Kant’s ethics: the categorical imperative

The history of philosophy is the history of revolutions: in terms of knowledge, morality, politics, economics… In it, we find figures admired and hated in equal parts. One of the main ones is that of Immanuel Kant. In fact, who doesn’t know the name of the Königsberg philosopher?

Many anecdotes are told about him, such as that he was so orderly in his habits that the local housewives set their clocks using his five o’clock walk as a reference. Biographers also highlight his lack of ambition on a personal level or love for the place where he was born and died, as well as his interest in cultivating those relationships that provided intellectual stimulation for him.

Thus, we are talking about a lover of physics, mathematics and science in general. In love with geography, austere in his customs. Teacher with great charisma: many students traveled to Königsberg to attend his lessons, where there was rarely a free seat. She loved knowledge and knew how to be the seed, at the same time, of that love in her students.

He was raised in a religious environment and lost his mother when he was very young. Despite this, he had time to teach him to look at and name the stars: a memory that Kant would fondly refer to in his Critique of Practical Reason. The education he received was burdened by a very marked religiosity, authoritarianism, dogmatism or oppression that were general in the social environment, and by extension, in training.

Kant’s revolution

In the book, Kant. The Copernican turn in philosophyits author, Joan Solé, refers to the relationship between Kant and Hume taking the film of The boyby Charles Chaplin. In the film, a boy is in charge of throwing glass at different windows so that later a glazier who is in league with him comes by to offer his services.

Well, Hume would be the child, destroying a good part of the theory of knowledge established up to that moment, based above all on the thought of Descartes. Kant would be the glassmaker, “Kant found the glass shattered and offered to repair it, placing a frosted glass in its place “so that philosophers would be aware that they saw the world through translucent glass.” Thus, the revolution proposed by Kant in terms of knowledge was to highlight an idea on which psychology bases many of its current interventions in different areas: “our ideas are far from being a faithful image of the world.”“.

For Kant, perhaps philosophy would have been able to leave Plato’s cave. However, following Hume, that did not mean that we really had enough tools to access the world as it is (noumenon).

In return, it overcomes the relativism to which empiricists rush us, “Kant preserves the impression of sensitive perceptions recorded by intuition, but includes it in forms and schemes that are not given by sensitivity, but set by the subject.“.

The Categorical Imperative: The Seat of Kant’s Ethics

Kan understands ethics as an expression of human rationality. If the curious reader wants to go to his original exhibition, he can find it at Critique of Practical Reason and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals –works to digest much more calmly than this article, although they are perhaps not, of all the philosopher’s works, the ones that most test our reading comprehension.–. On the other hand, the categorical imperative represents the coming of age of ethics, just as the Enlightenment could have been for knowledge.

Kant’s ethics are so powerful because they transcend circumstances, individualities or conditions.. Nor is it an ethic that exhausts the freedom of the person; rather, it is a guarantor, because it acquires meaning precisely within this freedom. Finally, it stands out for being an end in itself, it is not subject to happiness, love or pleasure. It is not a means to feel better about ourselves, a biscoelastic mattress for our self-esteem.

Following Kant’s ethics – formal and universal – requires an effort. It is not something that comes naturally to us. Therefore, our commitment to it is a duty, an obligation, an imperative.

“Act only in such a way that you can will the maxim of your action to become a universal law.“. In other words, your way of approving will be approved by Kant’s ethics when it satisfies the desire that everyone act in the same way. This is Kant’s Copernican turn: ethics does not exist as a product of freedom, immorality or the existence of God, but rather it grounds the existence of the rest of the elements.

Kant monument in Kaliningrad

So, If we look up at the world, we will realize that Kant’s ethics are far from prevailing.. Power, or the aspiration for power, the fear of uncertainty, the need for security seem to be much more powerful motivations than acting with the honest intention that this way of acting is universal.

We welcome visitors, if they bring money to spend; We sign peace when it is more expensive than war; We bet on the truth if it gives us more returns than lies. Khan may have died two hundred years ago, but we have probably not yet begun to understand his message.

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