Nicole Bornales

IMMANUEL KANT‘S MORAL ARGUMENT; A REFLECTION PIECE Immanuel Kant argued that morality requires belief in the existence of God. He claimed that human reason faces contradiction unless it believes in the existence of God. In his moral argument, he stated that there are ideas of reason obligations that are valid, however lacking in all reality in terms of self-applications, unless there exists a supreme being whom will provide effect and confirmation to the practical laws. It is implied on the first statements that in order to achieve moral perfection, one must have practical reasons, for it will provide consistency in rational choices and of while seeking a maximum satisfaction of it given ends. Also, it meant to say that the existence of possible moral order, justice and moral perfection will only be true, if there exists a supreme being called God; whom will be its source. One thing I gained from the topic is that Immanuel Kant is indeed a rationalist writer during the known enlightenment and it is very evident in his writings wherein it was shown that he thinks that we, people, acquires knowledge from own senses and through own rational capacities which I think is supported by his claim about practical reasons. By looking on that it can be concluded that his general philosophical approach starts by asking “what human beings know?” which I realized to be the key of understanding his works and writings on ethics. It lead me to thinking that the arguments that Kant’s presented does not only ought to direct reader’s eyes about happenings in the world but rather leading them to an inward thinking about ethical ideas. Kant’s moral theory focuses on morality defined as based on the rational will, not on inclination wherein actions are must in a way that the maxim of it could be willed as a universal law and treat persons as rational ends to themselves, never merely as means to an end. It is also included in his theory that morality is not about being happy but rather about being worthy of happiness. Another thing I understand in his theory is that he asserts that to act morally is to act rationally, which is I think is based on his claim that morality is directly tied to rationality. Wherein he implied that in order to act morally, one must act according to what is essentially the Golden rule which I believe speaks of a person’s morally checked and calibrated attitude towards other people. It addresses what it means to be moral in general. The Golden rule of morality is basically a rule of conduct. It is viewed as a moral principle which denotes that you should treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. For example, the Golden rule suggests that if you would like people to treat you with respect, then you should make sure to treat them with regards and reverence /respect too. It is like Kant’s idea of treating people correctly is stated positively wherein it is also justified that an action, in order to be moral, must be done out of duty not out of sympathy, pleasure or a desire for personal happiness. I think the statement “The will is good when it acts out of duty, not out of sympathy” simply means not doing something because it makes you feel good or because of hoping to gain something from it, but because from respect for the moral law. With that, I recognized that certain actions are right and wrong irrespective of how we might feel and irrespective of any possible consequences it can give. Clearly, actions are right if they respect what Kant’s calls the categorical imperative wherein it is the “actions” that are right and wrong rather the consequences. One of the simplest explanation and basic example for this is the action of not telling the truth or what we known as “Lying”, it is wrong because the act of lying fails to respect categorical imperative and for the fact that it is really wrong irrespective of how one might feel about lying or what might happen because of lying. It merely focuses on duties rather than ends, goals and or consequences. One might think that human beings are moral beings not because we have certain desires but precisely because we have the ability of being rational\ we are rational; we have the ability to process, to think, analyze and consider what we are doing and why. On Kant’s trying to seek and establish the supreme principle of morality, I realized that there are things we recognize as being required of us irrespective of what we really desires to do and that is where I think Kant’s definition of duty was emphasized. That explained the reason why it is not the desires, particularly the strong ones, that moves and or influence us the most to do what is right but rather our “Good will” –which is termed by Kant as unlike anything else and “is good unconditionally”, which described as good that is made by willing alone, not by other attitudes or consequences and or characters of agents. I learned that Good will comes with moral worth, wherein any acts which are performed despite of conflicting desires are due to Good will. Leading me to thinking that if one considers his or her actions, it means that there is a recognition of the existence of the Good.