An Evil To Achieve Freedom

Although contemporary virtue ethics attacks the so-called act-centered instead of actor-centered normative ethics, this refutation in the form of an attack not only fails to bring about the true revival but also dooms to cause chaos and regression of a even bigger scale. In fact, the Kantian ethics focuses on both the act and the actor; it studies good with a collateral consideration of good man.Despite the transcendent idea of good, good man, living in the empirical world, not only has to prove himself as existing in the transcendent world through positive freedom, but also needs to identify himself as an moral subject to cultivate a law-based virtue and character, so as to realize the Being-in-itself in the noumenal world.This dissertation, based on Kant’s two concepts of freedom, aims at investigating the basic dimensions of the good man in Kantian ethics. It mainly contains the following two parts:One is the "bottom-up" mode. By means of the supposition of passive freedom (spontaneity), good man identifies himself as the subject of action and thus transcends from passive to positive freedom (autonomy) to be a member of the intelligible world, as could be verified from the doctrine of fact of reason. Therefore, as an actor equipped with moral agency, good man can either act out of duty or be morally blamed when he violates it. Different from spontaneity, autonomy is merely an ability that must be presupposed, and good man differs from normal agent as he willingly activates the potential of autonomy, whose realization could be called a "top-down" mode in the empirical world, i.e. fighting against the radical evil propensity by oneself. We need a revolution in heart to change disposition, and only through fighting against evil could we realize the internal power of ourselves, facilitate the growth of virtue and unswervingly pursue a lifestyle towards good. During this process, we need to presuppose God’s help, and pay attention to the empirical influence to empirical character which is the representation of moral character.The identity as member of intelligible world and the social existence of evil require that we not solely focus on private duties but should join together to confront the invasion of evil, or, devote ourselves to the special duty of constructing ethical community so as to complete the Being-with dimension of good man. Good man in Kantian ethics, though different from a devotee of a certain faith, takes duties as God’s divine commands; nor is he a citizen of a certain one-dimensional law community, as he obeys the law willingly, and devotes himself to the community or even the construction of an ethical community while not denying the diversity of its carrier. Therefore, as a sound rationalist, good man in Kantian ethics could be ranked as the ideal personality in modern society.