of reason.

Humans make choices daily, both through reasoning and how they are feeling in that moment. There is a collection of external factors that result in choices that lead to an individual to both reason and feel some sort of emotion. Objectively speaking, there is a no fine line between reasoning and how one feels, however there seems to be a distinct difference between the philosophers Immanuel Kant and David Hume views on the matter. Both are life changing philosophers with very opposing views. One sees the feelings in human nature while the other seems to see nothing but rationality. One can argue both are used but according to these two there is only one or the other dominating the brain of individuals. Both philosophers give a compelling insight as to which is truly dominant, and out of the many examples they use to prove a point , there is a similar example put into both theories, suicide. This morbid topic is an interesting debate because many people have opposing views as whether it 's 's negative or positive, right or wrong, justifiable or injustice. Basically, whatever the morality of it is. I believe it is morally justifiable or permissible, based on Hume 's views and that he has a more humanistic and better approach than Immanuel Kant. To understand this, one has to briefly understand the ideals that both Kant and Hume portray.

‘The relationship between Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and David Hume (1711-1776) is a source of wide spread fascination’ (Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Kant and Hume on Morality). Purpose of this essay is to provide Immanuel Kant’s claims on sympathy and David Hume’s assessment on it, backed up by their reasoning’s. By doing so, strong argument will separately be provided from both sides and the task then is to present my personal opinion on whose argument seems more compelling. David Hume’s assessment and arguments appear more compelling than Immanuel Kant.

Human beings constantly ask questions regarding the nature of morality. In this process of prescriptive inquiry, they invoke specific ethical theories to explain the concept of right or wrong. The reason is that morality is concerned with the question of good or bad of an action. When determining the morality of actions, there are two principles of ethical philosophies that must be contrasted. These philosophies are teleological and deontological theories of ethics. While teleological ethics concentrates on the consequences of actions to achieve some sort of end, the deontological theories assert that morality is an obligation thus cannot be reduced due to the creation of desirable outcomes. Given these distinctively opposite traits of the two ethics, it is obvious that the methods of approaching moral theories are differs from each other. Kant and Aristotle developed theories that are contradicting to each other, however, both of them gives us a reason to ask questions and seek answers. This essay will be analyzing main ideas of two philosophers and comparing the theories introduced by them.

Immanuel Kant was a Prussian philosopher who formulated the discussion about how the mind perceives itself and the connection the mind has to the universe. He was the most influential thinkers in world history, with his new method of moral reasoning. He is also known

Hume’s ultimate goal in his philosophic endeavors was to undermine abstruse Philosophy. By focusing on the aspect of reason, Hume shows there are limitations to philosophy. Since he did not know the limits, he proposed to use reason to the best of his ability, but when he came to a boundary, that was the limit. He conjectured that we must study reason to find out what is beyond the capability of reason.

The aim of this paper is to clearly depict how John Stuart Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Immanuel Kant’s principle that it is better to do what's morally just. I will explain why Mill’s theory served as a better guide to moral behavior and differentiate between the rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society.

Kant believed that there are different concepts and intuitions in which intuitions are put under concepts. Kant refers these intuitions into what he calls the three-fold synthesis. Kant describes the three fold synthesis as “the capacities in the understanding to compare, connect, and unify the fragmentary manifold items in intuition” (A97). To put it in different terms, the three fold synthesis describes the necessary components for intuition of what is happening in the outside world. It allows us to Kant believed that the three fold synthesis is divided into three different types of synthesis. According to Kant, it is required that all of the synthesis work in unison in order for experience to happen. Experience is what makes possible the synthesis of apprehension, in return makes the possibility of the synthesis of reproduction, which creates the possibility of the synthesis of recondition. Therefore, Kant argues, the synthesis of recondition is contingent on experience. Kant also stated that for each of the three fold synthesis, there are both empirical and pure levels. In other words, each of the three fold synthesis have two ways of being interpreted in the mind, one based on our intellects because it is gathered through experience, and another based upon the fact that the manifold works in unison with the others and are dependent on each other for experience to happen.

Hegel’s critique of Kant’s philosophy is quite prevalent throughout the unfolding of Hegel’s own dialectical philosophy. Several of Hegel’s critiques of Kant’s work can especially be seen in one of his earlier works, “The Phenomenology of Spirit.” This is particularly established once Hegel begins to undertake the developing of Spirit within his Phenomenology. Here, Hegel makes several attacks on Kantian philosophy principles, and at some of the foundations of Kant’s use of pure reason in philosophy. There are several passages within the section where Hegel gives criticism of Kant’s work; critiques that strike at the very heart of what Hegel himself is trying to elucidate through his own dialectic, while discounting one of the greatest German philosophers.

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant in my opinion was two great scholars with two great but very different views, on morality. John Stuart strong beliefs was named Utilitarianism. Simply stated Utilitarianism is the belief in doing what is good specifically for the greater good of the masses/everyone not just someone.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is much concerned about the operations of the mind. Though he believed in the existence of the mind, he held a different view from the empiricists when it comes to the nature and function of the mind. He set out to prove that Hume was wrong by claiming that some truths were certain and were not based on subjective experience alone. Kant argued that the very ingredients which are necessary for even thinking in terms of a causal relationship could not be derived from experience and therefore must exist a priori, or independent of experience. Though he did not deny the importance of sensory data, he thought that the mind must add something to that data before knowledge could be attained; that something was provided by a priori (innate) categories of thought (unity, totality, time, space, cause and effect, reality, quantity, quality, negation, possibility-impossibility, and existence-nonexistence). Kant claimed that the subjective experiences of human has been modified by the pure concepts of the mind and is therefore more meaningful than it would otherwise have been.