[Music] depending on your perspective Emanuel Kant was either the most boring person on the planet or a productivity Hacker's wet dream for over 40 years he woke up every morning at 5:00 a. m. and wrote for exactly 3 hours he would then lecture at the same University for exactly 4 hours he followed that up with lunch at the same restaurant each day then in the afternoon he would go on an extended walk through the same park on the same route leaving and returning home at the exact same time every day K spent his entire life in kbur Prussia I mean that literally he never left the city despite the ca being an hour away he never saw it Kant was efficiency personified he was so mechanical on his habits that his neighbors joke that they could tune their clocks based on when he left his apartment each day he would would leave for his daily walk at 3:30 p.
m. have dinner with the same friend every evening and return home to finish work and go to bed at exactly 10 p. m.
it's easy for us to scoff at a guy like this what a loser seriously get a life dude but K was one of the most important and influential thinkers in modern history he did more to steer the world from his single room apartment in Prussia than most Kings and armies ever did before or since if you're living in a Democratic Society that protects indiv idual rights you have can't to partially thank for that he was the first person to ever Envision a global governing body that would guarantee peace across much of the world he prescribed SpaceTime in such a way that it later inspired Einstein's discovery of Relativity he came up with the idea that animals could potentially have rights themselves he invented the philosophy of Aesthetics and beauty and resolved a 200-year philosophical debate in the span of a couple hundred Pages he reinvented moral Philosophy from top to bottom over throwing ideas that had been the basis of Western Civilization since Aristotle Kant was an intellectual badass if brains had balls K would have been made out of steel his ideas particularly about ethics are still discussed and debated in thousands of universities today and that's what I want to talk about K's moral philosophy and why it matters now you might be saying really moral philosophy who cares man show me a shiny Sunset inspirational quote or a cat meme well that right there is moral philosophy anytime you say who cares or what's the big deal you're essentially questioning the value of something is it worth your time and attention is it better or worse than something else these are all questions of value and they all fall under the umbrella of moral philosophy our moral philosophy determines what we value what we care about and what we don't care about and our values determine our decisions actions and beliefs therefore moral philosophy applies to everything in our lives got it kant's moral philosophy is unique and counterintuitive can't believe that for something to be good it had to be Universal that is it can't be right to do something in one situation and wrong to do it in another if lying is wrong it has to be wrong all the time it has to be wrong when everyone does it period if it isn't always right or always wrong then it cannot be a valid ethical principle Kant these universalized ethical principles categorical imperatives rules to live by that are valid in all contexts in every situation to every human being well holy [ __ ] universal laws that dictate all morality for every human being sure you want fries with that it's so impossible it sounds ludicrous but Kant made a hell of an attempt in fact he made a number of attempts at creating categorical imperatives some of those attempts were quickly ripped the shreds by other philosophers but others have actually held up the test of time to some degree one of them in particular has kind of stuck and in all of my years reading and studying philosophy psychology and other Sciences it is one of the most powerful statements that I've ever come across its implications reach into every part of each person's life in a single sentence it sums up the bulk of all of our ethical intuitions and assumptions and in each situation it points to a clear direction of how we should be acting and why okay enough foreplay here's kant's rule act that you use Humanity whether in your own person or in a person of any other always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means okay what the actual [ __ ] let's back up for a second can't believe that rationality was sacred when I say rationality I don't mean like Sudoku or chess Grandmaster rationality I mean rationality as the fact that we are the only known creatures in the universe that are able to make the decisions weigh options and consider the moral implications of each and every action basically Consciousness to the only thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the universe is our ability to process information and act consciously in the world and this to him is special it's exceedingly special for all we know we are the only shot the universe has at intelligent self organization therefore we need to take it seriously and therefore rationality and protecting conscious Choice must be the basis for all of our moral reasoning Kant wrote that quote without rationality the universe would be a waste in vain and without purpose to K's mind without intelligence and the freedom to exercise that intelligence we might as well just be a bunch of rocks nothing would matter therefore Kant believed that all morality is derived from the protection and promotion of rational Consciousness in each individual so how do you do that well cons rule above let's restate State con rule in a more modern language to make it more easily digestible quote each person must never be treated only as a means to some other end but also be treated as an end themselves okay let's say I'm hungry and I want a burrito I get in the car and I drive to Chipotle and I order my usual double meat monster that makes me oh so happy on a weekly basis in this situation eating the burrito is my end goal it's ultimately why I'm doing everything else getting in the car driving buying gas and so on all these things I do to get the burrito are the means I.
