A Study Of Kant’s Thought Of Conscience

Conscience is an important theme in human thought and a universal concept in moral philosophy.Kant has made a lot of discussions on the question of conscience,and his thought of conscience has rich philosophical connotation.This dissertation aims at revealing the theoretical origin of Kant’s conscience thought,sorting out and explaining Kant’s texts and thoughts on conscience in detail,summarizing Kant’s different definitions of conscience and the difficult problems in Kant’s conscience thought,revealing the true face of Kant’s conscience thought by discussing and solving these problems,and highlighting the important significance of Kant’s conscience thought.Kant’s thought of conscience has its ideological background of inevitable generation and development.The thought of conscience in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy,Christianity and modern European philosophy provide theoretical reference for the formation and development of Kant’s thought of conscience.Among them,Baumgarten’s thought of conscience is a unique and important theoretical resource to explore Kant’s thought of conscience.In view of the dispersion and complexity of Kant’s discourse on conscience,only by combing and explaining Kant’s important texts and thoughts on conscience in detail can we clearly grasp the problems existing in Kant’s conscience thought,and then interpret it from a continuous and complete perspective.By combing the conscience thoughts in Kant’s public publications as the main line,and digging and expounding the conscience thoughts in Kant’s four lectures as the auxiliary line,we can summarize the turn of Kant’s conscience thought in development,Kant’s different definitions of conscience,and three difficult problems that need to be solved urgently in his conscience thought,namely the nature,functions and purposes of conscience.Kant’s conscience thought has undergone an essential change: in the pre-critical period,Kant gave moral feelings a very important position,and discussed an feeling conscience based on moral feelings;In the critical period,conscience completely got rid of the empirical connotation based on moral feelings and formed the rational nature.There are still eight definitions of conscience in Kant’s critical period.Solving contradictions between definitions can reveal the nature of conscience and demonstrate the unity of Kant’s conscience thought.The exploration of the nature of conscience is the primary work to clarify Kant’s conscience thought.Although Kant’s different definitions of conscience are inconsistent on the surface,they are actually integrable.In Kant’s view,conscience is a moral predisposition and a kind of self-consciousness,which has a subjective sensibility and can judge motivations and reason with the force of law.The nature of conscience is the pure practical reason of self-judgment rather than the moral feeling.The predisposition,instinct and consciousness can be unified without contradiction in the concept of conscience.As a rational ability,conscience possesses the authority of the legislator,the meticulousness of the law enforcer and the justice of the judge,so it can simultaneously have the functions of warning,prosecuting and adjudicating.Moreover,the judgment of conscience is different from the judgment of common practical reason,practical understanding and subjectively practical reason,its trial activities can affect moral feelings which are closely related to and essentially different from it,thus inspiring people to fulfill their moral duty and realize everything required by moral laws.In this sense,conscience has an indirect motivational function.The purpose of conscience needs to be revealed from the dual dimensions of morality and religion.By discussing the divine transcendence of conscience,Kant completed the revolution in the field of theology and in the way of moral thinking.First of all,as an inner court,conscience must presupposition a scrutinizer of hearts to guarantee the justice and power of its moral imputation.At the same time,conscience provides the necessity for the existence of the scrutinizer of hearts,and endows him with moral meanings and functions.Secondly,Kant elaborated a moral theodicy with pure moral intention as the core,and constructed a rational faith guided by conscience to replace the revelation faith,thus realizing the revolution in the field of theology.This guiding effect of conscience is achieved through the formal conscientiousness(truthfulness)and the material conscientiousness(caution).Finally,the purpose of conscience is not to construct rational faith or rational religion,but to reshape people’s moral subject status and promote people’s moral perfection.Kant used the rational faith established by conscience as a means to guide the revolution in the way of moral thinking,so as to regain the nobleness of human nature and dignity of personality.Kant’s conscience thought not only transcends the traditional conscience thought,but also has important enlightenment for later generations to discuss conscience issues and multiple inspirations for contemporary moral construction.First of all,the unique thought quality of conscience discussed by Kant makes people’s moral subject status really established,which is the fundamental point that Kant’s conscience thought surpasses traditional conscience thoughts.Secondly,by commenting on Fichte,Hegel,Schopenhauer and Mou Zongsan’s discussions of Kant’s conscience,we can reveal more deeply that Kant’s conscience is not a divided and ununified concept,nor is it a formal and empty thought,nor is it a dichotomous relationship with moral laws.Finally,from the aspects of establishing moral self-discipline,promoting moral practice,cultivating the moral faith and cultivating perfect personality,Kant’s conscience thought has unique realistic enlightenment value.