Kant’s Moral Philosophy

The Critique of Practical Reason and the past Basis contain

Kant’s explanation of the important appearances of morality and his
account of the inferences to God, freedom, and immortality of soul. The
source of his theory of morality is man’s moral experience as is
incontestable, and the principles of morality are those that the mystical
enquiry establishes as necessary suppositions. For Kant, anything is
transcendental “… which is occupied not so much with matters as with
the mode of our knowledge of matters in so far as this mode of knowledge
is to be possible a priori.
Man’s moral experience as an instantaneous intuition of the
value and importance of moral goodness; as a spontaneous feeling of
respect for the moral law and an intrinsic sense of ought or compulsion to
obey the laws directive. He believes that this moral faculty is mysterious,
but he accepts it as ultimate and regards it with reverence and wonder.
There are at least three important passages in the whole range of Kant’s
texts in which he accepts morality almost with the passion of religion
Kant does not consider of moral intuition as a direct irrational
perception into the rightness or wrongness of any particular act; it is
intuitive only in that man’s sense of the reality and the vast implication of
the general difference between right and wrong is immediate, irreducible,
and not itself doubtful . His moral consciousness becomes coherent in him
as the moral law.
Kant remains true to the central epistemological hypothesis of
the first Analysis. There it is explicated that our knowledge of the physical
world arises solely through the assistance of sensuous intuition (received
by the faculty of sensibility) and the kinds of the considerate (supplied by
that faculty of thinking, called by Kant understanding), the former
Provided that the raw material or content of perceptual awareness, the
latter organizing this crude intense cognizance
Categorically into a rational knowledge of an orderly world of nature. The
moral intuition, the instantaneous and irritable apprehension of moral
value, Takes the place, or at least constitutes an essential supplement to,
sensuous Intuition, and ‘practical’ reason, whose law (the moral law) is
the analogue of the categories of the considerate, organizes blind moral
intuition into a coherent moral trepidation. Kant does, indeed, refuse to
call this apprehension ‘knowledge’ on the powdered that we are here in
the realm of moral ‘faith’.

The Fundamental Presuppositions of the Moral Theory

The chief condition of moral requirement is freedom to act in

accordance with its requirements. As part of the phenomenal world,
therefore, he is not free. In the Critique of Pure Reason it was shown,
however, that theoretical reason conceives of a possible insignificant
realm fundamental the impressive dominion as its non-spatial and non-
temporal ground, and proposes that man may be overcome of a dual
nature, ‘sensible’ and ‘intelligible’ thus assisting him to contribute in both
realms and to achieve ‘intelligible’ freedom while still subject to
‘sensible’ willpowers. What theoretical reason could advance merely as a
hypothesis, practical reason now asserts to be morally certain? Kant is
sure that moral requirement is a real involvement felt by almost all human
beings. It is not false but supremely real and significant. But requirement
implies freedom. Freedom, in turn, is possible only if man is more than a
merely extraordinary being. Hence there must be a nominal realm and
man must possess a nominal nature by virtue of which he is free
Kant defines happiness, the second ingredient of the Summun
Bonum, as the object of man’s desire “that can be contented by nature in
Its beneficence. In the Summum Bonum, however, just such a harmonious
connection in declared to be necessary. We must therefore postulate the
existence of a Being who acts in congruence with the moral law and who
is also the ground and cause of nature. The nature of this Being is
determined solely by an enquiry of the task to secure the performance of
which His existence has been suggested. He must be moral, for it is His
function to make the ethical Summum Bonum possible. He must possess
intelligence in order to perceive of laws, both natural and moral.

Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason, (tr. by Smith, N.K.)

Kant, I. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals

THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE OF KANT

Philosophy of Kant is based on the view that the specific should

accept only those views, which are found okay to goal. Duties and power
are no court of appeal for ethics. One should lead life in search of self-
government in which the chief goal of human act is the consciousness and
maximization of ‘human freedom’
Tradition of foundation morality in the consultant of religion as
well as of the state. But to Kant’s clarification outlook, following the
verdicts of God is to follow the priests and so making one’s own moral
reasoning subservient to the outside authority. Similarly, the state is even
less plausible source. For Kant, human beings are free and are yet
governed by chosen laws and regulations. He explains that freedom under
law is possible, because human reason has its own values for defining
right actions. In acting and obeying I laws, people are self-determining,
because, constitutional laws agree with the philosophies of their own
cause.
Theory of moral responsibility, which he calls the highest
Principle of principles and all particular axioms are subject to that. It is
the Categorical Imperative or the Moral Law. In the Fundamental
Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant’s method converts our
everyday and obvious rational knowledge of morality into philosophical
knowledge. His latter works on ethics
Kant defines an imperative as "a practical rule by which an
action, otherwise contingent in itself is made necessary,” An imperative
is not a practical law, because even though a law represents the action as
necessary, it does not consider whether it is internally necessary as
involved in the nature of the agent. An imperative is a rule, which not only
represents but also makes a subjectively contingent action necessary and
it accordingly “characterizes the theme as being ethically demanded to act
in harmony with this instruction. The Moral Law or the Categorical
Imperative is an imperative or command as opposed to an assertion of
fact. A natural law, on the other hand, is an assertion of fact. It is free from
empirical factors. Moreover, it is not a ‘hypothetical imperative. The
Categorical Imperative is to be obeyed not for any higher end; it is an end
in itself. So, Moral Law cannot be set aside by any other higher law. It has
reference only to the higher direction of the will itself
The Categorical Imperative implies an unconditional
obligation; that is, it has the force of an obligation regardless of our will
or desires (as opposed to hypothetical imperative). Kant makes an
important distinction between two kinds of commands: a hypothetical
imperative leads to a ‘material’ end (in hypothetical imperative, one ought
to do something only as a means to some end). A material end is
dependent on contingent factors or desires, while the Categorical
Imperative leads to an unconditional end or a goal like fulfillment of a
duty ignoring all the contingent factors and desires. The Categorical
Imperative springs from reason. Our actions are guided by practical
reason. Individual beings are part of an intelligible world that is not
determined by laws of nature, but by laws of reason. An action is morally
good if and only if it not only conforms to the Moral Law but also done
for the sake of the law. Kant’s formulation of the Moral Law or the
Categorical Imperative is founded on the view that the predominating
element in the self is reason, which is opposed to ‘desire’. According to
Kant, a right action should satisfy two conditions: it should conform to
the Moral Law revealed by reason and it should be performed out of the
pure regard for the Moral Law. Kant tries to make the moral law more
definite by laying down the following formulations of the Categorical
Imperative

Kant’s first formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Act only on that maxim whereby though canst at the same time will
that it should become universal law
When the universalized proverb cannot even be thought, we have
‘contradiction in conception’ and where it is impossible only to ‘will’ the
universalization, there is ‘contradiction in the will’. Any instance of
promise making, for example, depends for its efficacy upon the existence
of the conventional institution of promising. In the world of the
universalized proverb from Kant’s second example, the agent's proverb of
falsely promising to return money he wants to acquire would be
incredible, because the exercise of potential making could not exist if it
were universally abused. A world wherever every needy agent falsely
possibilities to return rented money cannot be thought of. The universality
of a law that everybody, when he trusts himself to be in need, could
capacity whatever he pleases with the purpose of not possession it would
make the capacity and the end one might have in it itself unbearable

Second formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Act so as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that
of any other, always as an end in itself and never as a mere means
According to Kant, when we want to work out whether an act we
propose to do is right or mistaken, we should look at our adages and not
at how much misery or contentment the act is likely to produce and
whether it does better at snowballing pleasure than other available acts.
We just have to check that the act that we have in our mind will not use
anyone as a mere means, and that it will treat other persons as ends in
themselves. This distinguishes Kantian formalism from
Consequentialist’s position, conferring to which it is not the opinion of
action but the result, which makes an action good or bad

Third formulation of the Categorical Imperative

Act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal
lawsfor a merely possible kingdom of ends
Kant claims that these formulas are different constructions of the
same law, all of them by themselves uniting the others within it. All these
formulations point to the fact that rational human will is self-sufficient.
We can think of a person as free only when he is sure only by his own will
and not by the will of another. Self-rule when applied to an separable
ensures that the foundation of the ability of the principle that binds him is
in his own will. Moral law is just such a norm. Hence, the ‘moral
legitimacy’ of the Categorical Imperative is stranded in its being an
appearance of each person’s own balanced will