Dr. Kant 's Argument

Kant argues that mere conformity with the moral law is not sufficient for moral goodness. I will argue that Kant is right. In this essay I will explain why Kant distinguishes between conforming with the moral law and acting for the sake of the moral law, and what that distinction means to Kant, before arguing why Kant was right.

In Immanuel Kant’s excerpt, An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?” he states, “The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!” (p.1). When Kant uses the term “courage” in his excerpt, what exactly is he trying to convey? According to standard interpretation, courage is attempting something that one finds frightening. Nonetheless, courage may resonate with his audience in different ways. Courage could be as expressed as being daring, bold, or valorous. Illuminating different denotations of Kant’s meaning of courage could stimulate different interpretations.

In the critique of pure reason, Kant states, “All alternations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect.”1 This statement is interpreted in two different ways: weak readings and strong readings. The weak readings basically suggest that Kant's statement only refer to “All events have a cause”; however, the strong readings suggest that “the Second Analogy is committed not just to causes, but to causal laws as well.”2 To understand the difference between the readings, it is helpful to notice Kant's distinction between empirical laws of nature and universal transcendental principles. Empirical laws have an empirical element that universal transcendental principles cannot imply. On the other hand, empirical experiences require necessity to become a law, accordingly, “the transcendental laws “ground” the empirical laws by supplying them with their necessity.”3In this paper, according to this distinction, I first, argue that the second analogy supports the weak reading, second, show how in Prolegomena he uses the concept of causation in a way that is compatible to the strong reading, and third, investigate whether this incongruity is solvable.

is the good will. A good will is good in itself, not just for what it

Savulescu’s argument also treats the children as a means to an end to his experiments with genetic enhancements which in turn is treating them with little respect according to Kant. Therefore, parent’s only duty is to raise their child to the best of their ability. Julian Savulescu’s argument has many flaws including the issues in regards to creating the “ideal” person, discrimination, and choosing for the child the idea of the good life that they should have. Although Savulescu tries to make genetic enhancement seem like a parent’s duty, a Deontologist would not agree because it is not something that all free and rational people would agree with according to their principles of moral law. Therefore, a parent’s only duty it to take care of their child, keep them safe, and raise them to the best of their ability. The child’s idea of the good life is something that they will have to decide for themselves as they grow up, not something that the parent is morally obligated to enforce

Through Kant’s views of reasoning, I believe that the ideal relationship shared between humans is based off of our unique ability to be able to decipher between information shared to us by others, though reasoning. There has to be a healthy balance between people that allows for communication. If you are used to having a higher power looking over you making your decisions, that no longer is a two sided relationship but a one sided relationship. Kant says that “it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out to the immaturity that has all but become his nature” (Kant 1). That immaturity that man faces, is the familiarization one feels when having others think for himself. The ideal relationship between other humans should work equally

I appreciate how Kant (n.d.) defines nonage as, “the inability to use one’s own understanding without another guidance” (Kant (n.d. para.1). Kant’s main point to think for yourself, particularly in religious matters, is well made. Allowing other people tell you what to think and believe without thinking through the issues for yourself is no way to live. I do not believe, however, that Kant is suggesting that we throw off all guidance, instruction, or correction. Rather, he is saying to think critically, gain insight from other wise people, and then decide for yourself what to believe. Martin Luther is an ideal example of Kant’s definition of enlightenment. Luther thought independently and stood on his conscious before God. Therefore, I believe

Kant explains time-and-again; consequences can never be part of the decision that something is right or wrong. Why? Kant argues that responsibility for being moral is possible only if we know with absolute certainty what is right and what is wrong. Consequences never give us that certainty. So, consequences never have any part in any moral judgment.

The exercise of one’s reason is what Immanuel Kant promotes in What is Enlightenment (1997) by creating two main environments: the public and the private space. The public sphere is a place to exercise the public reason where individuals are free from obligation of their occupations or vocations. Specifically, individuals are free to write or speak critically, and act freely without any restrictions. Principally, in the public space, individuals have no conditions or hierarchies who tell them to you act in a certain way, so everyone can perform independently. Nevertheless, the public sphere is not the way you act in public; it just

The Kant’s Categorical Imperative test is defined as In the ethical system of Immanuel Kant, an unconditional moral law that applies to all rational beings and is independent of any personal motive or desire. In my opinion, Caryn’s decision to take the $500 to delete her review off of a travel advice website would pass the test. My reasoning for saying that is because although her experience was horrific her decision was logical because she was reimbursed for the money she lost because of her stay at the hotel which was desirable for her personal motive to receive some type of monetary gift and to be recognized by the company. Unfortunately, it was a honest decision because others wont be aware of the type of horrible customer service this

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who argued that reason is the source of morality. He had a few categorical imperatives which consisted of universalizability, using people as an end in itself rather than as a means, and formulation of autonomy. In his imperative of universalizability, he strongly believed that an act is only morally right if it can be universalized and applied to every situation. For example, if it was morally right for someone to lie, then it should be morally right for everyone to lie. However, this would mean no one would believe anyone and therefore this would not work so lying cannot be universalized. In the imperative of using humanity as an ends, he believed that one should never use someone merely as a means

When we first started learning about Immanuel Kants’ theory, I thought it was going to be very simple. It looked short and sweet, but, there was a lot of specific topics he talked about. Kant wrote Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, a long time ago. It was surprising to me, that so many of his ideas are still relevant today.

In Western Philosophy, alongside Aristotle and Plato, Immanuel Kant is seen as one of the most influential figures to date, offering a very wide range and original set of works. Kant arose at a highly crucial time during the development of philosophy, when the dispute between the rationalists and British empiricists took place shortly after Descartes’ process of methodological doubt - rethinking philosophy anew. This conflict entailed the ideas of people such as Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and others, who claimed that reason is the only source of knowledge, against the notion of empiricists like Locke and Hume who said that knowledge solely arises from sensory experience and nothing else. As we know from our query, Kant claimed that not all

In Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant gives an argument for the existence of God based on practical reason and the moral law. He argues that reason strives for the highest good, which is a connection between virtue and happiness (Kant 89). Practical reason runs into an issue when striving for the highest good, however, because there is no apparent connection between virtue and happiness in the natural world, which ultimately causes us to reject the moral law (Kant 92). According to Kant, however, we cannot reject the moral law because this would be rejecting our rationality (Kant 93). This is because Kant believes that all rational beings must act morally and follow the moral law as a result of reason. This leads Kant to posit the

The first claim Savulescu had was that “we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to “harm themselves and others”. This professor comes from the perspective that genetic engineering is to lead to ethically better people, which cannot be exactly proven, however, it can be argued whether ethics are a result from nature or nurture. If the nature route is accepted, it is important to know what genes result in morally correct behavior. Since, this is not something wildely known, the other option given is to look at the nurture. If nurture influences morals, then there is really no necessity for genetic engineering because that would not affect the child anyways.