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Kant regarded the good will as a single moral principle that freely chooses to use the other virtues for genuinely moral ends. [6] For Kant, a good will has a broader conception than a will that acts from duty. A will that acts from duty alone is distinguishable as a will that overcomes hindrances in order to keep the moral law.
Kant's ethics focus, then, only on the maxim that underlies actions, and judges these to be good or bad solely on how they conform to reason. Kant showed that many of our common sense views of what is good or bad conform to his system, but denied that any action performed for reasons other than rational actions can be good (saving someone who ...
Kant's antinomies are four: two "mathematical" and two "dynamical". They are connected with (1) the limitation of the universe in respect of space and time, (2) the theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms (whereas, in fact, none such exist), (3) the problem of free will in relation to universal causality, and (4) the existence of a necessary being.
However, Kant also provides a positive definition of freedom: a free will, Kant argues, gives itself a law—it sets its own ends, and has a special causal power to bring them about. A free will is one that has the power to bring about its own actions in a way that is distinct from the way that normal laws of nature cause things to happen.
Kant summed up his thoughts on this topic in a short footnote that appeared in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, B141. He had been discussing the definition of judgment in general. Logicians had usually defined it as a relation between two concepts. Kant disagreed because, he claimed, only categorical judgments are so defined.
Kant called God, soul, and total world (cosmos) Ideas of Reason. In doing so, he appropriated Plato's word "Idea" and ambiguously changed its settled meaning. Plato's Ideas are models or standards from which copies are generated. The copies are visible objects of perception. Kant's Ideas of Reason are not accessible to knowledge of perception.
Kant described natural purposes as organized beings, meaning that the principle of knowledge presupposes living creatures as purposive entities. He called this supposition the finality concept as a regulative use , which satisfies living beings specificity of knowledge. [ 4 ]
Kant calls such acts examples of a contradiction in conception, which is much like a performative contradiction, because they undermine the very basis for their existence. [2] Kant's notion of universalizability has a clear antecedent in Rousseau's idea of a general will. Both notions provide for a radical separation of will and nature, leading ...