comparative

Question 1

mill and kant

Answer 1

• Criticises Kant’s deontological law of universalisation but emphasis on collective
  Religion of humanity parallels KofE

kant 
-	Both stress autonomy, no heteronomy 
-	Both focus on the collective 
-	Emphasis on human rights – harm principle vs. no means to an end 
-	Secular ethics?
End = lone agent

Question 2

kant on A story

Answer 2

• Kant would not at all agree with Kierk’s understanding of A story
  o 1793 – religion within the limits of reason alone
  ♣ scripture is not to be taken as more than pictorial prompt – does not disclose moral truth/truth about relationship between divinity and reality with individual subject
  o we cannot know anything about reality of God – we must think there is such a thing for architechture of duty/value. But is a regulative ideal
  o just as we must postulate that we are free, despite realm of phenomenal suggesting that freedom is impossible e.g. gravity. Science cannot study free acts
  o but for respect of Achtung (moral law), we must be free to act otherwise
  we must assume freedom despite it being beyond theoretical grasp

Question 3

kant on suspension of ethical

Answer 3

• Can imagine suspension of the ethical re. K’s concept of duty i.e. times where truth-telling not being moral
• This may arise in times where one has a ‘superior telos essential to the structure of our humanity’ (106 - Mooney)
• ‘having faith in this ‘higher good’ is suspending one’s tendency to absolutise conventional moral conduct; but it is also readiness to accept ‘duty’ back on a new basis. After the teleological suspension, I keep my promise not just in accord with, but from duty. For both Kierkegaard and Kant, the moral and spiritual center is how I, as a particular, express myself through convention’ (107 – Mooney)

Question 4

kant and kierk on absolutes

Answer 4

• whilst they have different absolutes, their respective absolutes are linked to human dependence on them

Question 5

kant on universal morality and external source

Answer 5

• There is no divine on the outside – that would be heteronomy
• Universal for K is only the fact that every human is rational
• No command from outside, all about moral law within exercised by will
• Universal as all humans have it, but still from within
  But not connected to extrinsic and morally binding source (which is the case for Kierkegaard – individual is summoned to call from beyond that shatters comfort of universal)