Kant And Faustus Analysis

For this paper Goethe’s, Faust will be compare and contrast with Kant’s, “Foundations of the metaphysics of Morals” and the relationship between human reason and emotion will be examined. Faust from Goethe is considered one of the greatest dramatic poems, and is divided in two parts; in the first half he uses reason and for the second part he uses passion. Even knowing that the history is based on a medieval man or medieval legend who sold his soul to the devil, we actually can say or treat this text as a modern man’s type of alienation and the need to be a part of the world where he lives in. In the other end, Kant’s “Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals” discusses reason and emotion. For example, Kant wants people to think for themselves and ask themselves why they think, what they think, and question others before relying on them. Faust represents the “Enlightenment Scholar” that Kant says we can be and he is unhappy, stating thought is not a doer and believes nothing can fulfill his life and that now all his joys will come from the world. In Faust’s adventures between light and dark (light as for example heaven and dark as hell), in the search to find happiness or for Kant the search of moral, man must learn how to conquer the small things or elements of his own nature and always live constructively within the challenges and objectives imposed up on him. As Kant said, to find moral or happiness people need to stand up for their own beliefs and people do not need others to be a good moral person. So for this paper the following paragraphs will compare and contrast the ideas of Kant in the “Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals” and the ideas of Goethe in the poem Faust.
For Kant in the “Foundation of the Metaphysics of M...

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...aves you cold; Dear kids, I do not take offense; Recall: the Devil, he is old, Grow old yourselves, and he’ll make sense!” (Goethe). That proves that the deceptions that he had during his adventures just made him grow as a person, contrasting with the ideas of Kant such as “Have the courage to use your own reason – That is the motto of enlightenment” (Kant). What Kant and Goethe mean with those quotes is that if one uses reason, one will become a better person with a better moral. So what both works are trying to tell us about human reason and emotion is that Kant has been more direct with his ideas of moral and Goethe, showing us with the poem Faust, that even in a dramatic way you can use such reason and emotion, but it will only depend on you, each of those will be better for you. As said before in Faust “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live”