Good afternoon people! I am very glad to be able to be here with you today. Talking about a topic that particularly pleases me.
Which is to talk about Kant and his work. Today's talk is centered on a little book that is relatively very small, which is this one: "The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals". That.
. . we could say, is like a short summary of Kant's work, which is much broader than just this book.
Kant wrote several books, much more voluminous than this one. And. .
. as it deals with several thoughts, with several reasonings, diffused in this work. And explained in a way that for many people, it sounds rather difficult to understand.
Kant was a scholar. An academic. He wrote in a language well suited to the University.
And this language sometimes scares people who are not used to it. And at a given moment, towards the end of his life, he ended up writing, as a short summary, in which here he expresses the synthesis of his thought. And it is a little about this, this synthesis of Kant's thought, that we are going to try to talk about today.
And throughout the presentation, you will understand why we place emphasis on New Acropolis on this study. As Tainara said at the beginning, this is actually one of the topics that we study in our philosophy course. Kant was a very cheerful person.
Sometimes some people have a rather taciturn image of him. Perhaps because of the density, complexity of the way he wrote. But reading accounts of people who lived with Kant, they say of him, that he was a very good-humored person.
He was a professor at the University where he was born. In fact, it is a curiosity that they tell, that Kant would have been born and lived his whole life in the same city, without ever leaving there. He was born in a small town called Königsberg.
And it was there that Kant was born, lived, wrote, taught his classes at the University, where he went every day in a very methodical way. They say that Kant was a very curious figure and that he had such a disciplined and organized life routine , and these anecdotes tell about him that people even set their clocks when he passed on the street. Because he just passed at exactly the same times every day.
And everyone knew Kant's routine perfectly well, because it was the same routine every day. There were a number of habbits that he cultivated, such as eating only once a day. His only meal was dinner.
It was the time when he would meet with his friends to talk. And they say these meetings were disputed, because everyone wanted to talk to him. The classes he taught at the University count, which sometimes had the presence of many hundreds of students.
And there was a dispute over the places closest to him. They were big rooms . People arrived up to an hour earlier, to guarantee a spot closer to him, to be able to be closer to Kant.
So , throughout his life, he won a great deal of sympathy from his students, from his disciples at the University, and from many other people who were able to live with him. The accounts that we have of him are of a kind, very organized, methodical, disciplined man, who maintained a discipline of life throughout his life. An order, a high mastery, a control over his own emotions, that made him loved by many people.
He led a life devoted to studies, devoted to his art of teaching at the University, as if that were a priesthood. He preferred this lifestyle. And he spent 80 years living like that, from 1724 to 1804.
Eighty years of life devoted to a very disciplined and orderly life. Kant's work is divided into some periods in which we will notice changes in his thinking. We could say that it was the construction of a way of seeing things.
And that's what I'm going to try to show today, especially the final phase , which is what will be expressed in this little book, which has a title that sometimes doesn't help much. Most people, when they see the title of the work, are already a little scared. The book is called "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals".
This looks strange. It doesn't say much to most people. And I would like to start there.
Let's try to understand what Kant meant by that title. "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals". Kant's proposal was to seek something that for him had a supreme value.
Kant wanted to discover something. He wanted to discover what the supreme principle of human morality was. Let's try to understand a little of this thought We have laws that order the physical world and everyone can understand this very easily.
There is a law that is easy for us to see. If you drop any object, it falls and this is called an effect of the law of gravity. a man who at a given moment say, that an apple fell on his head.
And from that event, he formulated this law which is gravitational. And this was something that was in Kant's mind. If we have this in the physical world , it is regulated by legislation that makes things what they are, according to these superior principles.
We can put the laws that way. They are superior principles that regulate the physical world in which we live. Any object, when Any phenomenon, any event that happens, happens because there is a principle, there is a rule, there is a law that regulates it.
A ray of sunlight that enters through the window, a wind that blows. The physiological phenomena that happen inside our body. All things are regulated by norms, by laws.
What regulates custom, behavior, human morality? Is it simply a social norm? It would be something that people at a given moment, sat down and came to the conclusion that it was better this way or another way.
Is this purely the result of a. . .
of a human feeling, of a human will that it be so and not otherwise. I don't know if you understand me, but what he wanted to know is if, in the same way that the physical world is regulated by physical laws, if there would be an equivalent and we could unravel it. A regulated world in this case too, at the human level or that of rational beings, regulated by moral laws.
Having explained that, let's try to understand the meaning of the title "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals". The word 'custom' in this case has a simple meaning. 'Morals' and 'ethics' are two words that come from the Greek and Latin 'ethos' and 'mores'.
'Ethos' from the Greek, ends up generating the word 'ethics' and 'mores' from Latin, will end up generating the word 'moral'. At the origin of these two civilizations, that is, the Greek and the Roman, they had a single meaning: customs. So when Kant uses the word 'customs' here, he is referring to ethics or morality, because at the origin the meaning is the same: customs.
What is it that underlies human morality. What is the basis of human customs. And he already starts from a principle, that there is a non-physical foundation.
See the laws that make this happen, [sound of a book falling] even though the phenomenon itself is perceptible, that is, objects are attracted by the force of gravity, which bodies exert on each other. Although this phenomenon is easily observable, the law that regulates this process is not visible to our eyes, right? And it took millennia so that one day a man, observing this, did not simply think , as most of us think, that this phenomenon exists .
But that he wanted to understand what is behind this phenomenon . And what he discovered is that there is a law that regulates this phenomenon: the Law of Gravity. And that this law is not visible to the eye.
She is transcendent in a sense. She is metaphysics. "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals.
" What is the foundation of this metaphysics of morals? The legislation governing human morality. And what he proposes in his work is to discover what it is.
And we could change the title a little bit, and the title could. . .
it could be like this: "What is the foundation of the metaphysics of morals? " Understood? And, from the title, reading this way, we will already understand that what Kant seeks in his work is to show us that human morality is governed, not by a mere agreement that people have at a given moment, established between yes.
So it's ethics, morality, the laws that govern human behavior. As often as this happens. And in fact, the legislators sit down and they are going to establish norms, they are going to establish laws.
Rules that will govern society. But as much as this actually occurs, there would be a base not visible, not observable like this, in such a simple way, which is in a higher dimension. In other words, metaphysics.
As well as the laws that will govern the entire physical world are found. This thought by Kant , as uninteresting as it may seem to many people , for a philosopher it is extremely interesting, and we will try to show why. How important is it to understand things this way?
In his book, this one, he starts with a very simple reasoning. He will make a statement and say the following: "Nothing can be said to be essentially good except goodwill. " And when he says that, he's going to use a series of examples to try to illustrate this idea.
Let me read it verbatim. He says it like this: "Neither in this world nor out of it, nothing is possible to think that can be considered as good, without limitation, except one thing: the good will. " And then, from the examples he cites, we will understand what he means by this.
When a person makes use of any object, let's suppose a knife. I have a knife and I can use it in the kitchen to cut food and then cook it. This knife, is it good?
Or is she bad? You can see that this kind of consideration you cannot make about the object, the knife. Because we well know that good or bad, it is the will of those who make use of it.
Then we understand his thinking. Anything, says Kant, has the same value. All things!
If you have a person who is very intelligent, who is very cunning , and that person is a bad person and he makes use of that cunning. Everyone here must like as I do, watching those Hollywood movies that have a bad guy and a good guy. And sometimes, the bad guy is an extremely smart, Mission Impossible type.
Have you seen? And then there's that guy who's brilliant. Who manages to set up a situation where you think like this: "No.
. . this one is now difficult for the guy to find a way out.
" And then, even more brilliant, he finds the way out. Well. .
. is this intelligence good? or is it bad?
It depends! It depends on who is using it. Kant will say, "Nothing can be said to be essentially good except the good will.
" All other things whether material objects, whether human emotions or those virtues which are intangible and immaterial things, but which will result in an effect when applied; all these things are going to have a relative value. It depends on how the person is using it. If the person who is making use of this tool, and we will interchangeably, call all these things tools.
Right? The knife is a tool, intelligence is a tool. If the person who is making use of it makes use of it with a good will, that is, a will oriented towards the good, with a good intention, then this will have a positive value.
And will add to that person, because it will generate a good result. Now, if that person uses the same tool with the wrong intention, then it will be negative. So what is it worth in the end?
Question. The intention. The goodwill.
It is the intention of those who use the tool that, in fact, will say it all. Is the usage good or not? And then, Kant asks a little question: "What in the human being leads to good will?
" What will make a human being, one way or another? What will it say in the human being, what is the intention that goes in this direction or that direction? And then he's going to put us in, and Kant is brilliant at that.
This ability to analyze things and come to an accurate conclusion. He will say the following: "When we act, when we do whatever it is, our action will always have a motivation. It is hidden.
It is not visible. We do what we do for a motivation that is within It's in our head, it's in our heart. For example, if I'm going to eat, there was a motivation that led me to eat, right?
Hunger! Hunger is invisible, but it generated in us a motivation to eat And likewise, anything else I decide to do with my life. I'm going to move to another city; I'm going to get a job in that field; I'm going to take a course.
. . whatever!
I'm going to date someone. It doesn't matter what it is . this motivation, which led me to do this.
Kant will say that we could analyze all of them and arrive at those that exist of only two types. There is an infinite that I could speak of motivations, of the most varied types within us that lead us to the our behavior, our action, to do whatever we decide to do . zer that it exists of two types.
There is a type of motivation that Kant will say is very much related to our instincts, to our needs, as a reaction to the environment. That is, certain events happened and as a consequence of that, I decide to act in a certain way. So, there's a whole set of elements that are going to cause this reaction to arise in us , right?
A reaction that is based on our needs, our instincts, impulses, passions, desires. Or simply, reactions to external events. OK?
But not all reactions or actions are of this type. There is another kind of human actions that are not regulated by this kind of thing. The human being does not do what he always does, just because of a personal interest.
He doesn't do what he always does, just because it's his personal wish; because it's pleasant, because it's pleasurable, because it's interesting. Not just for these things. Not just as a reaction to what happened outside, to what someone or someone else did.
Sometimes people, we, do things because of values. Because of other elements that are within us. So two types.
And then Kant will say that these things, these feelings that lead us to these impulses, he will say that they are like mandates. They are like imperatives, as in the verb conjugation. When you conjugate the verb in the imperative, it becomes an order, doesn't it?
So, within us the impulse, it in practice, sounds like an order that leads us 'to'. That takes us, that forces us. If I'm hungry, I feel it as a mandate from my body saying "eat!
". And I go and how. And various other types of impulses that we will have and that will lead us to certain behaviors will have a similar nature.
They are mandates that oblige us to action. Doing things in a certain way. So, he will say that there would be two of these types, as I have already said.
There would be one of them that he will say 'hypothetical' and the other type that he will call 'categorical'. So he will call these imperatives, Mandates that compel action. There would then be hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives.
The hypothetical imperatives are the ones that move us every day, most of the time. I move from place to place because I have to work, because I have to exercise, because I have to eat, because I have to meet with my friends. They are a variety of movements that we make from impulses.
Their origin is related to these very needs of our life, of our existence. But there would be this second category of mandate, of imperative that orders us, not because of these mere needs, but because, we realize that this is an obligation. And this then, in us, is given as a feeling of duty.
There would be the origin of morality, in Kant's view. When we get there, Kant will say: "Look. .
. in ordinary life it is not very difficult to realize that most of us have these feelings that compel us to act in a certain way out of duty, and not because I will . gain something from it.
" In other words, the fact that I am honest or that I save a person's life or that I maintain a certain level of discipline that sometimes will require sacrifice, will require a series of things that are not exactly easy and simple. . And most of us, everybody in fact, know this very well, that there are a lot of things that we're going to have to do that aren't easy, that aren't simple.
Which will involve a great level of personal sacrifice. But we feel it as a duty. Kant will say that there would be the categorical imperative.
But only, what he will seek is to achieve this in a superior transcendent sphere . And hence the meaning of what he is saying: "Fundamentals of the metaphysics of morals. " It is not enough for me to feel it as an obligation, as most of us do, because we were taught from childhood through our upbringing as a moral duty.
A comparison that I could make of the distinction between one view and the other to be a contrast, is the following. We have a technological knowledge. A knowledge that allowed us to build all these things that today are very beneficial for our society.
We have cell phones, which have become an addiction for most, computers, satellites, vehicles, a series of artifacts that they have brought into our lives. Benefits that most of us will agree are pretty good. But to achieve this, it was not enough for someone to have this perception, that there is a law that works and that causes things to fall or phenomena to happen.
Someone had to do some research. Investigate to the point of knowing precisely and exactly what was behind. How does this law operate from the point of view of mathematics and physics and formulate it exactly in such a way that from this knowledge, it became possible to build these little machines.
The development of our civilization has become possible. In the same way in Kant's view, if we want to constitute morality in a way that sounds like this advanced technology, which we have today from a material point of view, which makes life much simpler and easier in this respect At least if it's faster for you to travel it's easier for you to communicate. Think that in the same way, I could have knowledge that would allow me to reach the same degree of development, only from a human point of view.
Not technological, but human. I can know the legislation that makes the world of physics what it is. And because I know this legislation, not I, but the researchers, the scientists, the technicians, because this knowledge exists in our humanity, it becomes possible to build this type of technology.
It becomes possible to manufacture all these things that make life easier. Our society today suffers gravely from a moral point of view. You live in a city where very bad things happen.
Not just here, but in the rest of the country. Then I talk about it, for being the capital of the country. And it is not difficult for us to perceive the lack of this deeper feeling of morale.
What Kant seeks in his work is to show us that morality is not merely an agreement between parties. It's not something that our parents taught us, simply because it makes it easier to live that way. What Kant tries to show us is that morality, that ethics, that human values have a transcendent, metaphysical foundation, just like everything else that governs our lives.
Our body works because there are a whole host of laws operating within it. Blood flow , burning, metabolism, all these things happen because there is legislation in place. The same thing would apply in a moral sphere, that is, of human behavior.
It's not just a deal that people made and that's why they came to the conclusion that it was better that way than that. It's not because people sat down and said, "Look. " Sometimes this is put forward as an explanation for the origin of laws, for the origin of the rules that are instituted in the state.
People sat down and said to each other, "Look, I'm going to do it this way and so are you , because then I win and you win. " Isn't that more or less the idea? The thought of why laws are established.
Because if everyone did what they wanted, everyone would be harmed. And as this would not be beneficial to anyone, we establish a contract. I do it this way and you do it this way and everyone wins.
But within this vision this is not the idea. That's not the idea that it's just a human convention. It is a matter of natural legislation and that is what Kant will try to show us.
That human behavior is grounded in a law that governs that behavior. It is not very difficult for people to come to the conclusion that if the entire universe, if the entire physical world is governed by rules, by mathematical and physical laws; It's not too hard to imagine that this inner world of ours should be governed by the same values. And this is what Kant will try to show.
And he says that it is not very difficult for us to perceive the validity of this idea, analyzing some issues such as, for example, that of human reason. If the purpose of human existence were merely happiness, joy, self-contentment, pleasures and all these things, human intelligence would not make sense. The reason would not make sense.
Why? Because for that, instincts would suffice. We are in an evolutionary process.
It would not make sense that nature would have taken this step and developed this capacity in the human being, if she were only at the service of satisfying human instincts. No! It doesn't make sense.
There has to be another reason. And Kant will say that there has to be a transcendent reason for human existence. And he says that reason would be enough.
Strong enough to make us realize that. Human reason would be able to lead us to the perception that we are governed by a law that must coordinate us, that must guide us. And he's going to say that's the categorical imperative.
This legislation is expressed as a categorical imperative. And a human will that reaches that perception and that capacity, it would govern itself. The human being who achieved this vision, to realize that we are governed by these values, that person would own himself.
He would have autonomy of will, as he often says in his work. And autonomy of will would be the key to human freedom. A human being who owns himself, who has autonomy over himself, who governs himself, would be a free person.
In his work, freedom goes hand in hand with strict obedience to the law. Within us is a simple reasoning. Within us there are many things operating, many elements.
We have, as I said at the beginning of the talk, many impulses, many interests that lead us to a variety of things. But what we will realize is that many of these impulses, if at a given moment they interest me and meet my interest and make me like them, at another moment they will make me feel displeased and even regretful. I'm sure this is a common thing in everyone's life and not just mine, which from time to time we do things and then regret doing it.
If the one who now regrets what he did, regrets it, because the one back there who had made the decision is as if he wasn't the same. Or doesn't it look like that to you? Look.
. . if I now think that what I did back there is not correct, then the one back there who had made that decision is like it wasn't me.
So, this impulse that was born in me and that led me to this, it 's as if it did n't originate in myself, because how can I have done something myself and now I don't agree with what I decided before? That which changes from one moment to the next , which at a given moment is one thing and at another moment is another, is what Kant will call the hypothetical imperative; that regulates our life by the necessity caused by the moments, by the daily life, by hunger, by all these things and by all the impulses that regulate our life. But there is within us a will that operates, and when it imposes itself, there are no regrets.
There's no going back and thinking, "I shouldn't have done it that way. " Why? Because it is regulated by a law that is not something that changes overnight.
What I tried to show doesn't change overnight. It's always the same thing. There is a velocity and this is maintained with an acceleration.
There is an acceleration in the Law of Gravity and you will not have one time, another time , unless the size of the body changes. But there too, the law already provides for that. In the same way, when a human being acts regulated by this internal norm that he through reason was able to perceive, therefore, because it is a law and because of our reason, we are able to perceive it.
And if my action is regulated through it, there is no change. And if I act like that at the moment, at another moment it will be the same. There's no way I can change my mind.
Why? Because what acted there was reason, intelligence which is what should, in Kant's view, regulate our lives. In the same way that we are regulated by the laws of physics, nobody goes around jumping off buildings, because I know that there is a Law of Gravity and I have to obey it.
Nobody goes around putting their hand in the fire, because I know fire burns. So we obey these laws, because we have a strict view of the effect of their meaning. In the same way, once I am aware of this type of regulation, that is, of these mandates of reason, of categorical imperatives, there would be no way for me not to know what I have to do or how I should do it.
And therefore, there would be no change of position. We can continue to be influenced by all the elements that surround us. We can continue to be influenced all the time by a universe of temptations, as we sometimes say, that will try to take us away from our intention.
But knowing this, we will know exactly what we have to do. And that , in the end, is what we have to do. To impose this as a will within us, and reason to regulate that will.
There, Kant says is freedom. True freedom in Kant's view is the will regulated by this norm , which is what it itself is capable of finding. Kant establishes a formula that he says is a key, which can allow us to find it within ourselves.
He says that this key would be: "act as if the maxim of your action could become a universal law of nature. Repeating: "act as if the maxim of your action could become a universal law of nature. what did he mean with this?
That if I have an impulse to act and do whatever it is; if, in seeking to do this, I looked within myself and thought: " What I intend to do now, what I am doing, could anyone else do it? Is this something that would be valid for any being ? Or rather, could you imagine that human civilization, that human society, could be constituted on top of this behavior?
" understand? If what I am going to do now is something that has such validity that a society constituted in this way would be well constituted; if people in general behaving this way would do well, then it has value. It is because this is correct.
So I can act like this. Now if by acting or having an intention to act, what I think is valid in my case? I don't know if you've heard that phrase: "do as I say, but don't do as I do".
Of course, it's not usually that explicit. Most people don't talk that way. But the fact is, when analyzing within yourself and you come to the conclusion that you can but the other cannot, then don't do it, because you don't agree with this rule.
To this moral law that should govern human behavior. Well folks, I didn't want to go on much further. In a very synthetic, very simple way, this is more or less what I wanted to talk about today.
This is more or less what Kant shows us in his work. Of course, in his book and in his work as a whole, we will find many other elements that I did not address in this lecture. But in a synthetic way these are the ideas that Kant tries to show us.
He tries to make us see that the intelligence that we possess, that human reason, in the same way that it led us to the development of all this knowledge that we have achieved throughout history, should also lead us to the knowledge of this law that must govern the human behavior. By achieving this, by being able through reason to understand this metaphysical origin, using the word he used in the title of his book, this metaphysical origin of human morality, of human custom; if we were able to do that maybe we would be able to develop a new kind of civilization. In the same way that we have at the popular level a very big benefit, with the technological development that we have achieved in our society.
And you see, not all people have to have this knowledge. I imagine most of you don't know how our machines actually work. Sometimes we barely manage to operate them.
Or is it not so? You know how to drive a car, but if it breaks down, you have no idea how to fix it or what the logic behind it is. And so!
That is, there are people who have this understanding, but the benefit of this goes to everyone. What Kant is proposing, What he seeks, is to make we were able to understand These ideas. The metaphysical origin of human behavior and morality.
And if for most people This is tremendously difficult, it's because There is philosophy, Although in behavior It can be simple. Sometimes the meanders, the necessary reasoning refinements are very similar to what We will find in the sciences in a general way. Here, who has studied Calculation 1, 2 and 3 at the University and others similar materials, You will know that it is not really that simple You understand mathematics somewhat more advanced.
But what benefit We could have, If there was this kind of understanding among humans? To reach understanding legislation governing The human life. What Kant tries to show with all his peculiar To explain, it is not so complex.
It is in reality, simple. Only by way of curiosity, Much than astronomy modern today is based, a part of this modern astronomy is based in works developed by Kant. And he was a philosopher.
He worked that. His laboratory, It was his head. Human reason can make us Let us be able to understand ideas that sometimes, They are very subtle and meet in a field, in a sphere that, There is no better word to define than this: in a metaphysical sphere.
Such are the laws. The genius of a person is necessary that when observing the phenomenon, do not happy only to realize that the phenomenon exists. He goes in search of understanding than the phenomenon governs.
What makes the phenomenon happen. Which is math that is involved. And by understanding this mathematics, See the result this generates in our society.
Develops a whole large amount of knowledge and technologies, from Small discoveries. Small, Because sometimes it is a formula. See this formula that Einstein has developed.
A formula. E = mc². What Revolution that this caused throughout human technology.
Now What Kant is trying to make us see, is that the same thing would happen in this moral sphere. There are ideas on what Sometimes we will realize that. Kant will call this a practical morality.
We will realize in human behavior And that we could say, That this is a matter of common sense. Act like this and not otherwise. But behind it, Kant will tell us: "There is a law 0: 46: 10,940.
0: 46: 12,720 that governs. It is a principle. 0: 46: 13.
380. 0: 46: 15. 380 The supreme principle 0: 46: 15,480.
0: 46: 16,600 of morality. " Using exactly the words he uses. And he says the principle Supreme Morality is in autonomy of the human will.
I. e, the human will regulates itself from of perception of law that must govern our behavior. That's it.
