Kant: Man is good just as it is bad
How did Kant think about religion? In this book, this answer is answered. The German philosopher puts morality, religion and even faith through the scrupulous analysis that carries the reason that Kant so committed to delimit. The book is divided into four major chapters, essays on the same topic that follow the same line of thought until its conclusion.
In the first chapter, Kant wonders if man is naturally good, or naturally bad. After elucidating a moment, he says that if it were only naturally good or naturally bad, there would not really be a reason so that it could also become in the other way, so he says that regarding evil or good, there is more talkof an inclination rather than a state of being immediate. Although there is a nature, an order in things, it is concluded that man has an inclination to the badly linked with the free will of the person. This is apparent, it is said, when the actions that are committed in the present are seen, and in the wild state, which is the most basic state of the human when it does not have the rules that guide it.
But it’s not just great evil and already. Kant divides them into three, fragility, perversion and a conscious decision to change the maxims of the natural order for those of evil.
In the second chapter, there is talk of how a morally good man can become, who follows duty because it is something that must be done without looking for other reasons, when man’s tendency or inclination is doing evil.
First, it is said that if we are asked to do something, either by a divine being or by natural duty, it is because we can do it. The order, or God, would not give us parameters that we could not continue, even if we have this inclination towards evil. Therefore, to say that the human can be morally pleasant to God is not an impossibility or something far -fetched.
From what I understood, people can be good because they know that there were other people who were good, so they can follow their example. I have even going back to the past, before "the fall", which implies an innocence prior to evil, man did not know freely chosen evil. The man was good, although from a moment now he has always had the stain of that "first sin".
Kant goes to say that all sanctifications, raising good people to a higher status, is not really a good idea. If we want to be good, but good people are seen as superhumanos … what hope in whether the human can have? It could happen by asking God to automatically be good, but things are not like that. There must be acts, decision and deliberation, it is not simply a divine light that falls and improves the individual automatically.
In this attempt to be a morally good person is when the Church is constituted, physically and spiritually. There are duties, laws that must be followed and things that must be done. And this ethical institution struggles to achieve it, for making the kingdom of God be reflected on earth. Iglesias there are many, says Kant, but deep down they all have the same belief and struggles to achieve good.
Finally, Kant touches the issue of ecclesial services. Things as rites of initiation, go to Mass and things like that, the philosopher puts aside. He says it is a way to replace doing real good actions with other things that try to find God’s grace easier. Thus, a baptism may be important with the community in which one lives and to accept a faith and way of life, but if there is God, this event does not have a great impact on the moral of the individual.
Man is morally defined by his free actions, what he wants and tries to do. Thus, a man who appears to do good things but has chosen to follow the maxims of evil will be bad, and a person who does bad actions but goes to Mass and fulfills all the rites that the "Church" has put will continue to be morally bad before God. People must do what the natural order dictates to them, and not submit to miracles or things outside the reason to be in a way or wait for a prize.
A moral that although it leans to evil, can reach good as long as it remains in the right path of duty that order has established in the world. It leaves any thing that does not fit in reason and raise things, separating them from the human, such as miracles and saints. And it also takes true importance to all those things that religion puts but are not truly linked to actions and morals. This is what Kant has written in this treaty of his.
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