Kant Analysis

by Frederic Granillo, May 2015

300 words

1 page

essay

Thesis:

Kant’s passage is assuming that human desire to find happiness often interferes with their inner world. Human beings often view happiness as an ultimate condition which does not always coincide with the real situation in life.

Reasons:

The pressure of many anxieties and unreasonable wants gives the wrong understanding of happiness and general happiness is hard to achieve.

Happiness is often viewed as duty and this feeling prevents people from realizing what happiness means to them and under what conditions they can feel happy.

Analysis:

Kant’s argument is definitely correct. In their everyday life people interact with other human beings and their actions. They judge their lives and compare the lives of others with their own lives. In this case anxieties and wants arise which might interfere with the state of happiness. That is why people do not feel happy often. Besides, happiness is often associated with sacrifice. There is a general stereotype stating that it is impossible to be happy without suffering. Kant claims that these ideas prevent human beings from feeling happy in their lives.

Passage

To secure one's own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for discontent with one's condition, under a pressure of many anxieties and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation to transgression of duty. But here again, without looking to duty, all men have already the strongest and most intimate inclination to happiness, because it is just in this idea that all inclinations are combined in one total. But the precept of happiness is often of such a sort that it greatly interferes with some inclinations, and yet a man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness. It is not then to be wondered at that a single inclination, definite both as to what it promises and as to the time within which it can be gratified, is often able to overcome such a fluctuating idea, and that a gouty patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy what he likes, and to suffer what he may, since, according to his calculation, on this occasion at least, be has not sacrificed the enjoyment of the present moment to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which is supposed to be found in health. But even in this case, if the general desire for happiness did not influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains in this, as in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty, and by this would his conduct first acquire true moral worth.

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