Kant-Morality and Freedom

Kant-Morality and Freedom

The complex theories and beliefs of Immanuel Kant are considered to be monumental in the world of philosophy. His ideals relating to that of transcendentalism, space and time, logic and reason, morality and autonomy have been used to build upon new ideas, as well as completely reject and reshape his rationale. In terms of Kant’s ideals of morality and freedom (autonomy), he felt that they went together and that you cannot ever really be free unless you are behaving morally. Overall, I feel Kant is correct in his argument and we are not actually “free”, or reach happiness until we are a person of high morale. The concept of morality can be explained in terms of a universal moral law, and the ability will in respect to such a law leads us to assume the freedom.
I feel it is first important to know in Kant’s eyes, we should not focus solely on the consequences of our actions but the intent behind our actions. Therefore, a failure of morality doesn’t necessarily mean you are immoral if the intent was good. For example, if you were a doctor and thought you were giving a patient a drug that would make them feel better, but it actually killed them because someone switched the labels, you aren’t immoral. Your conscious act was intending a good result, but bad came from it and did so out of your control. I would argue that until the doctor was aware of the outcome, he was free because his actions were moral. Once the doctor became aware of the consequences however, he may not feel free anymore, because to him, it could have been a lack of attention on his/her part.
Kant developed a specific moral imperative that he used to decide the morality of various maxims, or activities in the mind. Kant’s main point is that he defends his idea of the categorical imperative, and through this imperative he distinguished how human beings, unlike animals, are rational beings. A categorical imperative is an unconditional rule, therefore no matter what we may desire, we shouldn’t, for...