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5599
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Without God, creation and free will, morality would be empty [Kant]
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Full Idea:
If there is no original being different from the world, if the world is without a beginning and without an author, if our will is not free and our soul is of the same corruptibility as matter, then moral ideas and principles lose all validity.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B496/A468)
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A reaction:
Atheism or determinism might lead to the collapse of your morality, if you had an amazingly inflated idea of the cosmic importance of human beings behaving well. My view is that morality just concerns important decisions made by healthy persons.
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5576
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We cannot derive moral laws from experience, as it is the mother of illusion [Kant]
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Full Idea:
With respect to moral laws, experience is (alas!) the mother of illusion, and it is most reprehensible to derive the laws concerning what I ought to do from what is done, or to want to limit it to that.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B375/A319)
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A reaction:
Kant agrees with Hume, and turns to a non-naturalistic and cognitivist explanation, whereas Hume turns to a non-cognitivist naturalistic one (based on human feelings). Aristotle's view is somewhat based on the experience of human nature.
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21455
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We only understand what exists, and can find no sign of what ought to be in nature [Kant]
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Full Idea:
In nature the understanding cognizes only what exists, or has been, or will be. It is impossible that something ought to be other that what it in fact is. ...We cannot ask what ought to happen in nature, any more than what properties a circle should have.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B575/A547)
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A reaction:
This seems to be the first clear recognition of what we now call 'normativity', which seems like a misfit in naturalistic views. Davidson derives a sort of mental dualism from it. Note that powers and dispositions can also not be directly cognised.
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