Hume Vs Kant

In this paper I will be contrasting the moral philosophies of David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Although I will be discussing several ideas from each philosopher the main theme of my paper will be dealing with the source of morality. It is my opinion that Hume’s sentiment based, empirical method is more practical than the reason based, a priori theory of Kant. According to Kant moral law must be known a priori, and must be able to be universally applied to all beings. Kant asserts that empirical explanations of morality may only be used as evidence to demonstrate that actions can be perceived as being moral, but are not to be used as devices for assessing the moral value of actions. “For every example of morality presented to me must be judged
“Reason is and ought only to be a slave to the passions.” According to Hume reason can only influence us in two ways. It can either excite our passions by granting us an understanding of relatable concepts with regards to problems we wish to solve, or by assessing the possible positive or negative outcomes of certain actions inspiring our emotions to motivate our actions in one way or another. Reason is otherwise an inactive principle that has no direct influence over our actions. Actions are completely motivated by the passions. “Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact.”(Hume Pg.69) The purpose of reason is only directly applicable to these sorts of
Morality is contingent on freedom. Freedom is found by adhering to pure, transcendental reason. Our actions can only be said to be free if we elect to abide by moral principles that are of our own design. If we allow ourselves to succumb to our passions then we are not free, and if we are not free then how can it be said that we are accountable for our moral actions? There is a circularity to be found in this argument. We must possess freedom in order to develop our moral principles. Our reason must be unaffected by any influence other than itself. It is in our ability to freely choose to act on these moral principles, developed by our reason, that entitle us to freedom. Therefore it appears that freedom is contingent on freedom. Kant defends against this objection by suggesting that autonomy and freedom are separate ideas. We are only acting freely, if we choose to follow moral principles that we have designed. Freedom is the ability to design these principles; autonomy is our ability to choose between succumbing to our passions or appealing the principles that have been designed by our