Kant is a figure every philosopher must struggle with at some point in life. I have myself amassed quite a large “library” of sorts of all the books I have read or take from. This library is sacrosanct to me for the notations I have within each book. A book I will never loan to people is my copy the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of morality. For the answer of what is right and wrong or good and bad or most pleasure and pain there is no one who is more right then him.

Kant’s a prori or inductive method for answering the questions of ethics, that being what ought to be the laws which command or limit human behaviour/action is categorically irrefutable.

There are valid critiques of Kant, the most common being he is a shit writer. The groundwork is a very difficult book to read, especially if you are not used to dissecting philosophical/meta-intellectual arguments, however that is not an argument of validity but a manifestation of intellectual insecurity.

Another valid critique of Kant is that it is impracticable. The categorical imperative holds such a high ethical standard for people that it is impossible to follow. The famous case being the murder at the door, which to summarise quickly Kant feels it is immoral to lie to a supposed murder who asks if your friend is in your house, with a lucid communication of his intent to murder him, that after your friend has asked to hide in your house. This flies in the face of conventional/practical morality, or the relational deontology described in the Moral Nexus by R Jay Wallace; or to put it more simply the valorisation of the bro-code. However, this plea to practical morality also does not invalidate the categorical imperative, and it’s fundamental respect for human will. It is another manifestation of emotional appetite, or selfish desire to protect your own desires over moral necessity. While I consider myself a Humian (subscriber to David Hume), this rhetoric also invalidates his response. Its invalidation does not mean that Hume’s psychological dissection of the will is invalid, Hume was also right, but that it is answering a different question. Kant answers the question of what ought to be, and not how it is. Ought entails a transcendental quality that escapes Hume’s critiques. Hume asks how does reason and morality work, where Kant gives the answer for how ethics, in a perfect world, should work. In a sense Hume is looking at how people make judgements on what is right or wrong, while Kant is answering what the metaphysical answer of right or wrong should be. Kant gives us a new 10 commandments, which should govern our societies, that has not been refuted.

This transcendental nature of Kant’s nature and transcendentalism as a whole seems to be difficult for philosophers to grasp. We as human can not critique these arguments through our experience. An agent will never internalise transcendental arguments in day to day life, that is not a valid critique of the transcendental. Metaphysics, beyond being the subject Aristotle wrote about after he wrote his work titled the physics, is an analysis or reality beyond regular human conception, is beyond modern human understanding. That being it is epistemologically inaccessible as it dimensionally exists beyond human experience (I am thinking temporally only because I can’t think of any other dimensions beyond that)

The only objection I will admit has validity is Kan’ts Aspergers. Kant never left his home town, and they used to set their clocks to the time he would go for his daily walks. Kant was really Asperges af. This is only a valid critique as it alienates neurotypical people as we don’t have the same command over our passions. Again however this is also a transcendental critique not a logical one.

One day, when I feel my logical abilities are of standard, I will attempt a mathematical translation of the groundwork, that would take a year that I don’t have as an undergraduate and may never have. Maybe then we can reveal a flaw in Kant, but given that we have had 240 years to do that, and it hasn’t been done I think it’s safe to say he was right.