Critically discuss Kant's understanding of freedom.
"The concept of freedom is the stone of stumbling for all empiricists, but at the same time the key to the loftiest practical principles for critical moralists, who perceive by its means that they must necessarily proceed by a rational method." .
---- Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Preface.
Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, Germany. He is undeniably one of the most influential philosophers in the realm of moral and political thinking. .
Kant learned his philosophy in the German university system, which was dominated by the thought of Christian Wolff, himself a follower of Leibniz and the empiricism of David Hume. His greatest work ""Critique of Pure Reason"" is a synthesis of rationalism and empiricisnm both of which in themselves , he believed , gave a one sided view of knowledge. However, his writings was not on one sided subject, from science to mathematics to philosophy and politics. One of his work "Metaphysical Ground- Kant claims the commitment of categorical imperative is objective. The idea of freedom is not only demanded by a sense of duty , but it also compatrible with the law of casuality. . Man as a phenomenal being is casually determined, but as a noumenal being he is free. Meaning; man cannot know what his freedom is but he knows that he is free. .
In "Critique of Pure Reason", Kant advanced his theory on freedom into a level where we should consider ourselves as robots : the law of cause and effect, the law of causation, and the moral law. In fact, the doctrine of determinism. Is it reasonable to believe that our actions are fully determined by the law of cause and effect? and What we experience are not as far as we can know, characteristics of those things as they are in themselves? In other words, we are bound by the moral law. If the answer is yes, the question is, What about free will? Aren't we free to exercise our decisions, actions according to our own free will? The main purpose of this essay is to critically discuss Kant's understanding of freedom.
Kant calls these kinds of principles maxims. ... It is freedom. Freedom is unconditional but we know the effects of freedom, which are so called spontaneous actions. ... Freedom is the basis of reason. ... It is an expression of freedom and they are inseparable. ...
That is why I have chosen to do my final paper on Immanuel Kant. ... In one box were a few books about Immanuel Kant. ... Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia. ... This is where Kant determined effectiveness to be prudential. ... Kant writes, "The explanation of the possibility of a categorical imperative, then, is, that the idea of freedom makes me a member of the intelligible world. ...
They had both been fed by a Western concept of freedom and by an epistemology. ... Part I also analyses and interprets the philosophical and theological developments leading to these modern, interrelated conceptions of freedom and epistemology. ... Human freedom in relation to God and nature, human responsibility concerning one's own salvation become the cornerstones for the secularisation of nature. ... Human freedom and human autonomy will collapse into human dependence and heteronomy as far as nature is concerned. Part II contains three reconstructions of Immanuel Kant's...
This is what "Kantian ethical philosophy has often been criticized for its dependence on an untenable conception of the freedom of the will. ... (Kant 412-414) . ... The free will that puts inclination above morality sacrifices its freedom for nothing...A crucial point in the Argument from Spontaneity is that the spontaneous will is not tempted by incentives of inclination. ... Kant's view was inconsistent. ... Kant is claiming that by acting according to a law, we are acting freely. ...
The Categorical Imperative has been the subject of debate since Kant first wrote his moral works. ... Duncan's answer to his first question is that "Kant himself appears to speak as if there were only three:- Two passages of the groundwork suggest that Kant himself intended there to be three subsidiary principles and the supreme moral principle. ... Instead we need the Formula of autonomy, the rational nature must also be the legislator of the law, for freedom and subsequently morality to be possible. ... Kant insists in several places in his doctrine that the imperative must be categ...
Kant also dissects the idea of freedom in a moral sense in accord to rationality in human beings. ... Kant's concept of freedom is based on following the moral law and obeying reason's universal demands, or duties as a rational being. ... Kant then delves into positive freedom, which can only be obtained by rational beings. ... Kant's belief of freedom is circular, yet his ideas are very ideal. ... Another major difference between Rousseau and Kant was that Rousseau focused more on freedom in a society as a whole while Rousseau focused more on each individual obtaining freedom. ...
Kant argues that in subjecting oneself to law, agents voluntarily limit their own freedom but freely chooses the limitation. ... Kant presumes a voluntarily infringement of freedom that can not be rationalized within his writings. ... Second, if freedom is to be so valuable to Kant, its limitation is an inherent contradiction. ... When, through free will, an agent can limit his or her own freedom the universal maxim violates the integrity of the concept of freedom because an agent can will his or her own demise which Kant regards as morally reprehensible. While it is quite obvious that Kant a...
Hume, followed later by Kant's theories touched on different themes such as justice, freedom, the knowledge or metaphysics of value, and cause and effect. ... Immanuel Kant came later and set out to reform metaphysics. ... Kant said that science must have necessity and universality. ... This idea of Kant's, completely contradicts Hume. ... Kant found many problems within Hume's account. ...