Immanuel Kant

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

As Kant once said in the Critique of Practical Reason, he was very much interested on the starry heavens by which he meant positive science and the laws of human behavior from the ethical perspective. This was certainly not a coincidence that he puts these two concepts together, nonetheless, later in his life he revealed the laws of human moral just as firmly accurate as laws of physics and mathematics.

Kantian ethical theory is one of numerous moral systems that provide a method for deriving moral rules and reasoning for evaluating the ethical value of human actions. Kant wanted to establish a scientific approach to how human morality is shaped and particular actions can be assessed and classified in terms of moral legitimacy.

We should consider the context in which Kant formulated his structural approach to the morality in the 17th century when the age of reason and enlightenment began in Europe. Enlightenment brought the belief that all aspects of nature and life can be understood and explained by reason through empirical research. While his contemporaries like Newton and Pascal discovered the laws of nature by reason, Kant decided to conduct the same scientific method to explain the rules of morality. This structural and scientific approach eventually caused the morality to be secularized and also had a significant impact upon the relationship between the morality (moral faith and evil) and religion.

Kantian deontological theory is based around guidelines and duties, and considers moral to be unconditional, compulsory and universal. Kant says or should I say “he scientifically proves” that morality is grounded in reason not in religion, tradition, conscience and emotions. Well, wasn’t the age of reason at the end of the day?

Kant believed we all have a duty and that duty is to obey the “Categorical imperative”, that strange sounding term where he introduced with his book, “Groundwork of the metaphysics of moral”. I think we should pay attention to the definition he used for the imperatives: categorical which means unlike hypothetical, it doesn’t vary from one person or instance to another, it is always true under all circumstances, thus it is unconditional. Kant said an action can only be correct if we do it out of a duty. The moral worth of an action depends exclusively on the rule of obligation, not on the outcome of those actions. This can be quite interesting as according to Kant, if we don’t lie or steal because we are told to (in case of religion…) or because we are afraid of being caught and get punished, this is not moral. It is only moral not to lie or steal if we “reason” that we should not and we only act out of that duty.

The categorical imperative has three basic formulations:

-          Universalizability:

o   We should do something only if it would be acceptable and sustainable when the rest of the world would do the same. It might sound ok to steal the magazine from your neighbor’s post box every once in a while, but then we should think about what if everyone would do so. If we break a promise we should always think what the world would be like if everyone break their promises: there wouldn’t a concept called “trust” or there wouldn’t be a banking system for example. You can also extend the example like what if everyone steals….

o   The concept of reversal: We should behave toward others as we would like to have them behave toward us; This golden rule is stated in almost every ancient writing about behavioral teachings (including the Old and New Testament, Talmud, Koran, and the Analects of Confucius).

o   When we are in doubt whether an action is morally ok or not, when it is in the grey zone and we somehow feel that it might not be a good thing to do, we should always think that it is generally practiced and we are the victim of that action. How would we feel?

-          Good Will

o   We should act solely out of good will and duty, not for any other reason. Below is Kant’s famous “Shop keeper” case study:

§  A shopkeeper can give correct change to customers because he believes that a reputation for honesty will bring him greater profit in the long run, and he is honest in order to maximize his long-run profit. According to Kant, this is not moral as his motive is to maximize profit.

§  A shopkeeper loves his customers and is honest in his dealings with them because he wants to do nice things for those he loves. More surprisingly, Kant again says it is not moral because he just wants to be nice to the prople he loves, he doesn’t act out of duty.

§  A shopkeeper gives the correct change to a very naive and gunsel customer that he personally doesn’t like and he does it only out of a “duty”. In this case Kant says this is a moral action.

-          Treat humans as an end within themselves rather than means:

o   The idea here is that everyone, as long as he or she is a rational being, is intrinsically valuable; we should therefore treat people as having a value all their own rather than merely as useful tools by means of which we can satisfy our own goals. Or in simple and today’s terms, “don’t use people, treat them with dignity”

However what strikes me the most about Kant is from one of his other books: “What is enlightenment?” and it is not about religious ethics but indeed religion itself. Religion is a concept that I have thought and discussed a lot about till today but I believe Kant’s below argument is the most striking religion argument that I had ever encountered in my whole life. I even remember the exact moment  when I first read the below paragraph as I got so excited, even shocked by the idea that I immediately called out my wife and read her the paragraph out loud to see her reaction. 

“But should a society of ministers, say a Church Council, . . . have the right to commit itself by oath to a certain unalterable doctrine, in order to secure perpetual guardianship over all its members and through them over the people? I say that this is quite impossible. Such a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment from humanity, is simply null and void even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign power, by parliaments, and the most solemn treaties. An epoch cannot conclude a pact that will commit succeeding ages, prevent them from increasing their significant insights, purging themselves of errors, and generally progressing in enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature whose proper destiny lies precisely in such progress. Therefore, succeeding ages are fully entitled to repudiate such decisions as unauthorized and outrageous”

And yes, I fully agree with Kant, considering it is not possible to commit to a single set of doctrines even for a single life time, what a serious crime against humanity that a generation forces all the following generations to commit themselves by oath to a certain unalterable set of doctrines. All possible future improvements of their thought system by the next generations are strictly prohibited. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

 

Treat humans as an end within themselves rather than means



 

Pericles – Funeral Oration

Xenophobia in Greek or with the simple general name; fear of or hostility against strangers is one of the oldest and most cruel diseases of human kind. It is pretty understandable that one wants to live with the people like him /her however rather than a simple preference, it’s a serious problem if people treat strangers as enemies. The speech that I quoted below belongs to Pericles, the Greek statesman and the commander. If you feel sorry and hopeless like me, when you listen to the politicians who wants to ban strangers to enter from the borders of their countries, then maybe reading the Pericles’s speech can make you feel good and give you hope.

Pericles Bust - Vatican Museum

The funeral speech was held to commemorate the soldiers who died in wars every year in Athens. Pericles delivered the famous “funeral speech” in 432 BC which is a sort of lesson to all contemporary political leaders although it has been delivered thousands of years ago by Pericles, who led Athens during its golden age, between the Persian and Peloponnese wars.

The Athenians as the citizens of the richest and largest city state of the antique ages were involved to the management of their city with its first of its kind democracy. The half of the city population consisted of “strangers” who came from all corners of the Mediterranean Sea. Pericles delivered this speech to rally the Athenians at the end of the first year of the Peloponnese war which was supposed to last many years. Although Spartans who raised their youth with a fierce indoctrination and who was afraid of strangers won this war, Pericles speech will become immortal and carried away for thousands of year. The Athenians opened the doors of their city to the citizens of other nations fearlessly and encouraged the diversity in their city. I believe it’s a bitter fact that we don’t have many politician who can give such a speech nowadays.

Without further due, please go ahead and read the original Pericles funeral speech on your own and please also bear in mind that the below lines were written 1600 years before Magna Carta and 2200 years before the declaration of independence.

Pericles Funeral Oration (Perikles hält die Leichenrede) / Philipp Foltz / 1852

Pericles – Funeral Oration

"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!