Kant's Deontological Theory
The existence of God is something that most people take for granted. In your upbringing you are taught that God is the most supreme being, the creator of all, infinite and eternal. Taking into account the type of society in which we live in and the fact that it is usually our parents who teach us about God, most people do not even question his existence. Many philosophers who believe in God have tried to prove his existence using many different types of argument. One of these arguments is the ontological argument. It was made famous by the 11th century philosopher Anselm. The ontological argument has three properties: 1. It is an a priori argument. 2. It treats existence as a property. 3. It is a reductio argument. The problem with this argument is that it treats existence as a first order property. Kant picked up on this flaw, and therefore criticizes the argument. Existence can not be a first order property. First order properties describe the object itself. !Existence does not add to an objects description, it can not be added to the concept of the thing. It just posits the existence of such a thing. Let us now take a more critical look at Kant's argument (some things will have to be stated again.) In the c
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kant's categorical imperative can be expressed in a variety of different ways. One of these formulations makes use of the notion of an end in itself. If the end we wish to achieve is one that is formulated by desire, the end has only conditional value. It is given value only because we wish to achieve it. Thus, this type of end is subjective and has no universal value. Let us take a material object such as gold. Gold does not have any characteristic of being valuable in itself. It has value to us only because we desire it. We find it pretty and attach a certain degree of worth to it. If no one wanted it, then it would have no worth to us. Kant now says, let us try to conceive of something which has intrinsic worth. "Something which as an end in itself could be a ground of determinate laws." He comes to the conclusion that such a thing has to be a rational being. " The Golden rule is supposed to be moral, it implies that you should treat others in a good way. Now, let us say for example, that you are sadistic person and like to be treated harshly. If you take the Golden rule literally, you will treat others harshly so that you can be treated that way too. You have just taken the Golden rule, which is a moral law, and warped it according to your own beliefs. As you can see, moral laws can not be subject to your feelings. Again, if we subject them to our feelings we make them into something else. follows that I must have the idea that three angles make up the triangle. Otherwise I would not have correctly grasped the concept of the triangle. Now, regardless of whether the object exists in my reality or not, I still have the concept in my head. Regardless of whether I believe that the triangle exists or not I have not come to any contradictions. We have just proved that the ontological argument is incorrect. Again, existence can never be treated as a property which describes an object. This notion is supposed to cover only rational beings. But does this apply to other intelligent animals, retarded people, or infants? Yes and no. I believe that other animals posses the ability to reason, and some of them even do a very good job of it. Now, the thing is, do they posses the concept of morality? I do not believe they do. To me, morality is purely an invention of the human mind. A construct of our social systems. But, if I am wrong, and morality is a universal concept which applies to every single being (animal) that possesses an ounce of reason, then Kant's notion does cover them. We now turn to infants and retarded people. Retarded people can be rational, but they may not be able to grasp the concept of morality. I am not a retarded person and I can not know this. If such a person is able to grasp the concept of morality, then he is automatically bound to act by the categorical imperative. Once you have the concept in your head, Kant says, your reas! ject the existence of thing, we reject the thing itself with all its properties. Therefore, there is no contradiction because there is nothing left to be contradicted. The formulation of this categorical imperative leads us on to Kant's notion of the kingdom of ends. Every rational agent formulates his own moral law. If a moral agent acts according to the categorical imperative, then his moral laws will become universal laws. If every moral agent acts according to these universal laws then we will have the kingdom of ends. In the kingdom of ends each rational being legislates his only moral laws. But being that these moral laws are universal, they apply to everyone in the kingdom. Therefore, we achieve a kingdom in which we govern ourselves with our own laws, while at the same time governing everyone else. To put it in another way
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Approximate Word count = 2579
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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