Contrast of the Ideas of Kant & Hume

Hume believed that all knowledge was restricted to ideas or impressions, feeling that the mind was the sum total product of a host of perceptions accumulated over time. Other than what is directly observable, there is no knowledge. Hume also believed that God could not exist, because God is only an idea in the mind of man. Kant, in contrast, opposed Hume's skepticism and felt that pure reason was of use in understanding the world. However, he challenged Enlightenment thinkers because he did not feel reason was of unlimited scope. Morality for Kant, involved law, i.e., the categorical imperative and the use of human will.

For Kant, moral judgments are expressions of practical as opposed to theoretical reason. Practical reason or rational will derives its principles of action in the human being from its own rational nature. This is why Kant would argue that Hume's ethical theory, based on feeling, is not really a moral philosophy at all. For Hume, morality was more properly felt than judged. For example, is someone acts in a way that pleases, it pleases us, what Hume would call a calm passion. Likewise, something beautiful brings about this same feeling. To Hume, unlike Kant, morality is a matter of feeling, made aware by instincts or sympathy, and modulated in accordance with general rules and conventions of justice.

Hume made man the center and whole of the universe. Hume argues that all man could know was his own ideas because there could be no

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ificance of individual character with respect to morality. He references good upbringing, cultivation of the virtues, and respect for tradition. In his philosophy of morality, reason was seen as having limits but human sentiments or feelings and common sense cultivated through social traditions have both power and virtue. In this vein, Hume was quite similar to Aristotle. For Aristotle, moral virtue is acquired primarily through repetition of acts that are in and of themselves morally good and ethical, and is never a result of either excess or defect. Pleasure is a natural result of doing such acts, and it is also a sign that the virtuous disposition has been acquired through practice and repetition. Moral virtue implies that a man has acted out of choice, having come to knowledge of the mean, and not as a result of compulsion or following the morality of the herd. Aristotle's moral philosophy, then, encompasses two components. One is the association between moral behavior and "well-being," and the other is that moral behavior "helps to bring the contemplative life into being," (Aristotle, 1998, p. xxiii). Like Hume, Kant believed that an integral aspect of character is the ability to reason and on the basis of reasoning,

Category: Philosophy - C