Kant reacts to the threat of determinism

Kant led a reaction to the deterministic thinking that gathered force from the early triumphs of science. The reaction became the 'romantic movement' which developed at the end of the 18th Century. Kant argued that there were two aspects to reality: one was the world as it appeared to observation and entered into thought, the other was the world as it really was, independently of any conceptual framework of an observer. In observing and thinking about the world, human beings apply categorisations.

CAUSALITY BELONGS TO THE WORLD OF APPEARANCE ONLY

Kant argued that causality was a concept that thinking beings brought to their experience of the world - it wasn't part of the world as it was in itself.

The world as it was in itself was therefore, in Kant's view, not subject to causality.

One argument he had for this was that the causal principle seems a priori.

THE REAL HUMAN SELF IS AUTONOMOUS

This meant that the human being, in his or her self, was not subject to causality - in other words, human beings have free will

Kant's theory of ethics

If the will is free, what is to guide it?

Nothing? - the existentialist position.

Others argue that as an autonomous being it is important for the human being to act 'well'. What then is there to lay down what is right or good for human beings to do, in the exercise of their freedom?

Kant argued that as free beings we were obligated to do what our reason dictated.

KANT'S NOTION OF PRACTICAL RATIONALITY

Kant meant by rational that which involved no inconsistency of will.

He says if when you articulate the principle you are about to act on and you find it would involve you in willing both p and not p, the act would be irrational.

Acting on the principle that you may break your promise should it be in your interest to do so would involve an inconsistency. You can't will that you should follow this principle unless you willed everyone to follow it. But if everyone followed it 'promise' would lose it's meaning. Therefore in following this principle you would be willing to break a promise and that there wouldn't be a promise to break, which is inconsistent.

So Kant's thesis is that pure rationality rules some actions out.

The idea that reason on its own might guide your behaviour may be tempting, but it is very difficult to defend.

HYPOTHETICAL AND CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES

It is much easier to defend the idea that if you know what you want, reason will help you secure it. This kind of guidance Kant calls 'hypothetical imperatives'.

Kant thinks that reason also issues categorical imperative. This is what he calls reason's guidance when it tells us that we should not act in a way that involves an inconsistency of will.

That is one formulation of the categorical imperative. Kant has other formulations:

THE GOLDEN RULE

Act only on that maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal law.

He thinks of this as a version of the Golden Rule: do as you would be done by.

THE KINGDOM OF ENDS

Treat the other as an end and not as a means.

But what is there in reason (in reason alone) that gives us the obligation to respect other rational beings?

FURTHER EXPLORATION OF KANT'S THEORY

DUTY

People often think of Kant as a champion not so much of reason, as of 'duty'.

His view contrasts with any kind of utilitarianism, which thinks that in deciding what to do it is the consequences of your action (or inaction) which count.

('Consequences' for Kant belong to the world of appearance and so can have no bearing on how the real self should act.)

THE GOOD WILL THE ONLY THING THAT IS VALUABLE

'Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will.' Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, opening sentence.

EVIDENCE FOR A WORLD IN WHICH RATIONALITY GUIDES.

The special experience we human beings know which is the feeling that we 'ought' to do such and such.

VP