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Immanuel Kant's Mortality Analysis

1331 Words6 Pages

Sehrish Kodare
54714
Philosophy 208
Section 1

Nietzsche Critique on Kant’s Mortality
Enlightenment is a period which can be conveyed as emitting “light into the dark corners of mind”, according to Immanuel Kant (Perry, p.428). Prior to the period of enlightenment, the society was dictated by Christian authorities and their religious doctrines. However, during the period of enlightenment various areas of philosophy were questioned and critiqued by various philosophers among them was a German Philosopher named Immanuel Kant who questioned and analyzed philosophical fundaments through the power of reason. He termed “Sapere Aude!” which means “dare to know” as the motto of enlightenment (Kant, 1996, p.1). The main fields established by Kant through …show more content…

Friedrich Nietzsche a German philosopher was one of them. His style of writing looked like it did not question Kant directly at first look, but when one reads it further Nietzsche has critiqued the foundation of Kant’s theory of morality and faith in clear and concise paragraphs (Perry, p. 685). This paper highlights Immanuel Kant’s theory of reason to support the period of Enlightenment, which will be critiqued by Friedrich Nietzsche’s who would counter- enlightenment by challenging the foundations of Kant’s theory of reason through self- realization. As Nietzsche believes that intelligence is internalized resentment towards oneself, and reflects positivity, in reality, values of strength and laughter. According to me, Nietzsche’s arguments against Kantian universal reason stand strong with his ideology of will to …show more content…

He challenges the Kantian ideology of deontology and its connection with it actually being moral. He wanted to understand the origins of these morals and wanted to weaken the current human values and restyle the way morality is viewed. This led Nietzsche to his Genealogy of Morals which is divided into the noble morality that differentiates between good and bad and slave morality that differentiate between good and evil. He sides with noble morality since; it is an unconstrained affirmation of oneself as “good” and once this happens the rest is considered as bad. On the other hand, the slave morality was a reaction to the dominant noble morality, where it denounces its oppressors as “evil” and then declares oneself as well based on the choice of punishment taken (Nietzsche, 1994, p. 12-15). The slave morality led to qualities like altruism, selflessness, and duty. The reaction is attributed towards negative feelings like resentment, hatred, and introspection which creates a moral framework that is not in touch with itself (Nietzsche, 1994, p. 12-25). Moreover, through violence slave morality defeated noble morality and replaced them, for instance, the French revolution. Therefore, Nietzsche disagrees with Kant on categorical imperative and considers it cruel because it is a projection of

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