Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Ultimate Purpose, Happiness, Morality

In #83 of the Critique of Judgment, Kant argues that the "ultimate purpose" of Nature, i. e. that part of Nature to which the rest is a means, is human "culture", a fundamental component of which is the skilled use of the rest of Nature, e. g. manufacturing.  A significant stage of his argument is the proposition that Happiness, qua satisfaction of all individual desires, is not that ultimate purpose.  Alternatively, he might have re-defined 'Happiness' as 'cultured activity', which entails 'skilled activity'.  In either case, insofar as his Moral doctrine is based on the premise that the fundamental natural motivation of individual behavior is the satisfaction of desire, the doctrine is inconsistent with his recognition of Culture as the Ultimate Purpose in his system.

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