Tanisha Saini, Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
ABSTRACT
German philosopher Immanuel Kant put forward a demanding concept of morality and freedom in his notable work called Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals (1785) (The Groundwork).
For Kant, morality is to be addressed a priori (based on deductions) rather than a posteriori (based on prior experience); thereby detaching human will from pre-conceived goals and desires. Throughout The Groundwork, Kant argues that the will of human beings becomes worthy of being the moral law, of being morally right, only when human beings act autonomously from duty which stems from reason. He strongly asserts the proposition that human beings are capable of the capacity to reason and hence are the authors of their own free will rather than slaves of their inclinations and desires. Behind the idea of being free from inclinations, is the idea of acting according to the moral law which one would give to oneself. Thus, it is Kant’s purpose to devise such a philosophy which shows that human beings are rational creatures who autonomously act on, comply with and are bound by the moral law – the categorical imperative of morality. What lies at the bottom of this is the establishment of the “Supreme Principle of Morality”, a moral will that governs humanity in itself, without achieving any allied effect.
It is this concept of morality that will be applied to the contemporary debates around Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination from the side of anti-vaccine campaigners and mandatory vaccine campaigners to check its moral validity as a law, drawing a conclusion on whether Kant’s moral law is full proof or it falls short in the face of contemporary challenges. For this purpose, a brief analysis of what is Kant’s moral law has also been undertaken.
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