Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Epistemic Knowledge and Morality

When discussing morality and how to objectively distinguish good and evil Kant says,

“But such a completely isolated metaphysics of morals, mixed with no anthropology, no theology, no physics or hyperphysics, still less with occult qualities (which one hypophysical), is not just an indispensable substrate of all theoretical securely determined cognition of duties, but at the same time a desideratum of the highest importance for the actual execution of its prescriptions” (Kant, 4:411).

I believe Kant continues to say that it these types of thinking can lead to wavering of motivation and a chance to do good but also the ability to do evil. While I am asking for clarification on his views, I am ultimately wondering is if it is even possible to have a scenario where a person would not possess any epistemic knowledge, of any type that he mentions? And then what implications said knowledge would have?


Assuming then always carry some of that mental baggage would Kant believe that we are even capable of true moral decision making at all. From the rest of his book I’d also assume yes. I was just hoping for some further clarification as well as to see if anyone else sees a potential discontinuity.  

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