Essays on Immanuel Kant

Kant’s second formulation of the Categorial Imperative can be a helpful method of moral decision making. The second formulation is a principle that tells us what we should do in any kind of situation. It states that you should act in a way that you...

Immanuel Kant’s deontological ethical theory, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, can be viewed from many different perspectives. As it is based on duty operating as a final good, the theory of utilitarianism (a moral theory concerned with actions in themselves) disputes main concepts...

According to Kant, a good person has morality, freedom, dignity and is accountable for the things they do. Meaning, everything you do whether it is good or bad must have a reason. Acting as humans, there comes a reason and purpose for our choices. From...

Kant believed that for enlightenment to be brought about, the individual would require freedom to think freely for themselves, and the ability to manifest their well-reasoned ideas. A concern arises from this belief; is it always acceptable to allow for people to manifest their reason,...

In Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is a text that begs to be understood from some of the philosopher’s more well-known concepts including the categorical imperative, which is introduced in the book as a way of evaluating the motivations for individual action....

Beauty is a part of the human condition; we are attracted to what we find appealing and repelled by what we find unappealing. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholars captured this concept and put into words what it means to experience beauty. Immanuel Kant,...

Lying in engrained into the world’s culture. It has become almost a fundamental in every society and is present nearly everywhere worldwide. But, paradoxically, it is condemned as well. Every major religion, legal statute, and even communal norm advises against telling falsehoods. Philosophers as far...

We all know that people behave in way that they call morale at least some of the time, morality is a think we do it and we talk about it so what’s the best way to try to understand. In this topic I am writing...

When Evan Vokes, a trained engineer, started working for TransCanada in 2007, he realized that there were some issues in his employer’s work ethics and quickly found himself in a moral struggle. TransCanada is one of the largest companies focusing on oil and gas infrastructure...

Of the many topics in the philosophy of sex is permissible sexuality. Philosophy however sometimes tends to overintellectualize the discussion. What makes sex permissible may not be so strict. Drawing from Immanuel Kant’s humanity formulation, I argue that permissible sex requires only informed and voluntary...

A brief definition of Neo-Kantianism is a philosophy that derives from that of Kantian Ethics. “The Neo-Kantians thought of themselves as reviving, defending, and extending Kant’s philosophy. They self-consciously adopted Kant’s vocabulary, and some of his key ideas and arguments”. Some of the thinkers from...

The phenomenon of morality and its origination has been a topic of debate throughout history. Specifically, the world renowned philosophers, David Hume and Immanuel Kant, come to a very significant disagreement over the history of morality, the source of its origin, and its universality. But,...

Kant project consists in making explicit the limits of human knowledge in general and this is made explicit in the Transcendental Dialectic section of the Critique of Pure Reason in particular. To make sense of this we have to look at his project as a...

Kant and Hobbes had different understandings of the issue of morality. Kant took a more rationalistic view of morality, while Hobbes was more empirical in this regard. However, both proceeded from a subjective point. The understandings of these two philosophers differ in terms of reason,...

The literary critics Alexander Pope and Immanuel Kant put critics to the test as they perform the task of critiquing critiques. In Pope’s Essay on Criticism, he provides the readers and critics with critique of critics in poetry form which in itself is a work...

Kant’s Deontological Ethics focuses morality on objective duties rather than the consequences of actions. One cannot ground morality on emotions since each person has a different reason for feeling certain emotions. For example, if what is moral is determined by happiness, then the thief seeks...

In his popular book “Perpetual Peace; A Philosophical Sketch”, Kant, a prominent late Eighteenth century German political philosopher, pencils down the possible ways to attain his conception of perpetual peace. For this purpose, he prescribed in his book, six preliminary articles which described the steps...

Kant’s Doctrine of Duty explores the relationship between moral duty and law: “Love between persons may only come into existence when the binding force of moral duty exerts itself.” According to Kant, we must never consider duty to be imposing and imprisoning. We must never...

The dilemma of whether or not the Death Penalty is ethical is major problem facing society today. The death penalty is given to those who commit crimes deemed by society and government as deserving the infliction of death with crimes such as murder earning this...