Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant
•Lived in the 1700s; He was Prussian (German)
•He was a Protestant, Lutheran…After we review his philosophy, we will ask, was he Christian?
•Logician Philosophical logician
•Philosopher
•Ethicist specialized in ethics
•He was dissatisfied with the traditional picture of Christian Final Judgment (FJ)

According to Christianity, you must believe in Jesus Christ to be saved and go to heaven
•Kant believed that the picture of final judgment according to Christianity made God look unjust, arbitrary, and less than perfect.
•Keep in mind that Kant DID believe in God and he also believed in FJ (Final Judgment) and he also believed in Heaven and Hell. He doesn’t want to get rid of any of these concepts.

St. Thomas Aquinas
Catholic Christian who took the Bible literally as a history book.
Timeline from St. Thomas Aquinas’ perspective:
4004 BCE (Creation/Garden of Eden) He came up with this date according to genealogies which say who lived, who begat who, and specifically in years, how long they live. These go back to Adam.

3000 BCE Noah’s Flood
1500 BCE Exodus of Egypt God sends Moses to free the people of Egypt. God sends plagues and the Pharoah still says he won’t free the slaves and then the first born male child dies

Mt. Sinai  God gives the people the 10 Commandments
3 CE Jesus Christ
400 CE The Council of Nicea  Bible assembled
1200 CE Aquinas
1700 Kant
1985 Christian missionary work accomplished  When Christian missionaries speculate they have spread the Gospel to every tribe of the Amazon jungle. Now everyone has heard of Jesus Christ
2011
December 21, 2012 World Ends
•There were a very select group of people before Jesus Christ went to Heaven: Noah, Abraham, Moses,
•God chose Israel to be a chosen people (from Exodus story); However, this offer was not made to everybody else.  Kant felt like this was arbitrary behavior on God’s part to not allow everyone equal FJ.
•When God sent the people of Israel to Camen, they didn’t go in doing missionary work.

God’s Clipboard:
•According to Christianity, you will get to the FJ, and God will judge you according to a specific criteria. You must believe in:
oGod
oJesus Christ 4000 Years without Jesus Christ / Almost the entire 6000 Years, you have entire cultures who have never heard of Jesus
oBible 4400 Years without the Bible
•Kant says God is not judging justly because there is no real accountability. I had to know what I was supposed to do, and be able to do it, otherwise, it is not fair.
•Kant wants to create one standard by which everyone person gets judged by, before or after Jesus. Universal Moral Principal
If this is the case, many people would not go to heaven.


All of the following are unreliable reasons (according to Kant) for making ethical choices:
1.Consequences Because you can never know with certainty the outcome of any choice you make
a.Kant thinks this is like gambling  you think you may know, but you want to know for damn sure you are doing the right thing and not leave anything up to chance.
2.Emotions Both positive & negative: because even love, sympathy can make you do bad things
a.Kant says making choices on positive emotions can make you do bad things as well as negative emotions.
b.Therefore, untrustworthy.
3.Love/Obedience for God Even faith in God can be misplaced/misled (9/11 terrorists)
a.9/11 men had faith in God and were devout; maybe their faith was misguided because they killed thousands in the name of God.
b.Same thing with Christians who kill doctors who perform abortions.
4.Means to an end You must never do anything unethical in order to accomplish a noble goal
a.Kant would say never do anything normally unethical to accomplish a goal because you have still done something unethical.

Categorical Imperative (This is the Universal Moral Principle)
Categorical Applies to everything, universal; and Imperative Give a command on what to do

“Act in such a way that you could will that your action become a universal maxim” (Kant said this)
- A maxim is a standard for behavior

Ethical dilemma: Should I steal ?
Universal maxim: Though shalt steal ?
Say this: …to all people, for all time, all the time. (to you)

•Kant is saying that you need to make your behavior the standard for everyone.
•So, standing at the cash register…you DO NOT steal.
•Kant says God decides what is right/wrong, not you!
•Kant says we go through this world deciding on our own what is right/wrong based on our wants and desires.  This won’t pass with God
•Every human who has a rational soul has the ability to use the Categorical Imperative or the Rational Principle to know what to do.
•Every human has free will so she can actually follow the Categorical Imperative.

•Remember, Kant thinks accountability is a 2 sided coin:
o1. You have to KNOW what to do
o2. You have to be ABLE to do it
oThis is what God will judge us by.
•Kant thinks that no matter when you lived, you don’t have to live in any part of history to know this…it is just rational.
•The Categorical Imperative keeps you from doing all the (wrong) things want to do.

Rules for Applying the CI

1.You must separate the action you are considering from the particular context in which it is
a.This is often how we justify what it is we do
b.Steal in order to get my child medicine? NO, you have to separate the action (steal) from the context otherwise it only helps you justify stealing…but it is still wrong. You are not allowed to keep the context.

2.If you follow the CI, then you are not (never) responsible for the consequences of that act
a.Who killed the Jews? Not you, the Nazis. It was not your fault.

3.You must only consider whether the imperative is rational or not, not the consequences, you mustn’t even consider God’s final judgment.
a.Only think “Is this rational?” -- You are not supposed to think “Will God like this?”
b.God/Jesus is not in the Categorical Imperative so that even an atheist can follow the Categorical Imperative so that no one will be left out of the pearly gates & that every person gets a fair shot into heaven.

Let’s look at 3 ethical dilemmas:

1.Stealing from the cash register
•CI Don’t steal

2.Stealing a loaf of bread for a sickly child: Les Miserables (French Revolution play – character’s niece is sick and dying and he steals a loaf of bread to feed his niece)
•Action is JUST STEAL We cannot add the context of a sickly child!
•CI Don’t steal to save the sickly child (this is just a means to an end)
•We seem to disagree with the CI here because of the context…the action is still the same though.

3.Nazi dilemma, Berlin, 1940
•You know there are Jews next door. You hear a knock at the door and the Nazis ask you, “Are there Jews next door?”
•You can tell the truth (yes) or you can lie (no).
•Should I lie? - Thou shalt lie!...to all people, for all time, all the time. NOT RATIONAL so CI DON’T LIE.
•So you say yes.

Kant says we are playing God by deciding right/wrong. You are not responsible for the death of the sickly niece or the Jews. You never know the consequences of any action. Kant says don’t make your ethical decisions based on the consequences because you can never be 100% certain what will happen. The CI is always between YOU and GOD. Who killed the Jews? The Nazis, not you.

What is the role of Jesus Christ? To provide forgiveness of sins (salvation).
-Kant would say forgiveness is for sissies. Do you know what to do? Can you do it? – Then just do it.
-Kant would say there’s no need for forgiveness; If you know what to do every time, and you can do it, why do you need to be forgiven?