Part II of 2. For Part I see my
yesterday’s posting.
Despite his cold and pedantic
historical image, Kant was a warm-hearted and intensely humane person. One of my
favorite Kantian maxims that I used to love to quote on frequent occasions, is
that the most dreadful thing on earth is when one man’s will is subjugated
by another. To him also belong such gems as: If
a man makes himself a worm, he must not complain when he is stepped on; or
this: Always recognize that human individuals are
ends, never use them as means to your end; and, oddly, this: Two things awe me most: the starry sky above me and the
moral law within me. The subject of an indwelling moral law is
embedded in his theory of the categorical imperative. Here is Russell
again, to explain:
The
essence of morality is to be derived from the concept of law; for, although
everything in nature acts in accordance with laws, only a rational being has
the power of acting according to the idea of a law, that is, by Will. The idea
of an objective principle, in so far as it is compelling to the will, is called
a command of the reason, and the formula of the command is called an imperative.
There are two sorts of imperative: the hypothetical imperative, which
says, You must do so-and-so if you wish to achieve such-and-such an end; and
the categorical imperative, which says that a certain kind of action is
objectively necessary, without a regard to any end. (I think I may already have mentioned this elsewhere, but, in
my young years, I equated Kant’s categorical imperative to the
indwelling Holy Spirit.) The categorical
imperative is synthetic and a priori. Its character is deduced by Kant
from the concept of Law: “If I think of a categorical imperative, I know at
once what it contains. For, as the imperative contains, besides the Law, only
the necessity of the maxim to be in accordance with this law, but the Law
contains no condition by which it is limited, nothing remains over but the
generality of a law in general to which the maxim of the actions is to be
conformable and which conforming alone presents the imperative as necessary.
Therefore the categorical imperative is a single one and in fact this: Act
only according to a maxim by which you can at the same time will that it shall
become a general law.” (Here is a maxim
which strikes a familiar chord, as we are reminded of Jesus’ “Therefore all
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them:
for this is the law and the prophets.” Matthew 7:12.)
Of all human motivations, Kant
valued the motive of duty above all. If one acts not from duty, his action has
no moral value. Unless an action has a pure intent behind it, it’s worthless.
As we see, the normal distinction between the ends and the means is of no
special importance to Kant. Dismissive of the means aspect of our
action, he does not believe that the end result is the most important
aspect of an action, either. It is how one feels at the time of performing the
action, which determines the action’s value.
He also has an intense
appreciation of the concept of human dignity, as some of his already quoted
adages ought to have shown. Here is a direct quotation on the subject: “Everything has either a price or a dignity.
Whatever has a price, can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on
the other hand, whatever is above price, and therefore admits of no equivalent,
has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone
something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e.,
price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity.” (Groundwork of the
Metaphysic of Morals)
Kant’s political philosophy, that
is, his explicit preference for peace over war, and for human freedom over
enslavement, culminates in his 1795 treatise on Perpetual Peace, where,
in Russell’s summation, his vigor and freshness of
mind in old age are shown… In this work he advocates a federation of free
States, bound together by a covenant forbidding war, which only an
international government can prevent. (A
precursor of the United Nations idea, he is, lamentably, given little
credit for this historical achievement, particularly, in America, where very
few people have any appreciation for him!)
The civil constitution of the component States should be “republican,” but he
defines this word as meaning that the executive and the legislative are
separated. He does not mean that there should be no king; in fact, he argues
that it is easiest to get a perfect government under a monarchy. Writing under
the impact of the Reign of Terror, he is suspicious of democracy (understandably). “The
‘whole people,’ so called, who carry their measures, are really not all, but
only a majority: so that here the universal will is in contradiction with
itself and with the principles of freedom.”
Kant was a great man, by any
standard. He is, however, difficult to read, unless one is strongly motivated
to read him. There is an added irony in this entry’s title: he is made
simple not by simplifying his metaphysics, but by talking about some other,
non-esoteric parts of his philosophy, that are not as difficult to understand.
Generally speaking, the purpose of this entry is to provide a boost for the
reader’s motivation to read him, by appealing to such parts of Kant’s legacy
that are the easiest to understand and appreciate on their face value, without
having to dig into his esoteric constructions, where, without such a
motivation, the reader can easily get lost and frustrated in his effort to
learn more about the genius of Immanuel Kant.
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