I KANT See Any Perfectly Good People (ha ha)

Kant discusses the logic behind doing good and what motivates us to do these good actions. In his essay Kant also brings up the idea of how good cannot be judged based on a “model”, or a person who holds all values of what it means to be good, until they are “judged according to principles of morality”. I think it is impossible to find someone who is completely good and can be a perfect “model” for goodness. There are always ways we can be better, and though we can never become our ideal, perfect selves, we must work every day to get closer to that point. Kant supports this when he cites Jesus. We think of Jesus as being the ultimate symbol of morality and goodness, but according to Jesus only God was perfect, “’Why do you call me (whom you see) good, there is none good (the archetype of the good) but one, that is, God (Who you do not see)’”

After reading this I do not believe anyone physically on this earth can contain all things that make one good. People are still trying to figure out what it means to be good, much less having all good attributes. We all have varying ways which we are good, and we are all better in some of these ways than others. For example John might be more respectful then Fiona, and Sophia may be more generous then Gloria. I think these distinctions are essential in the human condition because we are all, or we should be, pushing ourselves to be better and closer to what the ideal, perfect good is. In Kant’s essay he supposes that God is that perfect good, which makes sense to me because we all have different interpretations of what that is. If there was a man or woman, let say, that contained all ideals that supposedly make a human good, would we all agree that they are perfectly good?

This just made me think a lot about what is good and how we can be good, and thanks to CIE I’m relating it a lot to Mencius and The Allegory.