Bertrand Russell - History of Western Philosophy - Kant and Hegel

I will start by simply summarising the chapters about Kant and Hegel from The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.

Kant:

• 1724-1804
• Founder of German Idealism
• Believed that only mind exists, not matter
• Believed that politics and philosophy should be liberal
• Magnum opus = The critique of pure reason
• It is important to differentiate between 'a priori' and 'empirical' knowledge
• Maths is a priori knowledge
• The outer world causes sensation, but our minds analyse these sensations and order them into space and time - because of this, space and time are subjective.
• Space and time are forms of intuition
• God's existence cannot be proved intellectually.
• There are three proofs of God's existence using reason, but just because they use reason does not mean that they are accurate. (Ontological proof, Cosmological proof, and Physicological proof)
• Existance is NOT a predicate
• Moral acts are our duties
• Hypothetical Imperative - action to produce desired result
• Catagorical Imperative - action is objectively necessary = duty
• A duty is only morally right if the maxim can be universalised
• Treat every man as an end in themselves, not a means to an end

Hegel:

• 1770-1831
• Theory stemmed from Kant's work
• The real is rational and the rational is real
• Reality is timeless
• Dialectic - two opposing things which end up with one outcome resulting in change and progression
• The Dialectic is directed by a spirit called a Zeitgeist
• The Zeitgeist is guiding us to an absolute end
• Wherever there is law there is freedom
• Time exists because we do not have the ability to see everything as a whole like God does
• War preserves the moral health of people, and helps to reach our final end
• Morality and excellence exists in wholes not in parts of wholes; for example an eye is useless on its own, but as part of a body it is excellent

Key Lecture and seminar notes
        My thoughts and opinions

It has taken me a while to write this post because in all honesty I have been unsure about what my thoughts and opinons about Kant and Hegel are! When I first learned about their philosophies I thought that the made quite a bit of sense, but after thinking about them for a while I began to realise how problimatic it would be if people actually lived their lives based on the philosophies of Kant or Hegel.

Kant:

I will start by discussing the problems associated with following Kant's philosophy. Kant believed that you should treat every individual as an end in themselves, never as a means to an end. At first glance this seems like a good idea because it means that no one would ever use anyone else, but after thinking about what the consequences of never using anyone as a means to an end would be it becomes more and more difficult to imagine living in that way. For example, it could be argued that having a doctor take care of you when you are ill is using the doctor as a means to end your suffering and so would be immoral. Similarly, we can assume that Kant would be against organ transplants, cancer research, and countless other acts of people using the knowlege/ability of others as an means to an end. This would dramatically limit the amount of things we could do in society. It could even be argued that giving your money to charity would mean that the charity was using you as a means to end the suffering of others, and so this too would be immoral.

Kant believed that we all have duties, and that acts are only moral if you are able to universalise them. Again, at first glance this seems like a good philosophy for life, for example acts such as murder and rape would be immoral because you cannot universalise them. However, there are other acts that in theory would be a good idea to unaversalise, but the consequence of those actions would be negative. For example, it would theoretically be moral to give money to charity instead of buying a chocolate bar everyday because if everyone gave money to charity then millions of people could be helped. However, if we all gave all our money to charity instead of buying chocolate then the chocolate industry would crash and millions of jobs from the cocoa farmers to chocolate advertisers would be lost. Of course this is an extreme example, but it shows how an act which seems as though it would be universally moral might have negative consequences. This would not necessarily be a problem for Kant though because he did not believe in considering the consequences of our actions. He believed that acts in themselves are either right or wrong, the consequences of those acts do not need to be taken into account when making decisions. This is quite contradictary because it could be argued that it would never be a good idea to universalise the maxim that no one should think about the consequences of their actions.

Hegel:

One of the most important aspect of Hegel's philosophy is his theory of the dialectic. Helgel believed that throughout history we have been moved forward by the Zeitgeist through the dialectic towards an absolute end. In one way this could be quite a comforting thought because it suggests that the conflict in this world is leading towards a better end for us, and that we are on a course that is being set out for us by the Zeitgeist, however believing this could potentially have a negative affect on society. For example, if I believed that every argument that I had with someone would help society move in the right direction then I would not think twice before starting an argument about small or big things. At the moment I only ever start an argument if I really believe in my cause or oppose something that someone else as said, but for the most part I do my best to avoid arguments because I do not think that they are very productive. There are people who take the complete opposite attitude to me, and start arguments over anything. If those people were to believe that they were benefitting society by starting arguments then they might start bigger or more violent arguments, or even wars without really thinking about it. Hegel would suggest that starting wars would be morally right, but it is hard to argue that in the society in which we live.

For example, the war on Afghanistan has been hugely controversial, and if someone was to suggest that the war was a good idea simply for the sake of having a war to help society progress towawrds an absolute end then I doubt that anyone in their right mind would agree. Of course there are people who believe that going to war was the right decision, and it could be argued that this was based on the belief that it would be for the greater good, but not in terms of society reaching an absolute moral end.

It is also potetntially a bad idea to lead everyone to believe that the Zeitgeist is responsible for directing humanity towards an absolute end because this suggests that no matter what we choose to do or not to do has little importance. For example, if you told secondary school students that eventually they will get a high paying job during their life time no matter what choices they make, then I highly doubt that any of them would bother doing any work because there would be no need if the consequence is going to be the same. Similarly, if people believe that humanity is going to reach an absolute end eventually then they could do pretty much anything that they wanted because at worst it would only slow the process down, it would not stop us from reaching the end.

Most people are driven to succeed by nothing more than the fear of failing, so if this fear of failing was removed then I do not think that anyone would strive to achieve greatness.