Locke Vs Kant

At the turn of the scientific revolution, moral philosophy became more involved with scientific methods to acquire new knowledge. The philosophical scientific method is based on inquiry through solid empirical evidence, rather than just theory like Aristotle and Plato. Along with this scientific method is the Mind’s Eye Model of Perception, which is the theory that any object you look at is just your own perception and others will have a different perception of the seemingly same object. Three philosophers of the time, Locke, Hume, and Kant, were big proponents of the scientific method and used it in each of their ideas behind morality. While all three follow this way of inquiry, Kant’s theories abide by the method better because he proposes
Hume, an empiricist, believes that sentiment is the main content of morality, and the only need for reason is as the structure. In his ideology, reason has two parts, matter of fact and relation of ideas, but an act cannot be taken as right or wrong based on the matter of fact, and moral distinction isn't founded on a relation of ideas. Therefore, reason is not the foundation of morality. Locke, who focuses on peoples natural freedom, places government as the moral distinction since people are in a perpetual conflict of interest. The two structures of government, legislative power and executive power, each represent reason and sentiment respectively, which forms Locke’s basis for both reason and sentiment being key for morality. Kant believes the purpose of morality is to form good will, which is the only universal good without qualification, and that morality is solely based on reason. This is because morality rests on obligation, or necessity, and only reason can access necessity, so only reason can access
He breaks philosophy down initially into two types, Formal and Material, where formal is based on logic with no empirical content, but material philosophy can be broken down even more. The laws of nature, or physics, and laws of freedom, or ethics, encompass material philosophy and are designed on empirical content. However, Kant’s main focus is pure moral philosophy through ethics, but this allows him to follow the scientific method due to the empirical content involved. He observes that there are moral laws, which are peoples’ obligations, and therefore people can’t act out of sentiment since it disregards these laws due to the subjective nature of sentiment. Using these observations, Kant hypothesized a method to assess moral value called Categorical Imperative, where you begin with a maxim and then theorize this maxim as a universal law of nature. This law must pass two tests, the first being if the moral duties present are contradictory or not, and the second being if you can will that everyone would follow this law. This example shows how Kant uses the scientific method to discern moral laws and values through his hypotheses and strict