Kant believes that by nature, society will perfect itself over time and become more rational and free. Kant does not focus on the most primitive state of human nature, but rather the present state of society. In stark contrast to Rousseau, Kant encourages people to use their intended reasoning and believes that natural capacities of reasoning should be developed in all of mankind. Since nature “gave man reason and the freedom of will based on it”, she clearly wishes for man to utilize it. (Kant 31) Kant proposes the ridiculousness of being motivated by instinct or “provided for and instructed by ready-made knowledge” and urges man to discover everything on his own. This natural reasoning is what gives value and significance to the world, so …show more content…
that society is consistent with the way in which we are conscious of it. Here he furthers Rousseau’s idea and suggests that it is impossible to have objective knowledge of the outside world, because our own knowledge is in fact subjective. When the nature of society implores us to look within, we find autonomy, the laws that we choose to govern ourselves with. Kant is aware that humans have the capacity to make ethical choices, and believes nature is concerned that man “bring himself to the point where his conduct makes him worth of life and well-being” (31). As humans, we are able to develop our capacities to perfection. Autonomy is not the liberty to do whatever one pleases, but rather choosing what our virtues are and regulating ourselves. This ties in with Rousseau’s notion of perfectibility and inventing ourselves. Subjective reasoning allows us to look past self-esteem and focus on bettering ourselves. Rousseau discloses his writings are based on “hypothetical and conditional reasonings”, whereas Kant evaluates contemporary society. (Rousseau 88) Rousseau also draws attention to man in a state of nature, since he views being close to nature as desirable. Kant does not accept Rousseau’s writings as complete truths because they are based in subjective evidence and do not prove much about humans in the absence of social influence. Kant is responding to Rousseau’s theory of the stages of humanity when he says that “no systematic history of man is possible”, suggesting it is not as simple as Rousseau puts it. (Kant, 29) Man does not exhibit only instinct or rationality, but a blend of the two. Of course, since Kant is much more interested in the reality of things, he cannot agree that human nature is purely virtuous. He admits there are some wise men, but overall, “everything is finally woven together from folly and childish vanity and often even childish malice and destructiveness”. (Kant, 30) This evil is a result of society, but Kant believes the benefits of society outweigh the negatives, unlike Rousseau. Though they are considerably different in many ways, Kant shows points of influence from Rousseau’s work. They both were interested in the subjective nature of man and what human nature and instinct comes to be when confronted by the constant change of the Enlightenment. Rousseau viewed the Arts and Sciences as the demise of morals and reasoning. He clearly deplores the superficiality and societal evils that he believes accompany it. According to Rousseau, this clouds authoritarianism and resulting inequalities. He even says, “our souls have been corrupted to the extent that our sciences and our arts have advanced toward perfection”. (Rousseau 51) Kant does not have such a harsh view of the Arts and Sciences. He believes “necessity compels men…to enter into this state of coercion” because wild freedom is not sustainable. (Kant 23) Kant addresses antagonism of man and resulting internal conflicts, some of which Rousseau was clearly dealing with. Kant concludes that Arts and Sciences, along with social order, are the result of antisocial tendencies that all humans experience. Kant believes that despite predispositions, society is rooted in human nature.
He recognizes that man is unsociable in that he can detach from society, want things to go his way and resist along with expecting resistance. Without society, “the purpose behind man’s creation, his rational nature…would remain a void”. (Kant 32) Rousseau thinks man becomes proportionately as “sociable and a slave to others, he becomes weak, fearful, mean-spirited” and his softness “completes the enervation of his strength and of his courage”. (Rousseau 94) He also compares this socialization of human nature to the domestication of animals, which is a bit far-reaching. Society is a natural progression that enables humans to fulfill their ultimate potential, whereas domestication is unnatural and calculated by people of society for the purpose of enabling animals and man to coexist peacefully. Kant praises the degradation of nature and the “distasteful, competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and also to rule”, for without this, “humanity’s excellent natural capacities would have lain eternally dormant”. (Kant 32) Kant is not a Romanticist in that he values reason above sentiment, unlike Rousseau. Sentiments about the moral depravity of society are less important than the moral reasoning of humans to reach their potential and advance
society. Rousseau explains that reason is the threat of moving out of a state of nature. Reasoning “engenders self-love, and reflection that strengthens it; it is reason that makes man shrink into himself…that makes him keep aloof”; both Rousseau and Kant agree that this reason is what produces evil in man (Rousseau 138). They also concede that moral consciousness is the way to liberation. Kant defines the issue of right and says that “there is in man still a greater, though presently dormant moral aptitude to master the evil principle” of right although human nature is immoral. (Kant 116) Rousseau critiques the lawfulness of inequalities in society and says, “moral inequality…clashes with natural right” (Rousseau 138) in this case because of the immorality. They both realize that it is necessary to put aside self-esteem and replace it with morality in order to better society. Moral consciousness is related to freedom and moral law. Rousseau states “moral freedom…enables man to be truly master of himself” because “obedience to a self-prescribed law is freedom” and without that it is merely subjugation by law. (Rousseau 167) It is nature that allows us to accept this subjugation and obey laws outside of our own moral realm. The autonomous law we set within is what engenders freedom. When we question how to proceed in a situation, that is when we have to make a choice based on our internal law and not external forces. Primarily, both Kant and Rousseau believe in law and the collective will, or “general will” as Kant describes using Rousseau’s term (Kant 114). They also believe in the innate value of any human irrespective of any prestige. Although Rousseau impacted Kant, they are distinctly different in terms of delivery. I am partial to Kant’s theory due to his clear, systematic logic and realism. It is much easier to decipher what Kant is thinking, whereas Rousseau tricks the reader with his elaborate language. Rousseau’s argument is beautifully written, but reminds me of the foolishness of Pangloss, in that he believes the inherent goodness of humanity will result in happiness for everyone if locked in a state of nature. His rationalizations are not based in fact, and do not resonate that the state of nature is preferable to the society. Kant’s suggestion of where society ought to go based on the present is much more relevant than Rousseau suggestion of where individuals should go based on the past. Kant argues that freedom of expression is crucial to human nature because personal perspectives can advance discussion. His rejection of dogma (claiming sincerity, argument or offense proves something) is what makes his writing so sound. Rousseau’s writing is full of dogma and emotional persuasion, while Kant’s is comprehensive and stresses the importance of inferred knowledge. Rousseau emphasizes the natural capacity for emotional thinking and intellect in order to convince the reader that this is adequate. Rousseau wants the reader to trust a savage human rather than be afraid of them. He wants the reader to believe the capacities of natural man are not so different from his own. In fact, natural man might physically be stronger. Rousseau’s argument reveals essential truths about society including the societal developments and how they influence human nature. Instinctually, both man and animal are habitual, but man can use his intelligence to change. Rousseau’s argument is not sufficient because it is not based in fact. There are centuries of evidence showing that humans have been social beings forever. His refutation of the time it takes for a child to become independent is paltry. In fact, some animals are even social beings and he completely ignores this fact. Rousseau combines emotions with intellect and reason, when they should logically be separate. His critiques of societal evils are truthful but he fails to convey the indisputable advantages of civil society. The potential for corruption overwhelms perfectibility for Rousseau, suggesting his emphasis on subjective thought. The comparability of subject matter between the two creates a dialogue about the possibilities of perfectibility and deterioration of society. Both Kant and Rousseau are interested in the individual and collective society under law. Rousseau is extremely sensitive to the emotions of man and inequalities of society. He focuses primarily on the savage man in his theory. Kant focuses on the contemporary man and argues for a steady amelioration of society through the societal evils that Rousseau deplores.
Rousseau writes that humanity is a mixture of good and evil. There are people who follow the education of nature and become self-reliant individuals. There are also those who tamper with nature and deprive individuals of their freedoms. They are the evil ones. Rousseau held such a position because he was raised much in the manner he wrote of, with no formal education until his twenties. His work is a production of the Enlightenment. Although he was unaware of psychology, his views on how to educate and raise a child are studied in current theories of human development. Rousseau had a mixed view if humanity was good or evil.
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of capital and distributions from the government. Studying the different approaches will let us show the similarities of principles that eliminate abuse of power and concentration of wealth by few, and allow access for all. To further evaluate these similarities, we must first understand the primary principles of each of the philosophers’ concepts.
In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that we must presuppose, a priori, that each event is determined to occur by some preceding event in accordance with a causal law. Although there have been numerous interpretations of this argument, we have not been able to show that it is valid. In this paper, I develop my own interpretation of this argument. I borrow an insight offered by Robert Paul Wolff. In Kant's argument, our need to presuppose that the causal determination of each event rests not upon our need to impose a 'necessary' and 'irreversible' temporal order upon representations of the states of an object, as Kant is usually interpreted, but upon our need to generate a comprehensive representation that includes a certain a priori conception of events in the world around us. Although the argument I attribute to Kant is valid, it cannot compel the Humean skeptic to accept the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event: Kant has not successfully responded to Hume in the Second Analogy.
Kant and Mill both try to decide whether the process of doing something is distinguished as right or wrong. They explain that right or wrong is described as moral or immoral. In the writings of Grounding for the Metaphysics of morals Kant says that you only need to “act only according to the maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Kant, 30). Kant then states that a practical principal for how far the human will is concerned is thereby a categorical imperative, that everyone then is necessarily an end, and the end in itself establishes an objective principal of the will and can aid as a practical law (36). Mill on the other hand has the outlook that the greatest happiness principle, or utilitarianism, is that happiness and pleasure are the freedom from pain (Mill, 186). With these principles we will see that Kant and Mill correspond and contradict each other in their moral theories.
Kant view animals as “mere means” (Kant, 239) because he believes animals has no self consciousness and they cannot judge decisions by their interest. Animals cannot think rationally and logically in a same way as humans so he excluded animals from the moral community where we solely respect those who have rational autonomy and respect their rights. Kant classified human beings and animals differently. He believes that animals are viewed as values or price for human purpose use because animals only behave responding only to their inclination even though they are sentient, and their values are dependent on our human desire only.
In the late eighteenth century, with the publication of his theories on morality, Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophy in a way that greatly impacted the decades of thinkers after him. The result of his influence led to perceptions and interpretations of his ideas reflected in the works of writers all around the world. Kant’s idealism stems from a claim that moral law, a set of innate rules within each individual, gives people the ability to reason, and it is through this that people attain truth. These innate rules exist in the form of maxims: statements that hold a general truth. Using this, Kant concluded with the idea of autonomy, in which all rational human wills are autonomous, each individual is bound by their own will and in an ideal society, people should operate only according to their reason. Influenced by Kant’s ideas, an american writer by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his own call to individual morality through an essay on Self-Reliance. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson tells individuals to trust in their own judgments, act only according to their own wills, and to use their own judgment to determine what is right. Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Kant’s autonomy differ to the extent of where reason comes from. However, they agree on its purpose in dictating the individual’s judgment and actions. As a result, Autonomy and Self-Reliance have essentially the same message. Both Kant and Emerson agree that the individual should trust only their own reason, that they are bound only by their own free will, and that the actions of an individual should be governed by reason.
For Kant and Luther, the question of human freedom and the amount individuals are at liberty of, if any, is determined in an effort to achieve high morality. However, it precisely the outlook that Kant deems fatalist which Luther argues for, that is, freedom through faith. For Luther, we do not posses the liberty required to live a moral life without God’s guidance. On the other hand, for Kant, the predestination that Luther argues for places individuals in a state of “immaturity” and therefore unable to achieve freedom to be moral. In contrast to Luther’s argument, for Kant self-determination, autonomy, and morality are closely related to his notion of human freedom.
"One can regard the history of the human species, in the large, as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about an internally, and for this purpose, also an externally perfect national constitution, as the sole state in which all of humanity's natural capacities can be developed (36)." Kant is explicit in his notion of human history: for him it is the development toward the telos, the end in which mankind finally exists in a state conducive to its proper development. Specifically, history entails a constant antagonism of man between his desire for total freedom and his need for society, between the necessity of a human master and the moral crisis it represents, and between one society and its neighbors.
Kant’s moral philosophy is built around the formal principles of ethics rather than substantive human goods. He begins by outlining the principles of reasoning that can be equally expected of all rational persons regardless of their individual desires or partial interests. It creates an ideal universal community of rational individuals who can collectively agree on the moral principles for guiding equality and autonomy. This is what forms the basis for contemporary human rig...
In The Social Contract philosophers John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau discuss their differences on human beings’ place of freedom in political societies. Locke’s theory is when human beings enter society we tend to give up our natural freedom, whereas Rousseau believes we gain civil freedom when entering society. Even in modern times we must give up our natural freedom in order to enforce protection from those who are immoral and unjust.
While Kant’s theory may seem “overly optimistic” (Johnson, 2008) now, it was ruled as acceptable and rational behavior then. Kant believed that any moral or ethical decision could be achieved with consistent behavior. While judgment was based on reason, morals were based on rational choices made by human beings (Freeman, 2000). A human’s brain is the most advanced in the animal kingdom. Not only do human beings work on instinct, but they have the ability to sort out situations in order to make a decision. This includes weighing the pros and cons of decisions that could be made and how they affect others either positively or negatively. This is called rational thought. Kant believed that any human being able to rationalize a decision before it was made had the ability to be a morally just person (Freeman, 2000). There were certain things that made the decision moral, and he called it the “Categorical Imperative” (Johnson, 2008). If someone was immoral they violated this CI and were considered irrational. The CI is said to be an automatic response which was part of Kant’s argument that all people were deserving of respect. This automatic response to rational thinking is where he is considered, now, to be “overly optimistic” (Johnson, 2008).
Kant believes in the humanity formula which involves the respect of persons for whatever reason it is that could be essential for humanity. There is always something wrong in treating people like instruments with no other value beyond this. Kant would appreciate the idea of vaccination which would lead to the rise of a healthier generation. This shows respect to humanity at large because an action can only be good if the principle behind it is duty to the moral law.
Finally, Kant saw the world as he wanted to see it, not the reality of it. In reality human beings are social animals that can be deceived, and can become irrational, this distinction is what makes us human, and it is that which makes us make mistakes. Kant states good arguments in his essay however his belief that people are enslaved and shackled by the “guardians” when he writes “shackles of a permanent immaturity” (Kant, 1) is sometimes absurd when the same guardians are the people that encourage our minds of thinking.
that, it is more likely that an entire society enlightening itself, than it is for individual to achieve enlightenment. In Perpetual Peace, Kant professes that, “reason, which is pragmatically capable of applying the ideas of right according to this principle, constantly increases with the continuous progress of culture”(124). According to Kant, society is slowly progressing, so one can infer that our capacity for reason is also slowly improving and enlightening society as a whole. This progress cannot happen, however, if citizens are bound by duty and are forbidden from taking action and rebelling against their corrupt government. In agreement with Locke, it is citizen's’ duty to help progress society and obey their rulers, but if those rulers are inhibiting their citizens from achieving enlightenment, then I would disagree with Kant and encourage those citizens to take action and attempt to reform their government. A compact that has its citizens worse off than if they were in the state of nature should be questioned and changed, even if it means entering into a state of nature. If Kant’s belief that, “the human race will [...] henceforth progressively improve without any more total reversals” (184), then society will continue on its path towards enlightenment, despite
People are given the ability to question things as long as nothing is done. Kant states, “argue as much as you please, but obey!” This gives people the illusion of choice without any actual reform. Making individuals philosophize about their problems essentially distracts them from taking action. Kant later states, “A lesser degree of civic freedom, however, creates room to let that free spirit expand to the limits of its capacity.” He insinuates that less freedom in reality encourages freedom theoretically. What is the point in having freedom if it does not do anything? Kant answers that reform can be achieved “by uniting the voices of many (but not necessarily all) scholars.” This makes freedom an abstract concept that has the potential to be claimed, but is nearly impossible to achieve. Kant claims that a scholar, or an enlightened person, can only become so through individual thought; thus, a group of individuals must come to the same conclusion separately to achieve reform. Having too many scholars results in too many ideas; similarly, too few scholars makes even a unanimous idea weak. This virtual inaccessibility of freedom furthers the Enlightenment philosophy’s unjust agenda of encouraging the inaction of the masses. Kant also displays the cons of enlightenment philosophy in his account of the races. He says, “this fellow was quite black from head to foot, a clear proof that what he said was