Immanuel Kant was an 18th century enlightenment
philosopher from Königsberg and is
well known for his study of epistemology, metaphysics and political theory. However
Kant is arguably most well renowned for his doctrines on ethics and Christian
morals.
Kant believed
very firmly that that the action one takes, is moral or immoral based on that
act rather than the consequences thereof, this is the ethical theory known as
deontology and was Kant’s radical change from the contemporary belief of
consequentialism. Kant followed deontology as he believed it was the best way
to follow Jesus’ teaching of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” Even if the consequence of the action is overall worse, or the person has
acted out of immoral reasons, the action is still of itself a moral one.
Kant also wrote
that all moral actions were either
intrinsically good or evil and that there was no grey area in between the two,
this is known as Kant’s categorical
imperative, from this he established the three formulations or Maxims:
Maxim one: “Act
only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law without contradiction.”
Here Kant states that all actions must have universality,
that if a moral action is wrong in one circumstance it is therefore always
wrong, he believes that an action can only be moral if it would be acceptable
for everyone to do all of the time.
Maxim two: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether
in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an
end, but always at the same time as an end.”
Kant says here that it is our moral duty to treat all human
beings as an ends rather than a means, and that we should not deceive or
manipulate others in order achieve our own goals. Kant claimed that all humans
were an end in themselves and that they have a right to their own free will.
Maxim 3: “every rational being must so act as if he were
through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of
ends.”
In the third formulation Kant believes that all human beings
are their own moral agents in the world and must all act as if they were the
supreme moral authority of the entire universe. This maxim is essentially a
stage to apply the previous two maxims, Kant uses this Maxim to give the
categorical imperative a social context to which it can exist in the world.
Although Kant was highly sceptical of the philosophical
reasoning of the existence of God after studying the work of David Hume, he did
however believe God to be a universal law maker and believed that humans were
made in Gods image and thus we reflected God’s moral judgement, this was Kant’s
moral argument for the existence of God based on practical reason.
"Two things awe me the most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me." - Immanuel Kant
