Kant's reasoning with respect to free will and moral law
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One: Recount Kant's reasoning with respect to free will and moral law. For Kant, how is it possible for me to be individually autonomous only by living in accordance with universal imperatives of action?
Two: Recount Hegel's reasoning with respect to self-consciousness and ethics. For Hegel, how is it that my awareness of myself is conditioned by (or developed within the context of) my social existence?
Three: Recount Kierkegaard's reasoning with respect to the existential stages of individual existence. What are the stages? What characterizes each? How does one change / transform into the other(s)? And is any of them to be preferred over the other(s)?
Four: Recount Marx's theory of the alienation of labor. According to Marx, how is it that capitalism inevitably steals value from the working classes of society?
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Solution Summary
Kane's free will as well as Kierkegaard's reasoning with respect to the existential stages of individual existence are clearly summarized in this solution.
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Kant's reasoning with respect to free will and moral law:
Immanuel Kant reasons that moral law is based on standards of rationality known as categorical imperatives. These are what underlie that capacity to decide what is moral reasonably. Violating the categorical imperatives is therefore seen to immoral and irrational. It is these hypothetical imperatives that determine whether what we do is moral or not. Kant reasoned that a person cannot decide what is moral or not through empirical means but by using pure practical reasoning. This implies that reasoning without any influence or inference to any sort of experience is the one that determines whether a conduct is moral or not and it is this moral reason that is the categorical imperative and it is through this pure reason that morality is validated universally. This capacity to act from pure reason alone independent of any factors in the world is what constitutes the will of a person. According to Kant, a person is therefore viewed as a self conscious rational individual with free will to choose what they deem to be moral. Kant argued that people are moral based on intuition and this morality in effect implies that an individual is rational and rationality on the part of the person implies free will. This implies for morality to be upheld and maintained, free will must be maintained (Yu, 2009).
From Kant's ideas, it is possible for me to be individually autonomous only by living in accordance with universal imperatives of actions through pure reasoning in deciding what is moral or not and basis upon which I take moral responsibility. The capacity to act based on pure reasoning alone without influence from other external worldly factors or experience shows my will and would imply that I'm a rational and self actualizing being and this would enable me to be individually autonomous in moral reasoning (Yu, 2009).
Hegel's reasoning with respect to self-consciousness and ethics:
Hegel reasoned that self consciousness is in the ability of an individual to acknowledge and affirm that there ...
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