Assess Kant's ethics of duty and freedom as a response to all previous ethical theories - Essay Example

In his "Critique on Pure Reason" Kant portrays a view of rationalists such as Descartes as being overly concerned with divinity and divine intervention. He felt that the preoccupation with the role of God in the control of human thoughts, feelings and actions posed a very clear contradiction to the inherent will of man. He adamantly opposed the philosophy of Descartes in that he feels that Descartes reaffirmed his existence of God by alluding to the notion that conceptualizing something in one's mind actually makes it real.

Essentially his fundamental problem was with the notion of "I think therefore I am" as proposed by Descartes. He argued that making a presumption that something exists and using that presumption as proof of the same bears no merit in arriving at the truth. Moreover, Kant objected to the passivity attributed to the human mind by the rationalists. His objection to the empiricist school of thought can be found in the fact that empiricists such as Locke portrayed an incomplete view of the mind and human motivation.

He felt that the empiricist viewpoint was somewhat esoteric in nature in that it was effective in arriving at the notion that the mind was a "blank table" but it failed to expand on its implications. His main criticism could be found in the notion that empiricism often underestimated the role of reasoning in the construction of a knowledge base. He felt that empiricists viewed the mind as a passive entity while in Kant's view the mind was an active entity in which the individual plays a pivotal role in the way in which knowledge is produced.

In so doing, perceptions are subject to the assessment of the individual knower and not the reverse as proposed by the empiricists. Kant was very ingenious in his use of the theories of his predecessors for arriving at a distinct theory of his own. He was able to utilize the notion of passivity of the mind in the formation of his clear and concise contradictory theory. According to Kant humans are autonomous beings and as such are capable of real self-governance. He feels that there ought not to be boundaries or limitations placed on the goodness of the human will and the real human freedom to choose.

The human propensity to heteronymous influences from emotions and external norms makes them slaves to outside influences which will lead them to act immorally. Heteronomy in Kant's philosophy is the subjection to the imposition of moral choices that are exterior to the autonomy of the human will, for example in response to desires for some benefit, out of fear of unwanted repercussions to an action, or through the influence of others. A heteronymous will is constrained to act from subjective calculations or from rules that have been set from outside and consequently lacks real freedom.

An autonomous will chooses freely from pure principle on its own assessment of the objective goodness of an action that can be judged to qualify as a maxim for universal application.In his duty theory, Kant expresses the notion that there is an underlying moral law that all should adhere to and theorizes that the singular motivation for human actions should be duty and respect for the independent moral good. He maintains that the fundamental principle at the basis of all moral duties is a categorical imperative.

He feels that this categorical imperative commands us to exercise our will in a particular way and can be formulated on three aspects. The