The purpose of this research is to examine the validity and relevance of Kant's ethical philosophy, in particular the Categorical Imperative, to modern experience. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical and cultural context in which Kant's ethical philosophy was developed and then to discuss whether and to what extent a defense of the categorical imperative, as a controlling ethical idea, is possible in the modern world.
The development of ethical discourse appears to be as old as the emergence of philosophy itself. Socrates' continual and unrelenting quest for wisdom and knowledge, which got him into so much trouble, is suffused with ethical commentary. What distinguishes that commentary is not so much the details and content of implications of Socratic thought for all subsequent moral philosophy (although how Socrates argues his way to the conclusion that the unexamined life is not worth living is undoubtedly important) as the fact that Socrates was fully committed to behaving personally in a way consistent with his ideas. The choice Socrates makes for hemlock in the Apology, for example, is a commitment to a certain way of death based on a commitment to a certain way of life. If morality deals with how we ought to live (Rachels 1), for Socrates it is also implicated in how we ought to die. In the Apology, Socrates' ethic emerges as attachment to the Ideal Form of moral sense so strong--however vague and elusive an Ideal Form must be--that he is willing to die on behalf of it. A forceful example of how the consistency between thought and action arises when Socrates prepares for physical death in anticipation of moral harm that would come from acquiescing in being philosophically censored or driven into exile away from Athens, his home. He would be prevented from interacting with and challenging friends on one hand or breaking (as he doubtless would) the terms of the sentence on the other. The resentment and i...