Kant: Enlightenment, Knowledge, and Moral Theory
Immanuel Kant: Enlightenment, Knowledge, and Moral Theory
Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher of the eighteenth century, concludes the cycle of modern philosophy with a system linked to two fundamental roots: the Enlightenment and the epistemological power of modern philosophy. His formal ethical theory opposes traditional formal ethics and the prevailing British emotivism of the 18th century.
Kant and the Enlightenment
Kant’s thought aligns with many elements of the Enlightenment. First, Kant defends the critical exercise of reason as a way to eliminate prejudices and superstitions in moral, religious, and political fields. His critique of religious superstition fits within this framework. Kant follows the Enlightenment ideal of being led by the “light of reason,” advocating rational clarification in various areas of human life (moral, social, political, religious), as well as the autonomy and freedom of reason. His motto, “Dare to think for yourself,” expresses his will and his criticism of the thinking of much of the population of his time, which he regards as minor (lacking rational clarification and dominated by ideologies promoted by political or religious superstition).
Kant and the Theory of Knowledge of Modern Philosophy
Kant confronts rationalism and empiricism in his Critique of Pure Reason (CRP), building an original system. He was unconvinced by the two antagonistic conceptions of reason. For Rationalism, in its “dogmatic slumber,” reason, apart from experience, can infer and interpret the structure and sense of reality (Descartes sought to develop his method of ontology, conceiving of reality as consisting of three types of substance). True knowledge is the product of spontaneity that produces understanding of certain concepts, not from experience, and through them, one can know the structure of reality without recourse to experience or sensation.
Empiricism, however, believes that our mind is a “tabula rasa” on which experience writes. Understanding cannot go beyond experience, the products of the senses. Our knowledge cannot pretend to extend beyond experience. In Hume’s skeptical empiricism, he attempted to reduce thought to what is given in sensory experience.
Kant developed the critique of reason by reason itself (the reason people criticize itself) to discover the principles governing knowledge and its limits. He considered the rationalist position dogmatic and Hume’s position a defeat for reason. Kant acknowledges that our reason acts spontaneously in the process of knowledge and that there are concepts and elements that do not come from experience but are a priori. However, he also agrees with empiricism that our knowledge cannot extend beyond experience. Influenced by Hume (who “awakened him from dogmatic slumber”), Kant concluded that although there are concepts that do not come from experience, their application should extend only to the realm of experience.
Kant and Moral Theory
Kant aims to develop a formal ethics, critical of material ethics, which he considers inadequate to support moral behavior because they are empirical and hypothetical judgments founded on heteronomous principles. He believes the moral standard should not be consistent with the potential benefits of the action. Moral action does not take into account the empirical consequences of our actions but is based on the categorical imperative a priori. This excludes traditional ethical theories such as Aristotle’s or hedonistic approaches.
Kant also critiques moral emotivism. Shaftesbury understood that moral actions are based on natural feelings that lead us to distinguish between good and bad, founding moral emotivism. Hume followed this path with his theory. For Kant, however, feeling should not be the source of morality; instead, good will is that whose act is determined by respect for the categorical imperative.
The illusion of power, acts of worship, and self-justification before God are religious superstition. The illusion of being able to reach this goal with the desire for an alleged communication with God is religious phantasmagoria. Kant does not condemn the practices of worship, but they should never hide true worship, which is moral conduct.