Help me understand Kant
Dear all,
I am new here and am very delighted to find the forum. I am a student of first grade of philosophy, so I need help to understand things which might be as clear as the Sun for you. Please bear with me. I was reading this text of Kant and I didn't understand it:
"I have, for example, made it my maxim to increase my wealth by any safe means. Now I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which has died and left no record of it... I therefore apply the maxim to the present case and ask whether it could indeed take the form of a law, and consequently whether I could through my maxim at the same time give such a law as this: that everyone may deny a deposit which no one can prove has been made. I at once become aware that such a principle, as a law, would annihilate itself since it would bring it about that there would be no deposits at all".
Can anyone help me understand this?
Best regards,
Mojtaba
I am new here and am very delighted to find the forum. I am a student of first grade of philosophy, so I need help to understand things which might be as clear as the Sun for you. Please bear with me. I was reading this text of Kant and I didn't understand it:
"I have, for example, made it my maxim to increase my wealth by any safe means. Now I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which has died and left no record of it... I therefore apply the maxim to the present case and ask whether it could indeed take the form of a law, and consequently whether I could through my maxim at the same time give such a law as this: that everyone may deny a deposit which no one can prove has been made. I at once become aware that such a principle, as a law, would annihilate itself since it would bring it about that there would be no deposits at all".
Can anyone help me understand this?
Best regards,
Mojtaba
Comments (2)
Kant is illustrating his categorical imperative by applying it to an example. It's also a [I]reductio ad absurdum[/I] which works in his favour.
Note how he takes something individualistic and turns it into something universal to see how it would pan out? That's the categorical imperative in a nut shell.
A more readily understandable example along the same lines might be if you found a wallet full of money lying on the ground, thought that you could get away with picking it up and keeping it for yourself, and you were motivated to do so because you want to get your hands on as much money as possible - in fact, you made that your goal in life.
Now consider, what if everyone thought like that?