Über Gewissen und Gewissheit

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Emundts
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status

AbstractThis paper suggests an understanding of the concept of “Gewissen” (conscience) according to which Gewissen is best understood as a receptivity to moral principles that corresponds to certain moral feelings. In the first part of the paper this suggestion is spelled out and alternatives to it are discussed. As is shown in the second part, this suggestion goes back to the thought of Immanuel Kant, but it can be developed even if one does not follow Kant in his understanding of the categorical imperative as an a priori principle. However, if one does not follow Kant with respect to the status of the categorical imperative, there are some interesting consequences for our understanding of conscience and especially for our understanding of its relation to knowledge and certainty. These consequences are discussed in the third part of this paper.

scholarly journals Pedagogika moralna Immanuela Kanta jako wyraz wychowania do odpowiedzialności

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Anna Nowicka
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Status ◽  
Responsible Attitude ◽  
Kant's Ethics

The author discusses I. Kant’s pedagogical views and beliefs related to moral education. In particular, the author attempts to prove the thesis that, for Kant, all education and proper upbringing was ultimately linked with moral education and that moral education, in turn, was just education to responsibility. After a presentation of the main assumptions of Immanuel Kant’s ethics, the author proceeds to discuss the status of pedagogy within its framework as a science that aims at educating people and forms attitudes that were understood to involve meeting of one’s obligations expressed in the formula of the categorical imperative, and precisely based on making one to the influence of a priori moral principles and on practicing skills of making everyday use of them in different life situations. The author characterizes notions that are related in Kant’s philosophy to the problems of prospective and positive moral responsibility, and discusses how this philosophy responds to the problem of feasibility and ways of developing a responsible attitude in man. Further on, the author discusses in detail Kant’s pedagogy, i.e. attempts to discover the connective concepts necessary to understand how Kant perceived the educational reality within the context of responsibility, attempts to answer what its goal and essence are and what measures are to be taken to successfully achieve the goal. The considerations on the notion of responsibility and pedagogy in Kant’s thought are summarized in a brief presentation of its essential significance for the pedagogy of morality.

scholarly journals Framing Humanity by Framing Nature: John Maxwell Coetzee's Disgrace in the Context of Kant's Theory of Morality // Encuadrar a la humanidad encuadrando a la naturaleza: Desgracia de Coetzee en el contexto de la teoría moral de Kant

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
Kamil Michta
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Third ◽  
Formula Of Humanity ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

The essay discusses the correlation between Immanuel Kant’s ethics, especially his views on human duties toward animals, and John Maxwell Coetzee's literary depiction of man’s struggle to rediscover the meaning of humanity by tending unwanted animal corpses. Hence, it firstly concentrates on the key issues concerning Kant's moral philosophy, placing particular emphasis on the third formula of his categorical imperative, the so-called formula of humanity as an end in itself, and on elucidating the thinker's contention that good treatment of animals, that is, as if they were moral agents, improves in humans the propensity to treat other people well. The essay argues that the manner in which people treat animals, approached from the Kantian perspective, partakes in the duty to improve their own morality and, thus, their humanity. After examining Kant's outlook on animals, the essay discusses Coetzee's 1999 novel Disgrace. In particular it scrutinizes the figure of an aging literature professor, David Lurie, who, having been expelled from his university for sexual abuse, moves to the country. Here he engages in putting down unwanted animals and also in taking personal care for incinerating their bodies with decency and respect. Adopting the perspective of Kantian philosophy, the essay argues that Lurie's concern for animal corpses, despite its apparent pointlessness, can be seen as indicating the renewal of his humanity. In a sense, then, it is nature (unwanted animals and their corpses) that makes Lurie rediscover his humanity. The essay concludes by maintaining that Disgrace, when coupled with Kant's moral theory, is a novel conveying the (Kantian) idea that the manner in which people frame nature, that is, how they relate to it, is formative of the manner in which they frame their own humanity. Resumen   Este ensayo analiza la correlación existente entre la ética de Immanuel Kant, especialmente sus opiniones sobre las obligaciones de los seres humanos hacia los animales, y la descripción literaria que hace John Maxwell Coetzee de la lucha de un hombre por redescubrir el significado de su humanidad ocupándose de cadáveres de animales no deseados. Se centra, por ello, en su primera parte en los temas clave de la filosofía moral de Kant, haciendo especial hincapié en la tercera formulación de su imperativo categórico, es decir, la llamada formulación de la humanidad como un fin en sí misma, y en la elucidación de la controversia kantiana de que el buen trato dado a los animales, o sea, el hecho de tratarlos como si fueran agentes morales, mejora la propensión del ser humano a tratar bien a las demás personas. El ensayo sostiene que la manera en que la gente trata a los animales, examinada desde una perspectiva kantiana, contribuye al deber de mejorar su propia moralidad y, con ello, su humanidad. Tras la parte dedicada al punto de vista kantiano sobre los animales, el ensayo examina la novela Desgracia de Coetzee, publicada en 1999, y, en particular, el personaje de un profesor de literatura cincuentón, David Lurie, quien, tras haber sido expulsado de su universidad por acoso sexual, se traslada al campo donde se dedica a eutanasiar e incinerar con decencia y respeto a animales no deseados. Desde la perspectiva de la filosofía kantiana, el ensayo argumenta que la preocupación de Lurie por los cadáveres de animales, a pesar de su aparente falta de sentido, podría ser considerada como un signo de la renovación de su humanidad. En cierto modo, es la naturaleza (los animales no deseados y sus cadáveres) la que hace redescubrir a Lurie su humanidad. El ensayo concluye sosteniendo que Desgracia, combinada con la teoría moral de Kant, es una novela que transmite la idea (kantiana) de que la forma en que los seres humanos encuadran a la naturaleza, es decir, su forma de relacionarse con ella, configura la manera en que encuadran a su propia humanidad.  

Immanuel Kant: Ethics

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Denis
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Philosophies ◽  
The Will ◽  
Kant's Ethics

The ethical theory of Immanuel Kant (b. 1724–d. 1804) exerted a powerful influence on the subsequent history of philosophy and continues to be a dominant approach to ethics, rivaling consequentialism and virtue ethics. Kant’s ethical thought continues to be studied in itself, as a part of his critical system of philosophy, in its historical context, and in relation to particular practical questions. Kant’s writings and lectures display the influence of the Stoics, Rousseau, Crusius, Wolff, Hutcheson, Hume, and others; Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Bradley, Greene, Habermas, and Rawls are among the many philosophers whose moral philosophies can be read (in part) as responses to Kant. Salient foundational features of Kant’s ethics include: its a priori method, its conception of the will as autonomous, its categorical imperative, its theory of freedom, and its account of moral motivation. Kant maintained that foundational moral principles must be a priori, not based on observation or experience. Kant takes the moral law to be legislated by the will to itself. Unlike holy beings, human beings experience morality as a constraint upon our wills. For us, the moral law is a categorical imperative. All ethical duties are ultimately grounded in this supreme moral principle. If we are bound to obey the moral law, we must be capable of doing so; Kant holds that, even assuming causal determinism in the phenomenal world, morality reveals our (noumenal) freedom to us. Kant attributes moral worth only to action done from duty (i.e., from respect for the law), not from inclination. Significant aspects of Kant’s fully developed ethical theory include its rich theory of virtue and the virtues, its taxonomy of duties (which include duties to oneself as well as to others), its distinctive conceptions of the highest good and human evil, and its connections with Kant’s philosophies of history, religion, and human nature. Many of Kant’s own discussions of particular duties, virtues, and vices are controversial. For example, Kant appears to condemn all lies as violations of a duty to oneself. This entry focuses on Kant’s ethics rather than Kantian ethics more broadly. Despite that, it includes a number of pieces that apply, extend, or revise Kant’s ethics in some ways, as well as interpretations of Kant’s ethics that some commentators may object stray too far from Kant’s own stated views. Kant’s political philosophy is discussed only peripherally here, save for the section on the Doctrine of Right of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel on the Status of Women in the State

2021 ◽  
pp. 157-176
Author(s):  
Charlotte Sabourin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Status ◽  
Civil Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Status Of Women

Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel, mayor of Königsberg, was a friend and former student of Immanuel Kant. This chapter investigates Hippel’s plea for the improvement of the civil status of women in eighteenth-century Germany. Hippel argues that men and women are equal and that this equality should lead to similar civil status. On these grounds, he shows that the Enlightenment is bound to be self-defeating if women are excluded from the public sphere. In doing so, he proposes a feminist appropriation of some of Kant’s ideas—in particular by revisiting the categorical imperative. Hippel’s proposals thus provide support to the idea that the legal subordination of women is a problem for the enactment of the Enlightenment broadly construed, and even more so in a Kantian perspective.

scholarly journals Debates acerca das apropriações da ética kantiana

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 95-134
Author(s):  
Gustavo Da Encarnação Galvão França
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Realist ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Contemporary Author

Este artigo procura colocar em foco a interpretação de John Rawls (1921-2002) acerca da ética de Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Sendo Rawls, talvez, o autor contemporâneo que mais ecos encontrou lançando uma teoria política original que reclama para si uma herança kantiana, faz-se de grande importância esclarecer os pontos centrais de sua apropriação e os questionamentos levantados por outros comentadores de Kant que possuem leituras conflitantes do filósofo de Königsberg. Assim, tratarei, em primeiro lugar, do forte formalismo que Rawls atribui a Kant, derivado, em grande parte, de seu foco na primeira formulação do imperativo categórico em detrimento das demais. Em seguida, abordarei a consequência particular que o professor de Harvard extrai daí e que batiza de construtivismo ético: além de o imperativo categórico se constituir num procedimento vazio de teste das máximas particulares, esse procedimento verdadeiramente cria os princípios morais a partir da razão. Anteriormente à atividade racional, inexistem fatos morais. Por fim, trarei um brevíssimo resumo das críticas dirigidas por outros autores a essa caracterização construtivista do pensamento moral kantiano, buscando apresentar os argumentos dos que preferem enquadrar Kant como um realista em moral. Debates surrounding appropriations of Kantian ethics: doubts about John Rawls' constructivism  Abstract: This article seeks to throw light on John Rawls’s (1921-2002) interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) ethics. Being Rawls, perhaps, the contemporary author that has found more repercussion proposing a political theory which claims a kantian inheritance, it’s greatly important to clarify the central points of his appropriation and the questionings arisen by others Kant’s commentators which have conflicting views about the German philosopher. Therefore, first of all, I will consider the Strong formalism that Rawls attributesto Kant, derived mainly of his focus on the categorical imperative’s first formulacion, to the detriment of the others. Then, I willl talk about the particular consequence the Harvard’s professor draws from that, which he baptizes ethical constructivism: not only the categorical imperative is simply an empty procedure to test the particular maxims, but also this procedure truly creates the moral principles from reason alone. Previous to the racional activity, there is no moral facts. Finally, I will bring a brief summary of the critics made by other authors to that constructivist caracterization of the kantian moral thought, trying to introduce the arguments of those who prefer to classify Kant as a moral realist.

scholarly journals On the transcendental deduction in Kant’s Groundwork III

Disputatio ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (30) ◽  
pp. 151-169
Author(s):  
Marilia Espirito Santo
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Subject

Abstract The purpose of the third section of Kant’s Groundwork is to prove the possibility of the categorical imperative. In the end of the second section, Kant establishes that a proof like this is necessary to show that morality is ‘something’ and ‘not a chimerical idea without any truth’ or a ‘phantom’ (1785: 445). Since the categorical imperative was established as a synthetic a priori practical proposition, in order to prove its possibility it is necessary ‘to go beyond cognition of objects to a critique of the subject, that is, of pure practical reason’ (1785: 440). Kant names this kind of proof a deduction. The present paper intends to (1) show the argument whose purpose is to justify the categorical imperative; (2) show that the argument is a transcendental deduction; (3) present the argument as it is reconstructed by Allison, and (4) show that, although it seems compelling, the position of the commentator could not be accepted by Kant himself.

A Universe of Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Debaise
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

Which kind of relation exists between a stone, a cloud, a dog, and a human? Is nature made of distinct domains and layers or does it form a vast unity from which all beings emerge? Refusing at once a reductionist, physicalist approach as well as a vitalistic one, Whitehead affirms that « everything is a society » This chapter consequently questions the status of different domains which together compose nature by employing the concept of society. The first part traces the history of this notion notably with reference to the two thinkers fundamental to Whitehead: Leibniz and Locke; the second part defines the temporal and spatial relations of societies; and the third explores the differences between physical, biological, and psychical forms of existence as well as their respective ways of relating to environments. The chapter thus tackles the status of nature and its domains.

Lot's Offer of his Daughters to his People in the Torah and the Qur'an: A Comparative Study in Two Parts (Part One)

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-224
Author(s):  
ʿĀʾiḍ B. Sad Al-Dawsarī
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Similarities And Differences

The story of Lot is one of many shared by the Qur'an and the Torah, and Lot's offer of his two daughters to his people is presented in a similar way in the two books. This article compares the status of Lot in the Qur'an and Torah, and explores the moral dimensions of his character, and what scholars of the two religions make of this story. The significance of the episodes in which Lot offers his daughters to his people lies in the similarities and differences of the accounts given in the two books and the fact that, in both the past and the present, this story has presented moral problems and criticism has been leveled at Lot. Context is crucial in understanding this story, and exploration of the ways in which Lot and his people are presented is also useful in terms of comparative studies of the two scriptures. This article is divided into three sections: the first explores the depiction of Lot in the two texts, the second explores his moral limitations, and the third discusses the interpretations of various exegetes and scholars of the two books. Although there are similarities between the Qur'anic and Talmudic accounts of this episode, it is read differently by scholars from the two religions because of the different contexts of the respective accounts.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara K. Gold
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Key Issues

This chapter discusses the key issues surrounding Perpetua’s life and her narrative, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. It introduces the most perplexing circumstances around her life and times: the authorship of her Passio (which is written in at least three different hands); her life and family; the conditions of her martyrdom and of martyrdoms during the pre-Constantinian period; the status of martyrdom texts as personal, social, or historical documents; whether persecutions can be historically verified or were exaggerated by the Christians and others; and the afterlife of Perpetua and her text in writers from the third century to contemporary times. The introduction lays out the arguments for these thorny issues and tries to find a reasonable position on each one.

Self and Selves

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph C.S. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Synthetic A Priori

Kant is committed to the reality of a subject self, outside time but active in forming experience. Timeless activity is problematic, but that can be dealt with. But he holds that the subject of experience is not an object of experience, so nothing can be known about it; this raises a problem about the status of his own theory. But he ought to allow that we can know of its existence and activity, as preconditions of experience: the Critique allows that synthetic a priori truths can be known in this way. However, its identity conditions remain unknowable. Kant’s unity of apperception shares much with Locke’s continuity of consciousness, but does not determine the identity of a thing. Personal identity is bodily identity. Only Kant’s moral philosophy justifies recognizing other selves; it could warrant ascribing a similar status to animals.

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