Kant Seeks The Highest Moral Principles

This paper,based on the ethical naturalism,examines Kant's argument for the establishment of the supreme principle of morality.The first question of moral philosophy is to understand what we mean by the concept of "morality".Common moral understanding thinks that morality comes from nature,while Kant thinks that morality comes from reason,or that morality is a kind of rational norm.Therefore,the first task of this paper is to investigate how Kant demonstrates that morality is a kind of rational norm.The answer to this question is:according to Kant's understanding of morality,the first one is to oppose naturalism,and the other is to regard morality as a system of scientific norms.The second task of this paper is to investigate the significance the sense of morality as a rational norm,or what is the essence of the rational norm.This relates to the status of the five formulas of the categorical imperative and their relationship with each other.On the basis of the interpretation of the theory of the value of the categorical imperative,this paper emphasizes on the interpretation of the obligation theory of the categorical imperative.However,this paper further argues that the formalism itself is in fact consistent with the internal principle of Kant's ethics.Therefore,formalism is not the defect of Kant's ethics,but the limit of Kant's ethics.As to the practice of morality,the natural question is:how does the moral standard lead us to live?There has been a lot of debate about the answer to this question.The fundamental purpose of Kant's ethics is to find the highest principles and norms of morality and to prove and guide our daily obligations.The third task of this paper is to discuss the extent to which Kant's highest ethical norm can guide our moral life.Through the investigation of the obligations of the conflict and moral dilemma,the point of this paper is:in the negative sense,the highest moral principle Kant sought can't guide personal real life,especially when faced with irresistible difficulties;in the positive sense,the highest moral principle Kant sought on one hand confirms the civil moral consciousness of modern civilization,and on the one hand give us the direction of further efforts for the ideal moral community.After the establishment of the highest principle or norm of morality,Kant's moral philosophy is to demonstrate the binding force of the highest principle or norm to our reality.This argument is necessary for Kant's moral system.The norm is that the norm is binding on the practice,so the highest moral norms must have the binding force of the most practical action,otherwise it will violate the meaning of the highest standard itself.The fourth task of this paper is to examine the validity of Kant's categorical imperative,which in fact is related to the issue of moral motivation,or to the motivation of obedience to the moral norms.Many scholars believe that Kant's argumentsin Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals(hereinafter referred to as Foundation)and in the critique of practical reason(hereinafter referred to as the second critique)about the obedience to the categorical imperative are inconsistent.In the Foundation,Kant intends to use freedom as the condition of moral deduction.In the second critique,Kant thinks that morality does not need to a deduction.In the Foundation,Kant thought that freedom is the premise of morality.In the second critique,Kant thought that morality is the premise of freedom.In the Foundation,Kant merely answered the question that people are "moral" because they take that themselves as free(and therefore in the world of intelligence).But why make such a"taking as"?Kant did not really answer the question in the Foundation.In the second critique,Kant appealed to the new point of "the fact of reason" in regard to the question of the motive of obeying the moral law.In my opinion,the view of the fact of reason also did not answer the skeptical problem,but after all,it boldly declared the rationalism and even Kant's own dogmatic stance:that rational people comply with the moral law is inherently inevitable,in spite of the impact from a posteriori factors of the nature.