About this title: Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words its aim is to search for and establish the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative. Kant argues that ...
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Description: Good. Minimal damage to cover and binding. Pages show light use. With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, Best Prices. read more
Description: Reader copy. Scatter neat underlining and notes. Tight binding, no crease to the spine. Minimal shelf wear. We ship same or next day (Monday-Saturday). read more
Description: Good. 1965-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
"I do not understand all. But what I did understand of this short & steep work resonated with me and made me rethink my dogmatic refusal of his thought on account of it being too dogmatic.
I was a fool and may still be. Now that I have recognised this I have set myself the formidable task of reading Kant's other contributions. They are less short and more steep but as I believe they lie on the path to enlightment they are steps I must take. It is my duty!
I've always been one that I would consider of extreme moral character. And my view, you always knew what was right because it required the sacrifice. Odd how this book was refered to me because the referer thought it would only bolster my resolve. Quite to the contrary, it destroyed my view on moral judgment with a simple stroke.
I grant that, as Kant depicted, without choice and freedom of will the concepts of good/bad and right/wrong are meaningless. But if you take that one simple portion of the equation you find that free will means that the concepts of good/bad and right/wrong have no meaning.
Think of it this way (and yes I am super simplifying it)... 1) The right thing as Kant puts it is something that one ought to do. You know if you ought to do something because a purely rational being would do it. 2) Doing the right thing is what we should all strive for. We should all strive and be that purely rational being. 3) So in the utopic society - or rather if we all got our (presupposed) wish to be that purely rational being, then we would be doing the right thing to the exclusion of all the bad things. That is to say there would be no bad actions. 4) The complete lack of all bad actions makes the ability to choose between right and wrong meaningless, because de facto you always do or are inconsequentially choose to do the right thing. 5) If it is the importance of the choice to determine right and wrong then without choice their is no right. 6) Since doing the right thing has value over doing the wrong thing, then the lack of having the meaningfulness of right devalues those social values. The devaluation of what is right makes doing the "right" thing wrong. 7) (6) works in reverse so that doing the wrong thing gives meaning to choice and therefore adds value to "right". Thus doing what is wrong is right. 8) Since doing what is absolutely wrong is absolutely right (and vice versa) is a paradox on its face, there really is no actual right or wrong. 9) One could say that on the ends of the scale, right and wrong lose their meaning because of this but that they stay intact somewhere in the middle. But the point that Kant was making was that there were absolute "maxims". Those maxims give us guidance to strive for and push towards, but in the end the achievment of those absolute rights is wrong so striving for them too diligently is wrong. If striving to do the right thing is wrong and vice versa, then there is no point to it (in the context of ethical debate that is).
Someone directed to read his stuff because it sounded so much like what I tended to believe but following his own logic, I had to reflect on my own judgments."
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