| Part 1 The Theory of Faith | Hirohumi Hoshika |
I would like to confirm I. Kant's ethical philosophy as an expression of my moral views at that time. Kant's ethics is called rigorism ethics, and teaches that ethical actions are those that are not motivated by any consideration of gain or loss. First of all, the rough structure of Kant's philosophy is as follows.
Kant proposes two types of reason: theoretical reason and practical reason. Theoretical reason deals with "what exists", that is, the general cognitive domain that is the subject of mathematics and science, while practical reason deals with "what should exist", that is, the moral domain that should be realized by our will.
He argued that both the scientific and moral realms have a priori (empirically independent) principles of reason that are not based on inductive inference from experience (rules of thumb), and that this guarantees academic certainty in science and morality.
His principle of cognition is the "a priori synthetic judgment" in theoretical reason and the "categorical imperative" in practical reason, and his main works, "Critique of Pure Reason" and "Critique of Practical Reason," attempt to clarify how these "a priori synthetic judgments" and "categorical imperatives" are realized (Kant claims them) within us.
The following explanation of practical reason is based on B. Russell's "Seiyō tetsugaku-shi 3 [History of Western Philosophy]".
In his "Critique of Practical Reason", he distinguished between "happiness" and "the good," stating that the former was the domain of instinct and the latter the domain of reason, and he recognized morality only in the latter.
"... making a human being happy is quite different from making them good, and making them prudent and wise with regard to their own advantage is quite different from making them virtuous."
Morality is defined as a demand on the part of reason for good against the innate instinct for happiness.In contrast to "maxims", which are each individual's demands for happiness, the demands of moral law are called "imperatives", and the highest of these is derived as the "categorical imperative". This is a command to "so act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle in a giving of universal law".
For an act to be moral, that is, in accordance with the categorical imperative, the will or intention with which it is performed must not be based on something other than respect for the sacredness of the act itself. All other actions intended to serve other purposes are eudemonism or utilitarianism masquerading as morality, and are pseudo-moralities that serve human desires.
This pseudo-morality which is the servant of happiness, gives us the "hypothetical maxim" of "If you want to achieve happiness, do this." However, since each individual's pursuit of happiness hinders each other, it is not possible for everyone to share the same "maxim". Therefore, this "hypothetical imperative" cannot be established as universal morality.
In Kantian ethics, which recognizes only the "categorical imperative" as moral, all calculated actions are not moral, and therefore it is in principle impossible for factual knowledge or worldview to play any role in morality. What morality requires is not recognition of facts but respect for duty; morality is itself an end in action, not a means to the realization of other ends.
"For the universality with which such laws must hold for all rational beings without any distinction, and the unconditional practical necessity that is thereby imposed on them, disappears if their ground is taken from the particular arrangement of human nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed."
"The disposition incumbent upon him to have in observing it is to do so from duty, not from voluntary liking nor even from an endeavor he undertakes unbidden, gladly and of his own accord;"
"... pure practical reason does not require that one should renounce claims to happiness but only that as soon as duty is in question one should take no account of them."
According to Kant, the good deeds of a person born with a gentle nature cannot be called moral, and unfortunately, good act of love, if the person believes in God, is not moral. This is because in the former the person simply followed his natural inclinations, that is, it was his pleasure to do so, and in the latter case, his love for his neighbor was put into practice based on a motive of faith in God and heaven that brought about the ultimate profit.