Kant
Class 14.1 Kant’s Categorical Imperative
This week we will continue our turn toward considering whether you have any obligations towards other people who might be out there trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, by reading a little bit from Immanuel Kant, whose moral theory is one of the most common sources of inspiration for people who think that consequentialism is wrong.
Last year Philosophy Twitter became obsessed with “hot Kant”, this digitally de-aged painting of Kant.
We’re going to read about half of Kant’s most famous and influential piece of writing about ethics, which introduces the core of his ideas, which is called the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant is a famously difficult writer to read, and he uses a lot of vocabulary that he introduces in some of his other philosophical writings. But I think that you will be able to get some of the gist of his main ideas, and then we will fill out the picture a little bit in class.
We’ll read pages 1-26 of the Groundwork, which covers Kant’s preface, part 1 of the main text, and the first half or so of part 2 of the main text. This will cover most of the most-discussed issues that Kant covers in the book.
Oh - and don’t click on the AI-reanimated video of Kant singing in the tweet below unless you are prepared to be traumatized.