Kant and Causal Law in Pure Reason

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 this paper, I will argue Kant’s categorical imperative's through a condensed summation of his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals with specific regard for the need for categorical imperative and how it's flaws can disband the efficacy of his claim.

In this paper I discuss both Hume’s and Anscombe’s view on causation. I begin with Hume and his regularity theory; then I move onto Anscombe where I provide a rebuttal of Hume’s regularity theory, and later I explain how Hume would respond to Anscombe’s objection to Hume’s regularity theory.

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.

ABSTRACT: In moving away from the objective, property-based theories of earlier periods to a subject-based aesthetic, Kant did not intend to give up the idea that judgments of beauty are universalizable. Accordingly, the "Deduction of Judgments of Taste" (KU, § 38) aims to show how reflective aesthetic judgments can be "imputed" a priori to all human subjects. The Deduction is not successful: Kant manages only to justify the imputation of the same form of aesthetic experience to everyone; he does not show that this experience will universally occur in response to the same objects. This is what I call Kant’s Problem of Particularity. After critiquing Anthony Savile’s attempt to

Hume believes it is human nature to trust the causal laws, but fears that if his critique of induction is correct there could be a day when there is a cause without an expected effect, disproving causal laws. Kant combats this fear with Transcendental Idealism, which argues that the world as we know it exists in the mind. Phenomena embodies this argument by representing how our mind has glasses that cause itself to see the world based on how it wants to. This new idea caused a Copernican revolution bringing forth a new idea that the object around us conforms to the mind. Kant uses this theory to give Hume absolute certainty that there will never be a cause without an effect because if he wants to see the effect, the objects will conform to that desire, no matter if it happens in the real world or

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “to be objectively valid it must be a representation of an objective feature of reality, that is, a feature whose existence and nature is independent of how it is perceived” (Pereboom). This meaning that the object remains the same regardless of how it is perceived by people. This reminds me of what Descartes said on objects having to be clear and distinct, which means objects had to be understandable and unique in themselves, apart, or different. I agree with this because even though we can perceive objects differently, it’s not the object that is changing, but our eyes and minds that change the image of the object we receive. For example if my friend and both go see a movie, we will both see it from different angles. But just because we both have different interpretations of it, it doesn’t mean that the movie itself has changed at all. We talked about in class how Kant thought that we all have an apriori (pre- existing before an experience) framework that our experiences mold to, much like jello poured into a container. The framework we have is time and space that gives shape to

Kant’s philosophy was based around the theory that we have a moral unconditional obligation and duty that he calls the “Categorical Imperative.” He believes that an action must be done with a motive of this moral obligation, and if not done with this intention then the action would hold no moral value. Under this umbrella of the “Categorical Imperative” he presents three formulations that he believes to be about equal in importance, relevance, and could be tested towards any case. The first formulation known as the Formula of Universal Law consists of a methodical way to find out morality of actions. The second formulation is known as

Punishment is the suffering, pain, or loss that serves at retribution. Others also say it is “the authoritative imposition of something unpleasant on a person in response to a behavior deemed to be wrong by an individual or group” (Hugo & McAnany, 2010). Some question when and why we should punish. Though easy to state, this question is difficult to answer and has lead to a variety of models of punishment. In Kant’s article Metaphysics of Morals, he discusses the importance of punishment and its correspondence to crime, the right to punish, and when to grant clemency. In this paper, I will refer to the articles Critique of Political Reason and Metaphysics of Morals, and I will discuss Kant’s perspective on crime, punishment, and justice.

The project of the transcendental dialectic is well-known. Kant’s primary aim is that of warning us against the danger involved in the misunderstanding and hypostatising of the concepts of reason.5 Nonetheless, this section of the Critique of Pure Reason does not play a purely negative role; instead, it furthers a positive enquiry of what Reason is, what its contents are, and what is their purpose. These concepts, also labeled as ideas of pure reason or transcendental ideas6, are defined as being those concepts which contain the ‘unconditioned’.7 In other words, they are related to the transcendental premises of possible experience, that is, to infinite and unconditioned ‘pure notions’ unattainable through

The key to (i) is to be found in his insistence on the cognitive certainty of the following metaphysical thesis. Even if the phenomenal self is completely determined causally, the moral self is free because it is noumenal (see the Critique of Practical Reason 28-34, 43-52, 55-59, 100-106; hereafter Practical Reason). He claims that the noumenal self is a cause imminent in "experience" because it is an "efficient cause through Ideas" (50). In short, Kant rejects the formation of moral habits through repetition in order to protect radically the freedom of the moral agent from phenomenal and scientific determinism. The key to (ii) is Kant's rejection of Aristotle's following advice. Since the cognitive results of a kind of reasoning is determined by its subject matter, it is foolish to require of moral reasoning the certainty and precision one can expect

He persuasively unveils imperatives both universal and hypothetical, the elements of unconventional practical reason, and examples of extreme controversy that force people to consider situations from a previously unconsidered moral perspective; however, Kant’s initial moral work is not without its critique: ranging from

Immanuel Kant concerns himself with deontology, and as a deontologist, he believes that the rightness of an action depends in part on things other than the goodness of its consequences, and so, actions should be judged based on an intrinsic moral law that says whether the action is right or wrong – period. Kant introduced the Categorical Imperative which is the central philosophy of his theory of morality, and an understandable approach to this moral law. It is divided into three formulations. The first formulation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative states that one should “always act in such a way that the maxim of your action can be willed as a universal law of humanity”; an act is either right or wrong based on its ability to be

David Hume is a British empiricist which means that he thought that all knowledge is ultimately rooted in sense experience and that all of our ideas derive from preceding impressions of sense or reflection, this theory had a huge effect on Humes account of causation. In this essay I will look at Humes account of causation and examine if any version of the Regularity View of causation can be defended.

Act and potency and their distinction are an important and fundamental theory in philosophy. It helps approach questions in metaphysics concerning substance, essence, and causation. In this essay, I will be using this theory of act and potency to show how the four causes and the theory relate to each other. Thus, the four causes: formal cause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause are related to each other and can be explained through the theory and concepts of act and potency.