Immanuel Kant Practical reason Each human progress is

Immanuel Kant: Practical reason

Each human progress is the result of human fight against Nature, so everyone wants to find something useful for his own life: it can be named «UTILITARIANISM» Socrate encourages to fight against the Animal Nature and rely upon the human one (this is a difference in the way of expressing the idea; what Kant just calls Nature for Socrate is the Animal Nature) Kant asserts to fight against the Nature whereas Socrate encourages to follow the human nature and to deny the animal one, since we are endowed with intellect, differently from animals.

NOUMENON: is the Essence, something we can’t ever know, we can’t ever know the thing in itself, but we can see it as it appears to us (PHENOMENON) • E. g. Brightness and sun we can’t see the light, but the brightness and its effects.

We can percipe something noumenic in ourselves Human beings have something which is above nature: MORAL BEHAVIOUR If we were completely made of natural mechanisms, we would always not unavoidably follow our desires: there is something inside of us above Nature. Moral law is stronger than mechanical Nature Since we can choose to act morally (to behave in a way no one could reproach), in human beings there is something SUPERNATURAL

E. g. we can collect money for a foundrising and be willing to steal them for a personal need or interest, but still decide not to do it just for a moral reason, putting aside every personal aim. Something noumenical is in our inner world vs categories that show us a mechanical nature (cause effects) Still we can’t assert that something noumenic is inside of us, but we can percipe it.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE: it’s a command to us to exercise our wills in a particular way, not to perform some action or other. It is categorical in virtue of applying to us unconditionally, or simply because we possesses rational wills, without reference to any personal aim. E. g. «Freedom of acting for (universal) is personal aim» HYPOTHETICAL IMPERATIVE: A hypothetical imperative is a command that also applies to us in virtue of our having a rational will, but not simply in virtue of this. It requires us to exercise our wills in a certain way given we have antecedently willed an end; it’s a command in a conditional form, but not any command in this form counts as a hypothetical imperative in Kant's sense. E. g. ‘if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!’ is a conditional command. But the antecedent conditions under which the command ‘clap your hands’ applies to you does not posit any end that you will, but consists rather of emotional and cognitive states you may or may not be in. Maria Chiara Matarese, Federica Biscardi, Simona Barbato, Aurora Moffa, Francesca di Stefano e Rosanna Falcone, IIA