Kant Rant

While I understand what Kant is attempting to do with his philosophy, to create a set of rules that one should always follow, no matter the circumstance, I feel like this implies a black and white nature of morality, while we live in a world of shades of gray. Kant’s philosophy seems to be intended for a different world, his ‘kingdom of ends’ could not logically exist in this world, because I believe that people are more morally controlled by their consciences than their duty. Like Plato’s hierarchy of the state, the kingdom of ends is an impossible dream in which the citizens robotically follow the categorical imperative. However I believe that every real individual is far too complex to blindly follow their duty and duty alone, and will naturally deviate from Kant’s plan to follow their emotions/passions in certain times in their lives. Kant’s version of deontological ethics seems the most removed from true humanity, forgetting that people are emotional and creative beings who would not be satisfied just following their duty.

Kant’s dismissal of consequences also bothers me, as it assumes that the outcome of an action has not value as long as the action in itself was good. We have brought up the axe murderer example more times than I can count, but I still think that it shows exactly the problem of Kant’s strict rules. To tell the truth to a murderer just because lying is wrong goes against a person’s instinct, Kant is telling his students that they must go against every fiber of their being and tell the truth to this psycho killer, when they are all too aware of the horrific outcome. This example and those similar has lowered my opinion of Kant’s philosophy, as to completely disregard the consequences of one’s actions while making moral choices is pretty much absurd.

Kant believes that because we cannot know the future outcomes of our actions, we should not base our actions on supposed ‘good’ results, however I disagree. While humans are not precognitive, we do learn through our past experiences, and like Aristotle said, this phronesis is able to help guide us through our moral actions. We can look at examples of the past and see how they turned out, either positively or negatively, and then apply them to situations in our future. Kant doesn't address our ability to do so, because once again negates all weight of the consequences of our actions. I believe that looking at each situation as a unique case, and then deciding on a moral choice from there, as they do in Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism, is a more natural way to go about making ethical decisions.

This post has basically been me hating on Kant, so maybe there’s something I’m not getting about his philosophy. Is it supposed to be purely theoretical, not applied? How did he reach these conclusions if he’s been around other people and surely understands human emotions and rationale? I feel as if though while writing this, Kant disregarded all he had learned about people and simply stated that to be happy we must follow maxims at all times, even if we are 99% sure that an outcome will be disastrous.