Kant's ethics

[intricate]

Please read what I know about Kant’s ethics and submit your comment or correct if there are some grammar or lingual mistakes.

The moral principles are based on reason and not on empirical world. When a moral principle says ‘do not kill’ that means do not kill regardless of your will.

Let’s say that the law is ‘kill other people’. It can’t be a general law because it contradicts itself: the possibility of killing requires people, and there can’t be people when we allow killing.

Kant puts great emphasis on duties. His philosophy affected me in the way that I have a very strong sense of duty. That means that I obey my duties regardless of what I want and desire. I put all emotions in brackets and perform my duties at work or actually anywhere.

[xzc]

@intricate

Please read what I know about Kant’s ethics and submit your comment or correct if there are some grammar or lingual mistakes.

The moral principles are based on reason and not on empirical world.

Well, Kant says that the categorical imperative, and morality in general, is relevant only because a human being is both phenomenal and noumenal in nature. A purely rational being would be a moral saint and would not need a categorical imperative, and a completely phenomenal creature would be incapable of freedom, hence also of morality.

When a moral principle says ‘do not kill’ that means do not kill regardless of your will.

The law is self-legislated. It does not exist apart from our will. Our will does not abide by it as if the moral law was something other than and separate from the will. Our wills are the stuff that make up the moral law. If you mean that we should not kill regardless of our inclinations to kill,then that’s correct. In fact, it’s only when we don’t kill in spite of the inclination to kill that our actions can be said to have moral worth for Kant. When the moral will overcomes no resistance from inclination, the action has no moral worth. :-&

Let’s say that the law is ‘kill other people’. It can’t be a general law because it contradicts itself: the possibility of killing requires people, and there can’t be people when we allow killing.

Think of moral laws as actual laws of nature, and think of the process of using the categorical imperative as one engaged in by a God thinking of which laws to give to his world. So, with respect to making a false promise, the maxim fails, is contradictory, because if this were to be a law in that world, like gravity is a law in ours, then there would be no concept of truth in that world to begin with, nor consequently lying. The maxim undercuts itself; it could not be meaningful as a perennial law in this world.

Kant puts great emphasis on duties. His philosophy affected me in the way that I have a very strong sense of duty. That means that I obey my duties regardless of what I want and desire.

I don’t mean to sound rude, but you were drawn to Kant before you understood him, because of your emotional connection to duty. You have a taste for duty, for unconditional service, or more than likely, you want to be regarded as someone who cares about duty, hence when you saw a philosopher using the word duty, and preoccupied with it, you were drawn to him.

[tab]Ironically, the hardcore Kantians I know are also the most despicable people I know. It could be that they are attracted to notions of duty who lack the capacity to abide by a promise. The absence of the capacity to keep a promise, combined with knowledge of this absence, is filled in with an idealized notion of one’s self as one who gives a shit about duty. You emphasize, in your conscious state, that which you find lacking. Funny enough, it’s also Nietzscheans, who can reasonably be said to be on the other end of this spectrum, who are the most trustworthy people I know.[/tab]
My greater point is that you can never bracket your emotions.