Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant thought that life involved a constant struggle

between our better selves and our passions, between duty and pleasure.

Kant wanted to understand how the better, more reasonable parts of our nature could be strengthened so as to reliably win over our

inbuilt weaknesses and selfishness. https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/

Immanuel Kant was a pessimist about human character.

This awareness led Kant to what would be his life’s project: The desire to replace religious authority with the authority of reason, i.e. human intelligence.

https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/

Kant argued that the source of the good

lies in a good

will inside the human being. In other words, the source of the good does not lie outside the human being. It is neither given by nature nor by God. A good will is one that acts in accordance with universal moral laws that the autonomous human being freely gives herself or himself. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Immanuel_Kant

Kant is the primary proponent in history of what is called deontological ethics. Deontology is the study of duty.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/

Immanuel Kant is famous for The Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

The Categorical Imperative is a restatement of an idea we meet in all main religions: “Do unto others as you would have them

do unto you”. https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/

Kant argued that The Categorical Imperative is the voice of

our own rational selves. It is what we all truly believe when we are thinking rationally. It’s the rule our own intelligence gives us.

https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/

In Immanuel Kant’s view, the only feature that gives an action

moral worth is the motive that is behind the action - not the outcome that is achieved by the action.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/

An example of Kant’s categorical imperative is that we should not lie to try to get an advantage. Why? Because lying would destroy trust

among humans - and with it the possibility of gaining any advantage from lying.

https://thegreatthinkers.org/kant/introduction/

Immanuel Kant specifies that we must always respect humanity in ourselves and others by treating humans always as ends in

themselves, and never merely as a means.

https://thegreatthinkers.org/kant/introduction/

Kant defined the Enlightenment as an age shaped by the motto “Dare to know.� This involved thinking autonomously,

free of the dictates of external authority.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Immanuel_Kant

According to Immanuel Kant, we are free only when we act in

accordance with our own best natures. As Kant put it, “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.�

https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/immanuel-kant/