Research On Kant’s Ethical Teleology

Teleology is the relationship between the base of existence of things and its develeopment and movement. Its development has gone through three stages namely natural teleology of ancient Greece, medieval theological and Kant’s moral teleology. Natural Teleology puts nature as the ultimate cause of the existence of things, to reveal the rule of development and movement of things; God Teleology puts God as the ultimate cause of the existence of things to reveal the rule of development and movement of things and reflects God’s purpose. Kant’s moral teleology first inherited the teleology of Aristotle, that the thing is not just the means of external dependencies of each other, the most important thing as a living organism is demonstrated by the "organized and self Characteristics of organization ". But unlike Aristotle, Kant has not put a will on the natural life, which believes that the existence nature itself has a purpose, he visions the purpose of nature a"joint purpose". And this Nature does not play any kind of envisaged prescriptive role, but a role for people to reflect on their own regulatory. Thus Kant restricts the concept of "purpose" within the people category, which greatly reflects the people’s will. In the "Critique of Judgement", Kant’s series of interpretation ultimately defined his teleological objective as the intrinsic urposiveness material. As a result, the final purpose is human nature, and retrospective of the ultimate purpose from people, gradually leads to the ultimate purpose of the world. This is the moral law established for mankind, made possible by free "perfection." Therefore, the purpose of Kant’s Moral Teleology is the Moral Teleology that restricted and regulated by the law of moral.There are two causes for Kant’s construction of Moral Teleology:metaphysical crisis and the resulting value of the jackpot. The metaphysical crisis is manifested as of ontological and teleology decline. The plight of the value is manifested as the conflict between morality and happiness, and the collapse of theological value, which is opposite the metaphysical crisis.Therefore, to rebuild metaphysics and to restore human values, Kant followed the path of rational criticism theory, and judgment criticism theory, and developed his Moral Teleology.In the "Critique of Pure Reason", Kant determined the boundry of theory of rational limits from practical reason by rational criticism. And he first proposed teleological thinking, which had a guiding significance on leinstructive practice of the natural sciences to achieve the system requirements.In the "Critique of Practical Reason", through the establishment of freedom and the moral law, moral teleology made two important content, namely, person is the goal and purpose of perfection.In the "Critique of Judgment", Kant elaborates his teleological thinking, linking the use of the principle of co-purpose nature and freedom. The transition from natural to moral teleology teleology was achieved through retroactiving the ultimate aim that reflected on the natual ultimate people who belongs to the teleology system.Moral Teleology includes two important elements:man is the purpose and perfection is the purpose. "Man is the purpose" as one of three formulas moral law reflects the people’s freedom; in the "Critique of Judgment", it links the role of nature and freedom, and increases the subjectivity of’body man" to supreme height, highlighting the human values.As a dual existence of nature and freedom, human being not only has the need to pursue morality but also hapiness. Consequently, the united pursuit of both virtue and happiness of the people constitute the ultimate purpose of human-the Purpose of Perfection. However, the realization of perfection purpose poses a problem in reality. In order to solve this problem,Kant constructed Moral Theology. Nevertheless, the existence of moral theology in the human world can only act as a guarantee of perfection to achieve the purpose of regulatory use, and practically guide the human behavior that make perfection as the people’s ultimate aim.Kant’s moral philosophy is often criticized as abstract formalism, seperated from the reality of life. But Kant"s abstract formal moral theory ultimatly aims to exclude factors other than empirical, moral purification. On the other hand, the perfection of purpose Kant was criticized as using name of the "God exists" and "Immortality of Soul" to push perfection to the other side of the river. However, Kant’s intention was more about to achieve perfection to moral theology, so as to guide human behavior. In the process of approaching perfection, morality will be continually refined. Putting aside Kant’s moral theology, perfection can actually be percived from the perspective of the way of life of the "real person". Real people have the double nature of the pursuit of happiness and virtue, and this double nature of the pursuit of unity can become the raw power to achieve perfection.Above all, Kant’s Moral Teleology has contemporary significance on the followling aspects: First, the coordination of the relationship between man and nature; Second, the coordination of the relationship between interpersonal issues; Third, the coordination of the interpersonal relationship within a person.