CRITIQUE OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON
Introduction
Will is a kind of character to the living beings, because they are rational. Freedom is also an important property to work out the actions independently. The property of being determined to activity by the influence of causes. Freedom of will lead to a kind of autonomy. When we act with our freedom or actions from the will it is an independent act without the help of the other. But there is the ways; it may be negative or positive. A free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same. Because when we act it should be universal law. According to pure practical reason when a law should be moral it will be universal and is consider as the law of agent. From the good will we can derive the law which as universal law.
Freedom must be Presupposed as a Property of the Will of all Rational Beings
Here morality is the law only for rational beings; it must be equally valid for all rational beings. It should be derived from the property of freedom. Freedom is also the property of the will of all rational beings. It is not enough to demonstrate freedom from certain experiences of human nature. We must prove that it belongs universally to the activity of rational beings endowed with a will. Here the author asserted that every being who cannot act except under the idea of freedom is by this alone . From the practical point of view all the laws bound up with freedom are valid when his will could be pronounced free in itself. Every rational being possessed of a will we must also lend the idea of freedom as the only one under which only he can act. In such a being we conceive a reason which is practical that means which exercises causality in regard to its objects. We cannot possibly consider the reason which is from the outside in regard to its judgements. Reason must look up on itself as the author of its own principles independently of alien influences. So the practical reason or the will of rational being must be regarded by itself as free. The will of rational being can be a will of his own only under the idea of freedom. Such a will is applicable to all rational beings.
The Interest Attached to the Ideas of Morality
Freedom is something actual in ourselves and in human nature . If we wish to conceive a being as rational it must be endowed with will. The idea of freedom is that every being endowed with reason and will and taken up actions from the reason and will. Any law is related with something moral it should universal and applicable to all. But there is question is that why should I myself to this principle simply as a rational being and subject to every other being endowed with reason? For this I should be willing and take the interests. Otherwise I will not produce categorical imperative. On the other hand if I am willing and take the all interest to understand what happens, provides in him practical with out any hindrance. But subjective necessity is distinct from thre objective one.
Moral law is the principle of autonomy of will. It have been unable to give an independent proof of its reality and objective necessity. In that case we should still have made a quite considerable gain and we should at least have formulated the genuine principle more precisely than has been done before. As regards its validity however and the practical necessity of subjecting ourselves to it we should have got no further. In order to find ourselves able to take an interest in a personal characteristic which carries with it no interest in mere states, but only makes us fit to have a share in such states in event of their being distributing by reason. When we detach ourselves from every empirical interest by our idea of freedom you are belonging to moral laws. We ought to regard ourselves as free in our action and hold ourselves bound by certain laws in order to find in our own person. We do not see how the moral law can be binding . So the conclusion is different fractions of equal value can be reduced to their simplest expression.
How is a Categorical Imperative Possible
Choosing one’s moral path in life never an easy one. What is right, and what is wrong? Furthermore, is it always possible to tell the difference between the two?
Kant focused a great deal of his philosophical thought in determining this very thing. What he developed became perhaps the most important system for determining morality ever created by man –the categorical imperative.
Kant developed categorical imperative in his two works ‘Ground works of metaphysics’ ’Critique of practical reason’ and ‘Metaphysics of morals’.
According to Kant in order to determine the morality of any situation we must
1. Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.
2. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity in your own person never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end.
3. Act as though you were through your maxims a law making member of a kingdom of ends.
Questioning the Categorical Imperative
One issue that is often addressed in regard to this topic revolves around a response Kant once gave to a man who came to him with a logical question concerning the Categorical Imperative:
The question was this:
What if one is approached by a murderer, who asks the location of the man he intends to kill? If, as the categorical imperative would state, it is morally unacceptable to lie under any circumstance all three formulations suggest this then would one be morally forced to tell the truth to the killer?
Kant's answer to this question: Yes. It is wrong to lie, even to a murderer. For it is the murderer who is responsible for his own crimes, not you, even though you may have aided him indirectly. Also, Kant argued in his response, entitled “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives” that if one attempts to lie to the murderer, saying “the man you are looking for is in his house,” while believing this to not be true, and yet the man for some reason did happen to be in his house, thus enabling the murderer to kill him – well, in this situation, according to Kant, the person lying to the murderer would be indirectly responsible for the death.
While to many this defense of the categorical imperative may seem rather illogical, it seems difficult to argue with a man such as Kant, who spent the course of an entire, very prolific career in formulating these philosophies and all of their consequences.
Truly accept it or not, in creating the Categorical Imperative Kant’s heart seemed to be in the right place.
Conclusion
The use of reason leads to the necessity of some supreme cause of the world. The practical use of reason with respect to freedom leads to absolute necessity.but it is applicable to only rational beings. Reason unrestingly seeks the unconditional necessary and sees itself compelled to asume this without any means of making it comprehensible. Unwillingness of particular action depend on different conditions in that case there is no moral law, that is no supreme law of freedom. Thus we can conclude that any principle forward to the action is limited of human reason.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Immanuel, Kant. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton. New
York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1964.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment