Immanuel Kant

1. Immanuel Kant By: John Mifsud & David Rashty P.S. – Mr. Cummings, you Kant give us less than 100% on this assignment

2. A ‘Brief’ History… • Immanuel Kant was born April 22nd, 1724 • Born in Königsberg, Prussia (Now Kaliningrad, Russia) • Died February 12th, 1804 at the age of 79 • Was the fourth of eleven siblings • Became a successful author and teacher • Kant has made many contributions to law through his logistic advancements in morals

3. Kant’s Moral Philosophy • One of Kant’s goals in life was to seek out a main principle of the foundation of morals • How Kant would do this is by figuring out the system of which peoples’ moral judgments are made • Through experimentations, Kant comes to many conclusions about morals • Kant learns that it takes a great deal of effort for a person to betray morals that they are so bound to • Kant also learns that people who possess rational thinking and free will also possess autonomy or self-dependence

4. Good Will • Kant’s initial ideas of common sense began with the concept that doing good deeds and not reaping a reward • This is called “good will” and has been the subject to such phrases as “good-natured” “good-hearted” and “meaning well” • The concept behind good will is a person who is good is good because of his/her ownership of a will that is determined by moral law • Examples of this would be that a good person is good if they are very philanthropic and believe in equality amongst all people

5. Moral Law • Kant believes that Moral Law is a constraint on a persons’ desires • For example, a man may want to rob a bank to become rich, but moral law tells him stealing is wrong which prompts him to side with Moral Law • Kant believes a human’s natural obligation to obey moral law is duty – the duty of the people to uphold moral law for the sake of a good, clean society • The Ten Commandments spawn from Moral Law

6. Kant’s View on Law • Kant believes that people are motivated by their natural duty to be law-abiding citizens • Kant also believes that laws should apply to everyone and that no person should be above the law as law is to help the best interest of a city, state, club or social arrangement • Kant believes the role that law plays is that it is a natural aspect of a structured society so long as morals exist • Morals influence which laws are made and an example of this are the Jim Crow Laws that used to exist in the Southern US States

7. Universal Law of NatureThe Maxim • Kant believed in what he identified as Maxims: • A moral value an individual sets as a standard and follows it regardless of circumstance • Kant believed that establishing these maxims was the only way that a human can truly be good • The way a maxim can be solidified as a good maxim is by conceiving it, committing to it, making sure it is universally applicable, and by adopting it as a force of will

8. Humanity Formula • When considering the moral value or the integrity of an action, Kant believed that you cannot look at the means by which the action was taken. Rather, you look at the result. • To put it simply, a deed is not good or bad based on the reasons it was done but by its result. • For example, according to this notion, if you saw an individual approaching a bank with a gun and a giant sack with a big dollar sign painted on it, and you decided to tackle him to the ground, break his arm and put him under citizen arrest – based on the result, you are committing a bad deed. Because the would-be criminal didn’t actually commit a crime, breaking his arm is just assault and you are in the wrong.

9. Autonomy Formula • It is the duty of free-thinking, intelligent individuals to make laws out of maxims that they hold to be true. They are required to be applicable and universal for all peoples in a society and should never benefit one group or an individual over another. • The issue with this of course is that often there are laws that cannot apply to all individuals. Laws like voting, driving and drinking all apply to a certain age group and create segregations in the population. • The positive in this is that it strives for a truly equal and unbiased form of law in which individual and society are interchangeable; the individual is the society and the society is the individual.

10. The Kingdom of Ends • Kant believes that law and legislation is not a tool of a society, but the motivating force. It is implemented not merely as a guide or a set of polices, but the very principles that people are to live by. It is not the duty of the governing figure to change the laws, in every assumption that they are morally good, in order to solve an issue. • What is morally good cannot be revolutionized or changed circumstantially and what is socially acceptable cannot differ even with the changing of governments and people.

11. Virtue and Vice • There is no such thing as good people or bad people – just good and bad maxims. Kant believes that all events and situations are produced by the level of goodness in a maxim. • If an individual’s maxim was that it was acceptable to hide the remote or steal candy from a baby, then it is not the fault of the person but of their maxim. • This being said, it brings into question how individuals with bad maxims should be dealt with in the event that their values break a law. If it is accepted that no human being is bad and that all crimes are the result of misled beliefs, is it acceptable to punish someone for their ignorance?