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Explain the conditions of Kant for Moral Law? NAS. Kant states the following conditions for Moral Law: A. For a rule to me a moral rule, it must prescribe to us categorically and not hypothetically. A moral rule prescribes what we ought to do without reference to any purpose or consequences. A hypothetical prescription or imperative only tells us what we ought to do If we wish to achieve certain code ends.
So naturally, If we did not seek these ends, it will lose prescriptive force upon the ends a person seeks. Thus a moral rule is not contingent upon ends. Therefore a moral rule must prescribe to us Independently of our ends, that is categorical. B, For a rule Is moral rule, it must be consistent, universalism. Thus, such a rule can be prescribed as a guide to everyone’s conduct without involving a self-contradiction. Such a rule has a general applicability almost without exception.
If any exception at all Is to be made, then it is to be made exceptionally. The possibility of an exception should be extremely remotest. C. For a rule to be a moral rule, it must be such that, if all men were to follow it, they should treat each other as ends In themselves and never as means only. D. For a rule to be a moral rule, it must be a capable of being self- imposed by the will of each person when he is universally legislating.
His argument for the existence of God follows: We all have a sense of innate moral awareness – from this we are under obligation to be virtuous An ‘average’ level of virtue Is not enough. We are obliged to aim for the highest standard possible True virtue should be rewarded with happiness There is an ideal state where human virtue and happiness are united – this Kant called the ‘ Sum Bonus’ Moral statements are prescriptive -?? ‘ought’ Implies ‘can’ Humans can achieve virtue In a bedtime but it is beyond us to ensure we are rewarded with happiness.
Therefore there must be a God who has the power to ensure that virtue and happiness coincide In an afterlife. Moral qualities exist as separate entities. We are contingent and flawed beings and cannot achieve sum bonus (HIGHEST MORAL GOOD) Sum bonus must be achievable Morally necessary to postulate God’s existence.
Thus, in the Kristin deer practices Overturn (Critique of Practical Reason) (1788), he proposed a “Table of the Categories of Freedom in Relation to the Concepts of Good and Evil,” using the familiar logical distinctions as the basis for a catalog of synthetic a priori Judgments that have bearing on the evaluation of human action, and declared that only two things inspire nine awe: “Deer bestir Hummel ;beer Mir undo dads moralistic Gusset in Mir” (“the starry sky above and the moral law within”). Kant used ordinary moral notions as the foundation for a derivation of this moral law in his Grueling cur Metaphysic deer Sixteen (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals) (1785). Morality and Peace: Cant’s interest in moral matters was not exclusively theoretical. In Die Metaphysic deer Sixteen(Metaphysics of Morals) (1797) he worked out the practical application of the categorical imperative in some detail, deriving a fairly comprehensive catalog of pacific rules for the governance of social and personal morality.