Difference Between Physics, Ethics And Ethics, By Immamanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) grew up in a pietistic Lutheran family of modest means in a German-speaking region now part of Russia. He responded to the religious pressure he experienced at school as a boy by immersing himself in study and reading of early Latin writings. At the age of sixteen he began university studies in mathematics, physics, theology, and philosophy.

II. Synopsis

Kant’s preface opens with a discussion of the difference between physics, ethics and logic, the latter of which Kant views as “formal philosophy” in contrast with physics and ethics, which he calls “material philosophy.” Physics, Kant describes as dealing with how the world works, whereas ethics deals with how it ought to work. He further distinguishes between “empirical” and “pure” philosophy, declaring the necessity of the latter in order to build a solid and unassailable foundation for ethics. He declares, “The sole aim of the present Groundwork is to seek out and establish

At this point he restates the categorical imperative in a positive form: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (88). He then offers examples and arguments supporting this concept and its formulation before introducing two other key concepts. One is the idea of humanity as completely autonomous, not merely a means to an end but “as an end in itself” (98), and the other is the vision of rational beings engaging their reason to live out the categorical imperative and thereby compose what Kant calls a “kingdom of ends” (100), whose members autonomously choose to act dutifully as an end unto itself. He then ends with a comprehensive overview of the preceding argument before demonstrating how other approaches to morality, in his view, fall short as laws for