Kantian Philosophy: Immanuel Kant

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Immanuel Kant was German philosopher who was an influential figure in modern philosophy since he was one of the first to analyze the process of thinking. Kant was not only just a prominent figure in philosophy, but contributed greatly in metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics. Some of his major works were the Critique of Pure Reason, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgement. His form of ethics or philosophy is known as Kantian Ethics which are mostly based off of deontology, which is the ethical position that judges an action based on its morality and not the consequence. Like any philosophy on ethics, there are pros and cons to it and we will analyze them. I personally believe that …show more content…

It was said he never even traveled more than a few miles away from the city his whole life. Kant lived a very strict, disciplined life and was never married. Kant lived such a strict life that it was said that “Kant followed such a practiced routine that his neighbors could set a watch by his schedule”(Stone). His social life, however, was very good as he was a popular teacher and successful author. So when he died, his funeral was a city-wide event because he was so respected and admired by …show more content…

This means that there will be exceptions with universal rules. Let's take the universal rule “Don’t Kill” as an example. What if a person is thrust in a situation where somebody breaks into their house to rob, harm, or do something even worse? Would killing this person be immoral if it is in self defense? Or what about the universal rule: never steal. What if a family is starving and is just trying to feed their kids, but they have no other option but to steal? Would that be immoral as well? There will often be exceptions with trying to make absolute universal rules because there are so many situations and variables to account for.
Also, another critique is that people would be acting out of moral duty instead of inclination, which is bad. Would you want somebody to do something because they must or because they want to? For example, if you were very sick and your friends came to visit you and they told you they only came because it was their “duty”. That would not feel too good. If we were to follow Kant’s ethics of duty, us people would seem more inhuman since we would only obey absolute rules for duty instead of

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