So, some of Kant's internal theories, such an order of fairness, are the only way to have civil liberties, the rights of free choice that every person with the same rights has.
Citizen equality means being subject to the same legal constraints, but it does not mean that everyone has the same property. There is also citizen independence, which refers to all the rights that each of us as human beings has without relying on anyone else. Rights are not given by anyone, they are what I should have as a human being.
The most surprising aspect of Kant's doctrine is that he emphasizes that we humans have an unconditional and compulsory obligation to belong to such a social order, which is the free social order of the rule of law.
Obligation is compulsory for us humans. Some people may say that Kant is at the opposite end here, sometimes claiming to be free, and sometimes claiming to be forced. These misunderstandings are due to a lack of understanding of Kant's philosophy. Furthermore, if you are not very clear about the purpose of his free legal system, these concepts will make you feel that because you must regard coercion as external and freedom as internal, you think that any coercion is the external constraint on the internal. Many people must understand it this way.
Kant believed that our obligation to free ourselves from the state of nature and move towards political order is not a conditional obligation. If your political order benefits me, brings me security, and as Locke said, provides me with guarantees of life and property in all aspects, I will obey you.
It is not such an obligation, not a conditional obligation, not a false command belonging to any common civic order, and cannot be negotiated. If you treat me differently, I will obey you, no. It's absolute, why?
Because as the saying goes, Kant is the most different from classical British political philosophers, and I always feel that there is something missing about British political philosophers. In fact, there is still something, as Sartre said at the time, including Heidegger's, that I oppose humanitarianism, not because humanitarianism itself is wrong, but because humanitarianism does not elevate people high enough.
The same goes for British political philosophers, who believe that the state is entirely our tool, a tool to safeguard our rights and happiness. Kant said, no. As a free individual, we must have an extension as members of a destination kingdom.
So, the inside is completely different, the interests here are very different, and I think the former political philosophy will definitely create a problem that has been entangled until today.
In fact, there is another issue, which is the relationship between individuals and social control, individuals and the state. This is a very complicated problem that only arises in modern society. Look at all our political activities, whether it's any revolution or not, you will analyze to the core of the inner core, and there will always be this pile of contradictions that arise in the relationship between individuals and the state.
Kant certainly provided one of his ideas, which is to further expand the principle of human purpose in the public domain. So, you cannot view him as an end in itself, also because it is not external, and you cannot view him as a means, also because it is not an external means, you must see him as having a purpose for you. Because he is the embodiment of the purpose itself.
So, of course, if you use an intellectual way of thinking and find it absurd or something, let's not delve into it. After careful consideration, it does indeed propose a very high moral and political philosophy.
Public order, in fact, is the external existence of freedom under a legal and legal system. Because in the local area, you just need to follow the regulations given to you by the outside world. On the other hand, the private moral order is a concept of virtue, which involves virtue. It is the concept of each person's autonomous desire for the right reasons and the right principles.
In order to have virtue, we must have some kind of belief and fulfill our obligations. In Kant's view, doing the right thing from wrong motives is not virtue at all, but precisely because of lack of virtue. Why?
Because it is not done by one's own rational commitment, I am free and I must do it, this is a certainty. But Kant believed that doing the right thing from wrong motives is determined by things beyond irrational commitments, such as fear of being arrested, wanting to please others, etc., which are driven by these external and rational commitments.
So, Kant said that humans can completely obey the law without virtue, and obeying the law does not necessarily mean having virtue. If one obeys the law without virtue, what is their mistake? I obey the law for the wrong reasons. I am afraid of committing crimes and being punished by the law. Then, I obey the law, not out of obligation or moral law.
As individuals, we must have an obligation to obey such a law, and obeying the law is precisely a moral responsibility that I, as a free person, must fulfill. If you don't understand it this way, can you be called virtuous.
Kant's concept of virtue is a new round of virtue ethics that emerged in Westerners in the 1960s. The main focus of virtue ethics is also to address the shortcomings of mainstream Western moral philosophy since the 17th century, and to propose a third path. Generally speaking, virtue ethics was first proposed by Aristotle, but in fact, Kant also had a good discourse on virtue.
There are two things about Kant's virtues among you. Firstly, Kant did not intend to explain virtue from the perspective of our human upbringing and the cultivation of certain characteristics of personality and humanity. This is what Aristotelian traditional virtue ethics mainly does. Virtue is first and foremost related to personal upbringing and the improvement of personality, which is very similar to the traditional Confucian view of virtue in China. Kant was very secularized, and we can even say that he was very radical. He wanted to reinterpret the Christian experience of conversion, which is what religion talks about, to explain what virtue is.
He said that a just character is something that can be chosen in itself. We can choose a just character or an unjust character, and this is something we can choose.
Kant did not believe that everyone would become a good person. He was too naive and impossible, and it was optional. If a person cannot choose, we obey the laws of nature like a natural object, and there is no need to be virtuous or immoral. Kant is very important and wise in this regard. Virtue and immorality are based on the fact that we can become virtuous or immoral.
A person can suddenly change their moral orientation through a free will action, rather than relying on some external divine grace to descend upon them. Here, Kang cleverly takes the opposite approach. Borrowing the concept of religious conversion, I suddenly, like Augustine, who was not originally a Christian, had an epiphany or something that inspired me to convert to Christianity. Of course, this is not from anyone outside, the external divine pill has any revelation for me, purely because we have free will.
I immediately decided that I would use my free will to suddenly change our moral orientation. So, the basic character of a person is like a criterion, and we can use it as a super criterion to refer to the adoption of ethical practice rules.
A very special aspect of Kant's theory of virtue. Secondly, in the academic field of public law and justice, we only have an obligation to limit ourselves and not interfere with each other's rights. Because everyone is completely free to do whatever is allowed by law, but he said that in the field of private morality, we must actively promote and pursue the right goals. In the field of personal ethics, we are not passive obedience, but actively doing good deeds. So, things are very different, the behavior of people in the two fields is not quite the same. Kant said that as a self disciplined being, we have two goals that we must pursue unconditionally. The first purpose is to pursue one's own moral perfection and to promote the happiness of others.
Think about it, isn't it noble to promote one's own moral perfection? Don't talk about happiness, you should first care about your own moral perfection as an individual. Another way is to promote the happiness of others. As a self disciplined person, the two goals we unconditionally pursue are self-improvement for ourselves and promoting the happiness of others.
However, Kant's own argument for these two purposes is somewhat unique. In his early works, there was no special purpose that could serve as the basis for the unconditional obligations that should be fulfilled. Only by adhering to principles that conform to universal laws, can the motive for action be effective. However, in his later work "Metaphysics of Morality," he stated that the action that determines a purpose is a practical principle that defines the purpose itself.
What he said is very subtle. The purpose cannot be arbitrarily defined. To define the purpose, he needs a practical principle. Where is the practical principle?
The purpose itself cannot be arbitrarily defined, and it cannot be arbitrarily defined as a moral purpose. It must come from moral free will, which is based on principles and is not the same as simple free choice.
The practical principle of setting the purpose itself is to determine the action of a purpose. This sentence may seem difficult to understand on the surface, because we usually say that the purpose is set first, and then we will take purposeful action. He doesn't actually speak in reverse, he combines action and reason into one.
The concept and principle of Chinese philosophy should be to reason with others. So, this sentence is very clever and has always been overlooked. Generally, we use an intellectual approach to have principles first, and then take actions according to the chosen principles. Moreover, it also makes sense that morality is when we write according to our own moral principles. Kant's later period did indeed have a profound development in his thinking. In some places, you see action as reason, which actually means that the principle itself is not something that has already been given to you like a law, and has already been prescribed. What can be done in 12345 cannot be clearly defined. No, the principle is actually a function, but the function does exist, not non-existent.
