Kant believed in the immortality of the soul based on moral arguments. Immortality is necessary for endless moral progress towards virtue and worthiness of happiness. Justice involves strict duties to not treat people merely as means, while beneficence involves imperfect duties to help others. For Kant, right implies lawfulness and justice in a state where each person remains free to pursue happiness without violating others' freedom and rights.

2. ON IMMORTALITY, JUSTICE AND RIGHT

3. SOURCES FOR THIS PRESENTATION
 KANT’S BIOGRAPHY : http://www.biography.com/people/immanuel-
kant-9360144#synopsis
 CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON:
http://www.enotes.com/topics/critique-practical-reason
 JUSTICE: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/
 JUSTICE:
http://rocket.csusb.edu/~tmoody/F05%20191%20kantian_ethics.htm
 RIGHT: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-social-political/
 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY BY DANIEL J. SULLIVAN (COPYRIGHT
2013 BY TAN BOOKS NORTH CAROLINA)

4. HIS LIFE AND HIS WORKS

5. HIS LIFE AND WORKS
 Born on April 22, 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia
 Attended school in Collegium Fridiricianum, a school that taught
classicism and the university of Konigsberg where he took philosophy,
mathematics and physics.
 His father is Johann Georg Cant while his mother is Anna Regina Cant
 His father died in 1746, forcing him to stop his studies to help his family,
but he returned to the university of Konigsberg in 1755
“THE CENTRAL FIGURE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY”

6. HIS LIFE AND WORKS
 Became a part of the university of Konigsberg’s faculty in 1770, teaching
metaphysics and logic. But even before this, he was already a lecturer
and tutor at the said university.
 1781 – THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
He attempted to explain how reason and experiences
interact with thought and understanding.
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE - stating that morality is derived
from rationality and all moral judgments are rationally supported. What is
right is right and what is wrong is wrong; there is no grey area.

7. HIS LIFE AND WORKS
OTHER WORKS:
THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON
CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
 Died in Konigsberg on February 12, 1804

8. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

9. Typically found alongside Kant’s discussions of
the postulate of God. He regards both as
necessary conditions for the realization of the
ideal Highest Good.
The premise of immortality was found in the
“incomplete harmony between morality and its
consequences in the world.”
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

10. Preface of the Critique of Practical Reason:
“The belief in immortality is based on a
notable characteristic of our nature, never to
be capable of being satisfied by what is
temporal”
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

11. Kant’s first argument for immortality basing
himself on the principle of purposiveness:
As nothing is purposeless each organ or
faculty into the world has its own specific
claim that human life as whole too, must have
its own end, although it is an end not in this
life but in a future life.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

12.  The highest good is a necessary object of the will
 Holiness, or complete fitness of intentions to the moral law is
a necessary condition of the highest good.
 Holiness cannot be found in a sensuous rational being. It can
be reached only in an endless progress and since holiness is
required, such endless progress toward it is the true object of
the will such progress can be endless only if the personality of
the rational being endures endlessly.
 The highest good can be made real, therefore only on “the
supposition of the immortality of the soul.”
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
KANT GIVES THE MORAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE SOUL:

13. In the first critique (pure reason, 1781), the
purpose of the afterlife is to provide a domain
for ideal highest good’s distribution of
happiness.
In the second critique, (practical reason, 1788),
Kant revises the said postulate:
[IMMORTALITY] is necessary for our
becoming worthy of that happiness
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

14. Kant argued in the second critique that we need
immortality not to achieve happiness but rather
in order to make endless progress toward the
complete conformity of dispositions with the
moral law, that is, toward virtue or worthiness
to be happy.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

15. THE POSTULATE OF
IMMORTALITY, AS WELL AS
OF GOD AND FREEDOM,
CANNOT BE KNOWN BUT
CAN ONLY BE THOUGHT.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

16. ON JUSTICE

17. JUSTICE are the things one
has a moral obligation to
do.
ON JUSTICE

18. NEGATIVE MORALITY
He calls this “Justice” for Justice has a number of
roughly equivalent commandments for how one must
act. one must ALWAYS be just.
Kant calls this having a “perfect” or “strict” obligation
ON JUSTICE

19. Positive morality – this is what he calls,
“benevolence.” this is never a strict duty
like justice according to Kant. One is not
morally required to always be benevolent.
But one does have a moral duty to be
benevolent sometimes and as much as one
can.
ON JUSTICE

20. We have a strict or “perfect” duty to always act
justly
 We do not have a duty to always act
beneficently
 We do have an “imperfect” duty: to sometimes
act beneficently
ON JUSTICE

21. BENEFICENCE – Going above and beyond the call
of duty; well doing; the activity of benefiting
others
Going beyond mere justice to assist people with
their goals is to act beneficently.
ON JUSTICE

22. THE FIRST DUTY OF JUSTICE IS TO NEVER TREAT
PEOPLE AE MERE MEANS TO ONE’S OWN ENDS.
Treating persons as ends in themselves is
ACTING JUSTLY AND BENEFICIENTLY
ON JUSTICE

23. ON RIGHT

24. Right (Recht) = both law (gesetz) and justice
(gerechtigkeit)
Right implies systematicity and lawlikeness like
universality and necessity.
ON RIGHT

25.  In the state of right, “each remains
free to seek happiness in whatever way
he thinks best, so long as he does not
violate the lawful freedom and rights
of his fellow subjects at large.
ON RIGHT

26. REPORT BY:
POST. SEAN BERNARD D. TAN
Augustinian Vicariate of the Orient
I – A.B. Philosophy | STVI Diliman
ON IMMORTALITY, JUSTICE AND RIGHT