Things always fill the soul with new things. Ancient and social philosophy

“Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me” (Kant I. Works in 6 vols. Part 1 M ., 1965. pp. 439-500). Explain what I. Kant meant? According to I. Kant, what is the abyss that lies between man and the world? Formulate Kant's moral imperative.

In this famous, rather poetic-sounding statement: “Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me” (Kant I. Soch . In 6 vols. T.4. 4.1. M., 1965. P.439-500), I. Kant expressed the gap between man, the human world and nature, which cannot be overcome with the help of philosophy.

Kant abandoned the naive identity of being and thinking, he saw the abyss that lies between man and the world, and realized the tragedy of attempts to overcome it. Confidence in the ability of philosophy to find general laws of nature and thinking for Kant and his later followers is only a manifestation of man’s incomprehensible ability to wishful thinking, to mythologize his life world.

In Kant’s “Critiques of Practical Reason,” these words reveal the essence and intent of his entire philosophy. “I don’t need to look for both (the starry sky above me and the moral law within me), and only assume as something shrouded in darkness or lying beyond my horizon; I see them before me and directly connect them with the consciousness of my existence.

The first begins from the place that I occupy in the external sensory world, and expands into the boundless distance the connection in which I find myself, with worlds above worlds and systems of systems, in the limitless time of their periodic movement, their beginning and duration.

The second begins with my invisible self, with my personality, and represents me in a world that is truly infinite...”

Kant considered understanding the foundations and essence of moral rules to be one of the most important tasks of philosophy. According to Kant, a person acts necessarily in one respect and freely in another: as a phenomenon among other natural phenomena, a person is subject to necessity, and as a moral being he belongs to the world of intelligible things - noumena. And in this capacity he is free. As a moral being, man is subject only to moral duty.

Kant formulates moral duty in the form of a moral law, or a moral categorical imperative. This law requires that each person act in such a way that the rule of his personal behavior can become the rule of behavior for everyone.

If a person is drawn to actions that coincide with the dictates of the moral law by a sensual inclination, then such behavior, Kant believes, cannot be called moral. An action will be moral only if it is done out of respect for moral law. The core of morality is “ goodwill", which expresses actions performed only in the name of moral duty, and not for the sake of any other goals (for example, out of fear or to look good in the eyes of other people, for selfish purposes, for example, profit, etc.) . Therefore, Kant's ethics of moral duty opposed the utilitarian ethical concepts, as well as religious and theological ethical teachings.

The amount of suffering we experience directly depends on how moral we are. Morality is the formula for happiness and survival. The less morality, the more disgusting life is. People have come up with many rules to help draw the line between good and evil. But no one has yet managed to do this better than Kant in his famous imperative, which allows any actions to be accurately weighed on the scales of morality. It sounds like this: “Man is an end in himself and should not be a means.”

To put it more clearly, this means: a person is above any concepts, ideologies, states; its purpose is unknown to anyone; no one has the right to use it; only that to which he gives voluntary consent is moral; all coercion is immoral; retribution - suffering, destruction, hostility. And nowhere is this more clear than in love and intimacy. We have the right only to ask and offer. By allowing ourselves to be manipulated, blackmailed, pressured, we become immoral. Which means they are doomed to pay. But the saddest thing is that with the help of immoral methods we never get to that bright tomorrow for which we go to great lengths. As the same Kant said: “The means deform the goal.” That's how the world works. Closeness, love, harmony, bliss of mutual understanding... - all the highest and most cherished things in life are given only into clean hands.

In Kant's teaching on morality, one should distinguish between “maxims” and “law”. The former mean the subjective principles of the will of a given individual person, and the law is an expression of universal validity, a principle of expression of will that is valid for each individual. Therefore, Kant calls such a law an imperative, that is, a rule that is characterized by an obligation expressing the obligatory nature of an action. Kant divides imperatives into hypothetical, the fulfillment of which is associated with the presence of certain conditions, and categorical, which are obligatory under all conditions. As for morality, there should be only one categorical imperative as its highest law.

Kant considered it necessary to study in detail the entire range of human moral duties. In first place, he puts a person’s duty to take care of preserving his life and, accordingly, health. He lists suicide, drunkenness, and gluttony as vices. Next, he names the virtues of truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, conscientiousness, self-esteem, which he contrasted with the vices of lies and servility. Essential Kant defined conscience as a “moral judgment seat.” Kant considered the two main duties of people in relation to each other to be love and respect. He interpreted love as benevolence, defining it “as pleasure in the happiness of others.” He understood compassion as compassion for other people in their misfortunes and as sharing their joys. Kant condemned all the vices in which misanthropy is expressed: ill will, ingratitude, gloating. The main virtue he believed in humanity.

Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. I don’t need to look for both and only assume as something shrouded in darkness or lying beyond the limits of my horizons; I see them before me and directly connect them with the consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place that I occupy in the external sensory world, and expands into the boundless distance the connection in which I find myself, with worlds above worlds and systems of systems, in the limitless time of their periodic movement, their beginning and duration. The second begins with my invisible Self, with my personality, and represents me in a world that is truly infinite, but which is felt only by the mind and with which (and through it with all visible worlds) I know myself not only in random connection, as there, but in a universal and necessary connection. The first glance at the countless number of worlds seems to destroy my significance as an animal creature, which again must give to the planet (only a point in the universe) the matter from which it arose, after this matter had been endowed for a short time in an unknown way vitality. The second, on the contrary, endlessly elevates my value as a thinking being, through my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animal nature and even of the entire sensory world, at least in so far as this can be seen from the purposeful purpose of my existence through this a law that is not limited by the conditions and boundaries of this life.
But surprise and respect, although they can motivate research, cannot replace them. What must be done to carry out these investigations in a manner that is useful and appropriate to the loftiness of the subject? The examples here may serve as a warning, but also as a guide. The examination of the world began with a most excellent view, which always shows only human feelings, and our reason always strives to trace it in all its breadth, and ended with astrology. Morality began with the noblest quality in human nature, the development and culture of which are aimed at endless benefit, and ended in daydreaming or superstition. This is the case with all still crude attempts in which most work depends on the use of reason, which you do not give! of course, not in the same way as using the legs, through frequent exercise, especially if it concerns properties that cannot be directly demonstrated in ordinary experience. But after the maxim was put into practice, albeit late, to carefully consider in advance all the steps that the mind intends to take, and to take them only guided by a well-thought-out method in advance, the judgment of the universe received a completely different direction and led to incomparably more successful results. The fall of a stone and the movement of a sling, decomposed into their elements and into the forces manifested at the same time and processed mathematically, finally created that clear and for any future unchanging view of the universe, which, as one can hope, with further observation will always develop, but never this There is no need to be afraid - it will not degrade.
To follow this path in studying the moral inclinations of our nature - in this case, the indicated example can be very instructive for us and give hope for a similar good result. We have at hand examples of the mind making moral judgments. By dividing them into initial concepts, and in the absence of mathematics, in repeated attempts to test on the ordinary human mind a method similar to the chemical one, which prescribes separating the empirical from the rational that may be contained in them - this can make both of them pure and reliably designate what what each of them can accomplish on its own; this can, on the one hand, prevent the errors of still rough, inexperienced judgment, on the other hand (which is much more important), prevent the rise of genius, which, as usually happens with adepts philosopher's stone, without any methodical research and knowledge of nature, they promise imaginary treasures and waste real treasures. In a word, science (critically examined and methodically delivered) is the narrow gate that leads to the teaching of wisdom, if by this we mean not only what is done, but also what should serve as a guiding thread for teachers to correctly and clearly pave the way to wisdom in which everyone should walk, and to protect others from false paths; Philosophy must always remain the guardian of science, in the refined researches of which the public takes no part, but must take an interest in its teachings, which can become completely understandable to it only after such development.

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In the history of philosophy, there have been many attempts to understand what makes us behave ethically, why we should behave this way, and also to identify the principle on which our moral choices are or could be based. Ethical theory German philosopher Immanuel Kant is one of the most remarkable such attempts.

Prerequisites for Kant's ethical theory

« Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me » . - Immanuel Kant

In developing his ethical theory, Kant proceeds from two important premises. The first of them is characteristic of all world philosophy, right up to the 19th century. It lies in the fact that there is such knowledge that is eternal, unchanging and universal.

The second premise is characteristic primarily of medieval religious philosophy and it may seem very strange to modern man. It consists in the fact that freedom is independence from any circumstances. Kant divides the world of nature and the world of reason or the world of freedom, just as medieval theologians divide the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven. In the natural world, man is subject to circumstances and therefore not free. He can become free only if he obeys the dictates of reason (whereas in the Middle Ages freedom consisted of submission to the will of God).

At the same time, the mind is busy learning the truth. Accordingly, everything that reason can prescribe to us is something eternal, unchanging and universal, that is, something that everyone should do at all times.

Three formulations of the categorical imperative

Based on this, Kant develops an ethical system based on the categorical imperative - the requirement of reason to strictly follow the rules it has developed. This imperative has three formulations that are mutually exclusive and complementary:

1. Act in such a way that the maxim of your will could be a universal law.

This formulation is very simple and follows directly from the premises used by Kant. In fact, he encourages us, when performing this or that action, to imagine what would happen if everyone did this all the time. Moreover, the evaluation of the action in in this case it will not be so much ethical or emotional: “I like it” or “not such a situation,” but strictly logical. If, in a case where everyone behaves in the same way as we do, the action loses its meaning or becomes impossible, then it cannot be performed.

For example, before you lie, imagine that everyone will always lie. Then the lie will be meaningless, because everyone will know that what they are being told is a lie. But in this case, communication will be practically impossible.

Such a rule cannot serve as a guide for the actions of all other intelligent beings, because it destroys itself - it is logically contradictory.

2. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of everyone else, as an end, and never treat it only as a means.

This formulation follows much less obviously from the premises indicated above, and at the same time it is both more trivial and more interesting than the first. It proceeds from the fact that the source of any purpose and value is reason. And it is reason that is the purpose of the legislation that he develops.

Accordingly, the purpose of legislation is every bearer of reason, every sentient being. If, on the basis of the first formulation of the categorical imperative, we were to make it a rule to use others as means to ends, and not as ends in themselves, we would be faced with a paradox in which no one and nothing can serve as the source of any end for which we could use certain means.

This imperative may seem quite trivial, since it is very similar to the “golden rule of morality”: do as you would like to be treated. However, it is interesting because, firstly, like the first imperative, it is based on logic, and not on desire or value, like the “golden rule”. Secondly, if the “golden rule” suggests looking at one’s own desires and acting towards others as if they were us, then the second formulation of the categorical imperative suggests realizing the value of someone else’s life and desires, without replacing them with our own.

From the “golden rule” we can deduce that if you are, for example, a masochist, then you should cause pain to other people. Then, due to the crude universality of the prescriptions, it is more like the first formulation of the categorical imperative. The second calls us to think about the good of another person. Rather, she advises replacing yourself with another, while the “golden rule” suggests replacing another with yourself.

3. The third categorical imperative is not as clearly expressed in the text as the first two. It is formulated by Kant as follows: “ the idea of the will of every rational being as the will that establishes universal laws».

Here the first and second formulations of the categorical imperative are combined in a non-obvious way. The first requires the establishment of universal objective laws. The second requires making the subject the goal of these laws. The third actually repeats the premises and previous formulations.

The meaning of the third formulation is that the will of every rational being must serve as a source of legislation for itself. Only then will it freely follow this legislation. At the same time, only behavior dictated by reason is free. That is, any rational being must establish laws for itself (and the world) and, by virtue of its rationality, desire these laws, since they are aimed at realizing the goals of these creatures dictated by the mind.

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Ancient and social philosophy

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4. “Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them - this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me” (Kant I. Works in 6 vols. Ch. 1 M., 1965. P. 439-500). Explain what I. Kant meant? According to I. Kant, what is

The second begins with my invisible self, with my personality, and represents me in a world that is truly infinite...”

If a person is drawn to actions that coincide with the dictates of the moral law by a sensual inclination, then such behavior, Kant believes, cannot be called moral. An action will be moral only if it is done out of respect for the moral law. The core of morality is “good will,” which expresses actions performed only in the name of moral duty, and not for any other purposes (for example, out of fear or to look good in the eyes of other people, for selfish purposes, for example, profit etc.). Therefore, Kant's ethics of moral duty opposed utilitarian ethical concepts, as well as religious and theological ethical teachings.

Kant considered it necessary to study in detail the entire range of human moral duties. In first place, he puts a person’s duty to take care of preserving his life and, accordingly, health. He lists suicide, drunkenness, and gluttony as vices. Next, he names the virtues of truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, conscientiousness, self-esteem, which he contrasted with the vices of lies and servility. Kant attached the most important importance to conscience as a “moral court.” Kant considered the two main duties of people in relation to each other to be love and respect. He interpreted love as benevolence, defining it “as pleasure in the happiness of others.” He understood compassion as compassion for other people in their misfortunes and as sharing their joys. Kant condemned all the vices in which misanthropy is expressed: ill will, ingratitude, gloating. He considered philanthropy to be the main virtue.

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