Kantian Ethics: Principles, Human Rights, and Global Peace

Kant's Enduring Moral Philosophy

Kant's moral philosophy is praised for its advocacy of wider recognition of human dignity and its confidence in human progress. Indeed, the categorical imperative remains a profound proposal because it places humanity as the supreme end and goal.

Human rights are perfectly attuned to the categorical imperative, promoting respect and complying with the mandatory condition of being universally desirable as a standard of behavior. Currently, some thinkers doubt the validity and universality of human rights, despite the occurrence of facts incompatible with these rights and the categorical imperative.

Reason, Peace, and Global Governance

Kant and the Enlightenment propose that reason should rule the world. In his brief work, Perpetual Peace, Kant posits the establishment of a global state or a "state of peoples" that would rely on an ideal state formed by various individual states, with the ambitious goal of eliminating international conflicts and wars.

This vision fulfills the duty to leave the state of nature, ruled by force, and establish a full civil society governed by reason. Probably one of the shortcomings of the United Nations is precisely its failure to fully realize this fraternal state of peoples, capable of eradicating violence in international relationships and promoting global success with humanity as the supreme goal.

The Timeless Relevance of Kantian Ethics

Kantian ethics holds significant contemporary relevance because it represents a stance that Western society, often accustomed to utilitarian, economic, and solidarity-lacking interests, tends to neglect: the defense of principles.

Although their severity and absolutism are hardly defensible, making Kantian ethics very strict and unyielding, they nonetheless prompt reflection on the validity of defending what is right (despite the consequences), the importance of responsible commitment stemming from a moral principle of joint action, and personal involvement versus attitudes of indifference and selfishness. To assume such attitudes often means remaining stagnant.

Fundamental Concepts in Kantian Ethics

Maxims

Maxims are subjective principles of action that describe how one should conduct oneself under specific circumstances. Maxims of conduct can be bad or good.

Imperatives

Imperatives are objective, practical principles that must guide our conduct. When reason leads to the knowledge of reality, it results in policies or laws; when used to direct our conduct, it yields mandates. Kant called them practical principles because they are mandates or laws concerning action. He also stated that they are objective, seeking to serve all rational subjects, thereby differentiating them from maxims or subjective principles.