A Modest Proposal By Imanuel Kant Essay

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In Imanuel Kant’s, “What is Enlightenment” he opens his essay with the phrase, “man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.” This phrase is referring to man’s dependency on others to make decisions for him. Mankind is not courageous enough to take their own responsibility for their own actions or decisions, so they rely on other people to do it for them. Failure is what makes people scared of making their own decisions, and when they do make a mistake it is easier to have someone to blame it on. Having others do and think for you requires no effort, and more times than not these “guardians” of one’s life do not want to let go of their control. Kant focuses on the phrase, “sapere aude!” This phrase means, “have courage to use your own freedom”, …show more content…

In this “proposal”, Swift is suggesting something most people could not even imagine. Considering the “present distress of the kingdom”, his solution is to take the poor children of Ireland and nurse them for a year to fatten them up for the source of selling them for food. He is signifying that these children are a burden to their parents and country, and by doing this in turn they would become beneficial. By using the form of satire he goes into detail of the calculations on how many babies they would actually have at the end of the year by counting for the ones that would unexpectedly die. When talking about the actually cannibalism he says, “young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food; whether stewed, roasted, baked or broiled.” Also, Swift refers to the male babies and breeding in comparison to the breeding of sheep. Of course, all of this was sarcastic and exaggerated. Swift’s purpose was to ridicule the people it would benefit and to look for compassion for these poor struggling people. His “proposal” was indeed to look at the real struggle of famine and