Study Of Kant's Moral Beliefs

The great meaning of the doctrine of moral faith in Kant's philosophy is often neglected or misunderstood by many researchers. By the analysis of his moral faith, this paper tries to prove that moral faith is not only a very important part of Kant's moral philosophy, but also has a function of regulation for his entire critical philosophy.Kant's moral faith is not the faith in moral obligation, but the faith in the objects of highest good, immortality, freedom and God, which is on the ground of moral law. The doctrine has extensive theoretical sources and profound background of his times. Through the critique of church theology and extolment of reason, freedom and morality, the Enlightenment influenced Kant deeply. Youth Kant has already had the idea of rational moral faith and believed that good moral life style is the base of belief.In the period of critique, Kant believed that moral faith had a close relation to Will. As a faculty of realizing the object, Will on one hand need the formal moral law as the determining grounds of its maxim, and on the other hand, look highest good on as the object of desire. Because of the finite, man can't experience the highest good, and even can't ensure the continuity of virtue, so practical reason is bound to put it into a transcendent intelligible world, and postulate immortality, freedom and God to ensure the possibility of highest good. The attitude of people to these objects is so called moral faith.It is obvious that Kant believed that the subject of moral faith is the finite but rational being, that is, man in everyday life. The objects of moral faith are highest good, immortality, freedom and God. The moral faith has three essential meanings: a postulate of practical reason, a model of "holding-to-be-true" and the core of a moral world view. The moral faith is based on reason, freedom and morality, and though it is higher than knowledge in certainty, although it just has subjective sufficient valid.Kant's moral faith has a close relation to his metaphysics. By the critique of the capability of reason, Kant held that both dogmatist and skeptical metaphysics are bound to fail to solve three basic issues of metaphysics, that is, God, freedom and immortality. For Kant, the real scientific metaphysics is faithful philosophy of postulate consequentially, because the moral faith can not only solve the three problems, but also as a regulative idea, has an orientating action to each part of the system of philosophy, such as epistemology, ethics, teleology of-history and philosophy of religion.In Kant's philosophy of history and religion, the subject and object of moral faith both changed. In the teleology of history, the subject of faith changed from individual man to the human being. The object of highest good changes from the synthetic connection of virtue and happiness to the final end of history; the idea of freedom became the perfect stage of the world; the importance of immortality is lower than ever, and degenerated into "the faith of second rank"; the function of God lies in guaranteeing the possibility of final end of history. In the philosophy of religion, the subject became the member of community of ethics; as the object, the highest good becomes the synthetic connection of ethics and religion; freedom becomes the kingdom of God; and God takes over the function of immortality, because he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Yet the function of moral faith is still outstanding. Without the moral faith, it is impossible that the purpose of history can be realized, and the foundationand premise of Kant's rational religion and moral theology will be lost.The doctrine of moral faith has not only important significance to Kantian philosophy, but also has profound influence on the following thinkers. By the critique of his moral faith, many great thinkers such as Fichte, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Scheler have their own theory of morality and faith. Although the doctrine of moral faith has its contradictions and shortcomings, the ideas proposed by the moral faith, such as universal reason, moral norm and modest faith are showing great contemporary significance.