Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Kant and Reason
According to Kant, nothing is wholly good because they can always be attached to something bad or be misused for bad. Be it mental talents, character or gifts of good fortune they, in themselves, are not good. The only thing that can be called good is good will. Good will is not good because of what it achieves, although it can produce results of good. good will is good by virtue of its existence, the sole purpose to produce good. Whether it produces that good or not, it in itself is good. Kant says that happiness is not a product of reason but rather reason actually reduces peoples happiness. Reason instead must help people to produce good will. Kant says that this will, produced through reason, "must be the supreme good and the condition of every other", including the desire of happiness. For the most part, I agree with Kant's viewpoint. However, his idea that reason reduces happiness does appeal to me. Instead, I believe that reason helps us find happiness due to the fact that we are being honest with ourselves when we use reason.
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(H1) I don't think everything is tainted by the possibility of being something bad, that would take the fun out of most things. I believe intentions are what separates something good from something bad, not that the thing itself is inherently bad because it may hold the possibility of being used as such.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jordan, but in a different way. Not only is it intentions, but some of the outcome factors in as well. For example, Hitler may have claimed that he had good intentions of rising his country out of a pit of despair. Does that make what he did, i.e. starting the Holocaust, good simply because he meant well? I feel that some of the outcome must be factored in to see the true good of any one thing.
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