Abstract

This work is an attempt to relate the empirical elements in Kant's ethics, viz, the "Padagogik" and the Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, to Kant's pure practical philosophy, in order to show how an empirical underpinning for and development to moral goodness are presupposed in the KpV and GMS but only provided in the discipline, cultivation, socialization and moralization of education as these stages of upbringing are discussed in the treatise on "Padagogik" supplemented by the Anthropologie; how these empirical elements can be related to Kant's moral philosophy as necessary conditions of morality in a way which elucidates Kant's thought and refutes the argument against it that it is merely an empty formalism, and yet does not jeopardize morality's formal determination; how we are to understand Kant's pragmatic or moral anthropology in relation to the pure moral philosophy and the applications of the pure moral law as those applications can be observed. Three interrelated questions are posed in chapter one : Granted that man is not born rationally mature/morally good, how are reason and will to be developed so as to allow that man always chooses for the sake of the moral law: i.e., how does one become a person having character? How does the moral law first present itself to the human being? How are we to understand respect for the moral law in relation to the example of another person, and, subsequently, the duties of which we become aware in relation to our respect for the moral law? ;These questions are partially answered at the end of chapter one and retaken at the end of the concrete discussions in chapter two and chapter three in a way which shows how the empirical elements in Kant's ethics give content, significance and viability to his pure moral philosophy