Thursday, November 8, 2012

Reason, Morality, Constructivism

While 'Constructivist' is often used to characterize Kant's Cognitive theory, it is rarely applied to his Moral doctrine.  Since autonomous Reason, qua legislative faculty, can ground the cultivation individuals, and the building of their society, the rubric seems appropriate.  However, Kant, instead, emphasizes the 'supernatural' facets of the doctrine, beginning with the abstraction of maxims from their actualization, thereby rendering the products of Reason extrinsic to the evaluation of its exercise.  Furthermore, his inclusion of an eternally existing deity as a member of a rational society makes it difficult to conceive that collective as 'constructed'.  But, with the integration of maxim and action, that concept becomes clearer, as do that of the autonomy of self-cultivation, and of society-building, with respect to which it is the existence of a deity that becomes extrinsic, if not irrelevant.

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