Kant and Mill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Kant and Mill - turn out ExampleKant does non disregard operable anthropology in the Foundations because he believes it is unimportant.As we know,Kant did discuss pr routineical anthropology in legion(predicate) works on ethics and education.However,in order to learn cleanistic bring through in the empirical world,Kant contends that example action as such has to be understood first. Thus Kant ventures into a study that tries to supply the principles of moral action as such, or tries to supply the principles for sage beings in general, which we can interpret in this place setting as moral subjects. One can found the same tension in Kants ethical writings. In fact, I would say the tension is more pronounced in Kants ethical writings, because Kant never corrects the tension in this area by rewriting any of his ethical texts. Particularly, I have found the tension among what I could call a phenomenological approach and a strict transcendental approach in Kants deuce main text s on morality, viz., the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason.In order to perform the phenomenological reading, I hope to look at Kants text entitled the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. The purpose of the phenomenological reading is to see if it is possible to sight at heart moral phenomena the essence of morality as expressed by Kant. This reading constitutes a constructive exposition of Kantian morality.What is important to note here is that both ethics and physics have their empirical and rational parts, or their posterior) and a priori parts. Kants concern in the Foundations is with ethics, and particularly ethics in its a priori character. In another(prenominal) words, Kant is not concerned with moral actions as they occur in the everyday world. Instead, Kant is concerned with what constitutes moral action as such, which Kant refers to as pure moral philosophy, a mode of ethics freed from any social and practical anthropolo gy that would only study ethical behavior as it sliceifested itself in specific human interactions. The basic estimation and so is that the ground of obligation must not be sought in the nature of man or in the circumstances in which he is placed (Kant , 64). Instead, the ground for obligation must be sought within moral sentience. This idea of seeking for the ground for obligation in moral consciousness has phenomenological overtones. Kant wants to bracket the natural standpoint, place it under suspension, to come to the structures of consciousness that constitute morality. Precisely what is bracketed is practical anthropology, which is the manner of understanding morality in our everyday world. Once Kant has bracketed the natural attitude, he can then put his attention to moral consciousness. The aspect of consciousness that presents itself for investigation in moral consciousness is the will. In the Foundations, Kant wants to understand what constitutes a good will, which I understand as moral consciousness. Moral consciousness is consciousness of what I ought to do, or, as Kant states, it is consciousness of what is good without qualification. Understood this way, moral consciousness is intentional it is consciousness of what is good. If Kant concerns himself with moral consciousness, then I could call Kants investigation a study of moral intentionality. Within such a study, I am interested in looking at my actions in terms of the spontaneous and the willed as such. The willing and the willed as such correspond to the noetic and noematic elements of moral consciousness. Within this structure of investigation, I am not concerned with an act as it is considered in the natural standpoint, which would consider the act in terms of its certain consequences or empirical manifestation. Both actual consequences and empirical manifestations are transcendent senses of a moral act, i.e., an act immersed in the world of facts and affairs. Instead I am looking b oth at the moral subjects act of willing and at what is willed in the how of its