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Rand's understanding of Kant

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Dr. Peikoff's book The Ominous Parallels provides a good overview of Kant's epistemology and ethics. Essentially, Kant said that reason is useless because the "real" reality is beyond our perception.

As to which of the two to follow, Kant's basic guideline on human behavior is that man should do whatever makes him suffer. Even the act of self-sacrifice is rendered amoral if it is done with any personal motivation whatsoever, even if that motivation is the desire to be moral.

Duty, according to Kant, is the only proper motivation, and duty inherently means doing that which you strongly desire not to do. The stronger your desire not to do something, the more moral you are for doing it. Morality = Frustration.

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Well, there is one thing that you have to understand when you say that Ayn Rand has said that Kant said X (that being whatever Kant said). When Ayn Rand says that Kant says something, she is giving it to you in clear-cut, essential terms. If you have read any Kant you'd quickly find that nothing Kant said was ever stated as clearly as Ayn Rand has made it.

This is not to say that Ayn Rand was ever wrong about Kant, far from it, she was dead on. But Kant buried the actual progressions, reasonings, deductions and conclusions of his philosophy under such pounds of intestinal verbiage, you simply have to read it to get any sense of it.

Yes, he did say this. But, you have to dig it up yourself if you really want to know what he actually said. It is more of a culmination of his philosophy, and it starts in his metaphysics, and ends in the horrific ethics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The only thing I read by Kant is his letter "What is Enligthenment" with the slogan "Sapere Aude"; dare to know. He critisizes his contempories for not thinking on their own, but relying on priests, physicians, kings etc to do it for them. Seems close to what I read in Atlas Shrugged.

Maybe I'll read critique of Pure Reason some day to see what kant's ideas where. Anyhow, I think ideas are important not philosophers. If Kant had strange ideas on metaphysics and ethics but defended free inquiry and speach like his letter suggest; I take the best and leave the rest.

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[...]

Maybe I'll read critique of Pure Reason some day to see what kant's ideas where. Anyhow, I think ideas are important not philosophers. If Kant had strange ideas on metaphysics and ethics but defended free inquiry and speach like his letter suggest; I take the best and leave the rest.

This would be a major error. There is no way to pluck ideas out of their context and have them retain their meaning, that is, their referents. Every non-axiomatic idea depends on its context. That is what context is: The other ideas that help determine the meaning of a particular idea.

And keep in mind that words are not ideas. Words are only labels for ideas. If Kant says he supports Vernunft ("reason") and Ayn Rand says she supports reason, do not assume they mean the same thing. In this case, they definitely don't. They have about as much relation to each other as a quadraplegic has to an Olympic runner.

By all means read Critique of Pure Reason. I recommend the Cambridge combined first and second edition, edited and translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. It has lots of background information and some commentary too. You will need all of that and more. Try A Kant Dictionary by Howard Caygill.

After you read it, be sure to report the results here, on ObjectivismOnline.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am happy and worn out to report that I have spent the past 6 weeks reading Kant's Critique of Judgment (for a class which I chose), so that I can finally contribute to discussions such as this. I have another couple of weeks of reading left, and then I will have read the whole book from cover to cover. Aside from this his third critique, I have also read portions of the Critique of Pure Reason (in preparation for the Critique of Judgment).

Thoyd Loki is 100% correct. Since I am reading Kant's work in which he discusses aesthetics, take this example. Ayn Rand called Kant the father of modern art; yet I am convinved that Kant would have hated Picasso, Pollock, and everything in between. I would not be all that surprised if he would have had problems even with impressionism. Obviously Ayn Rand did not, when reading Kant, come across some statement of his which approves of non-representational art. Philosophical detection is not so easy. What Ayn Rand DID do, I assume, is to focus on, as the essential, Kant's denial of any objective principle for evaluating beauty. Taken in this light, Kant's claims which might seem to exclude modern art do not matter, culturally.

I apologize if my writing has been negatively influenced by too much reading of Kant.

EDIT: I did not mean to say that Kant's denial of an objective standard of beauty is the ONLY important clue to Kant's role as father of modern art. It's also crucial to examine, for example, his comments on (artistic) geniuses [e.g., artistic genius is innate] and on interest in art as arising only in society.

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  • 3 years later...

[Mod's note: merged with a previous thread. -sN]

 

For my ethics class, we finally (and loathefully) arrived at Kant. I have this assignment but I am drawing a blank for an example that would lead to a contradiciton. I need to do the following:

Give an example of how the universalization formula of the Categorical Imperative shows that an action is morally impermissible. You need to show how it leads to at least one type of contradiction.


As I said, I can think of lots of examples, but not necessarily how it would lead to a "contradiction". I would like to approach it from an Objectivist standpoint. I think a good example would be something like how it is immoral to not share what you earn, and then show that it arrives at a contradiction. But what would that be? Is the act of sharing simply a contradiciton to man's nature (which is to produce for his own well-being)? Edited by softwareNerd
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It depends what is meant by a contradiction: I doubt they will accept a contradiction in the Objectivist sense of the term, it sounds more like they want a formal logical contradiction. But that's pretty hard to show - Kant believed that since the CI had been derived using purely a priori principles, it had fundamental status as a moral law, so that if the dictates of the CI conflicted with other moral frameworks then too bad for them. One of the more infamous examples of this is the argument that the CI-based rule stating "lying is always wrong" commits Kant to the claim that it would be wrong to lie to a serial killer who was wanting to know where his next victim was hiding.

Such a well-meant lie can, however, also become by accident (casus) punishable in accordance with civil laws; but what escapes being punishable merely by accident can be condemned as wrong even in accordance with external laws. That is to say, if you have prevented someone just now bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you have kept strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you, whatever the unforeseen consequences might be. It is possible that after you have answered ‘Yes’ to the murderer’s question as to whether his enemy is at home, the latter has nevertheless gone out unnoticed, so that he would not meet the murderer and the deed would not be done; but if you had lied and said that he is not at home, and he has actually gone out (though you are unaware of it), so that the murderer encounters him while going away and perpetrates his deed on him, then you can by right be prosecuted as the author of his death (Kant, On a supposed right to lie from philanthropy, 8:426-427)

(you can find various arguments about what precisely Kant is committing himself to on google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=kant+lying, not everyone accepts that this conclusion actually follows from the CI)

But while this is pretty disgusting, its not a formal contradiction. I think the question is really vague, I'm not entirely sure what its asking. I'd ask for clarification personally.

Edited by eriatarka
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This is what I ended up writing. Thi professor is terrible IMO because he is always vague and never tells us what his expectations are. He doesn't even give a minimum word requirement, allowing some students to literally write two sentences on an assignment. Oh well, as long as I get a good grade, I don't care.

Immanuel Kant argued a concept he labeled the Categorical Imperative. The maxim of this is that an action is morally impermissible if you can at the same time will (desire) that it become a universal law. This basically means that if you do it, you must also want everyone else to behave in the same manner. For example, let’s imagine a man who desires the possessions of his neighbor, but lacks the motivation to acquire similar possessions for himself through honest means. If a person acted upon his desire to steal, he would therefore also have to accept that it would be morally permissible for everyone else to steal from him. If everyone were allowed to take whatever they wished from others without consent, there could be no concept of private property. Indeed, even one’s own home could be taken at whim whenever someone else chose to do so. In such a scenario, society itself would break down. It would become necessary for an “every man for himself” attitude whereby everyone would be on constant watch to protect his own possessions from his neighbors. If such a maxim were universal, mankind itself would descend into the stone ages and humans would be reduced to mere animals, defending territory and guarding possessions with deadly force against intruders. Social interaction would be nearly impossible out of fear of leaving one’s own territory unprotected. It also seems improbable that such a scenario could allow for foundations of trust between men. As such, the Categorical Imperative would not permit such actions as stealing your neighbor’s possessions.
Edited by KevinDW78
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This is what I ended up writing.

I think that was a fairly good example of how Kant would like someone following the Categorical Imperative to think. And this has gotten into our popular culture, as one of the things my mother would tell us as we were growing up is: "What if everybody acted that way?" And she never read Kant as far as I know.

But the real contradiction in the Categorical Imperative is that man is an end in himself, he is an individual, and morality ought to be about how he can best survive and thrive. Making a moral imperative by having to relate oneself to everyone else is far too altruistic and non-selfish for it to work. It is a contradiction to man's factual nature. If one was marooned on a deserted island, one would still need a rational morality, even though there isn't anyone else there to take into account. Kant was attempting to assert of social relativism onto everyone, giving the impression that this would make it objective, even though it isn't based on the factual nature of man and what is required to live, and to live well. In order to do that, he must be reality oriented, and Kant said we have no access to reality with either our sense or our mind, not even some kind of indirect access to real reality. Basically, if all one needs to take into account is other people and how they would act doing the same thing, there is no sufficient focus on reality and man's nature. That's the contradiction, but I agree that your professor would probably not accept that type of an answer.

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Wow that's the most concise argument against C.I. that I think is possible! That really makes everything very clear. My survey of philosophy class is also going to get to Kant later in the semester, so I'll be sure to use the points you've given when I address it again down the road.

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Wow that's the most concise argument against C.I. that I think is possible!

Thanks. Just keep in mind that the Objectivist ethics stem from the actual facts about man's nature and the requirements of living in reality; which is what makes it objective. And taking everyone else into account is really subjective second-handedness. Notice also that one doesn't know what to do oneself, let alone what everyone else would or ought to do by Kant's kind of pseudo-ethics. If the individual existing man qua man is not the standard, then it has to be either intrinsic or subjective. Kant's idea of universalization attempts to make the globally subjective the focal point and makes it a form of intrinsicism in the process -- Though ought to act as if it would be OK for everyone else to act that way. It is altruism run amuck. One ought to be concerned for oneself, and not everyone else in the process of making a moral decision.

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Immanuel Kant argued a concept he labeled the Categorical Imperative. The maxim of this is that an action is morally impermissible if you can at the same time will (desire) that it become a universal law.

You said it backwards. The maxim is that an action is morally permissible if and only if it can be willed to be a universal law. Also, your professor might have translated will to mean desire, and if so never mind this--but I would avoid equating will with desire in Kant. The connotations of desire seem too close to inclination, which is one type of motivator, but one that Kant tried to avoid (though not very well really).

This basically means that if you do it, you must also want everyone else to behave in the same manner. For example, let’s imagine a man who desires the possessions of his neighbor, but lacks the motivation to acquire similar possessions for himself through honest means. If a person acted upon his desire to steal, he would therefore also have to accept that it would be morally permissible for everyone else to steal from him. If everyone were allowed to take whatever they wished from others without consent, there could be no concept of private property. Indeed, even one’s own home could be taken at whim whenever someone else chose to do so. In such a scenario, society itself would break down. It would become necessary for an “every man for himself” attitude whereby everyone would be on constant watch to protect his own possessions from his neighbors. If such a maxim were universal, mankind itself would descend into the stone ages and humans would be reduced to mere animals, defending territory and guarding possessions with deadly force against intruders. Social interaction would be nearly impossible out of fear of leaving one’s own territory unprotected. It also seems improbable that such a scenario could allow for foundations of trust between men. As such, the Categorical Imperative would not permit such actions as stealing your neighbor’s possessions.

This argument is Kantianish, but again I think you have included a much greater focus on desire (inclination) than Kant would have allowed. The way Kant usually argued his categorical imperatives, it is not merely *undesirable* for a person to violate the maxim if it were a universal law, but rather *impossible*. I think that's what your teacher meant when he asked you to show how the violation would lead to a "contradiction." One example I've seen used is lying (I don't remember if this was an example Kant actually used or just someone explaining Kant).

If lying were a universal law, then that would mean that everything that everybody says is a lie. But if that were so, it would actually be impossible, because it would mean simply that when someone says something, the opposite of their statement is the truth. So everything would be the truth, which is a contradiction to everything being a lie. It is therefore literally impossible, not merely undesirable, for lying to be willed a universal law. (I know that argument is somewhat problematic, but that's one that I've seen as an example before).

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In order to do that, he must be reality oriented, and Kant said we have no access to reality with either our sense or our mind, not even some kind of indirect access to real reality.

Actually, Kant did claim that some knowledge of the noumenal realm could be deduced. He was heavily criticized for this, and it is quite inexplicable in the context of the rest of his philosophy. But there are three basic metaphysical concepts Kant derived from "real reality," as he saw it, and those were God, freedom (volition), and immortality (the indestructibility of the soul). As to how he derived those concepts and what they mean exactly in his philosophy, someone with a much better understanding of Kant than I would have to explain..

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You said it backwards

Oops, you're right. Hopefully the professor will realize that was a typo.

One example I've seen used is lying

Part of the assignment was that we couldn't use one of the examples given in the reading, we had to come up with our own. The lying one was not directly in the reding, but there were others that seems to overlap so I wanted to do something else.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Concerning KevinDW78's asking for an example of a contradiction in the CI, Kant's CI is in essence a Utilitarian imperative, at least as Kant himself elaborated on it. For Kant it is the general consequence in society, that is, the utility, of an act that is the standard of whether one treats it as an imperative or not. At one point in one version of the CI Kant himself talks about social harmony as the criterion of whether an act should be an imperative! Thus a contradiction in at least one version of the CI is that it is not actually a priori, at least in deciphering its moral dimension. In other words, Kant was, against his own conscious intention, ultimately a Utilitarian, just like Hume, the difficulties posed by whom Kant wrongly thought he was answering with his CI.

Lying is the common troublesome example given of Kant's CI. But that is an epistemological explanation. Most examples of contradiction inherent in the CI would be some practical action or other. Thus my emphasis on its ultimate Utilitarianism as the paradigm contradiction inherent in the CI.

I will be publishing the foregoing in my forthcoming book the primary aim of which is to present my solution to the central problem of ethics, the is-ought problem, a feat which even Aristotle said was impossible of being performed. I found the study of ethics without first a solution to this problem impossible to bear. So I solved it. When philosophers see my solution, which is a single logical connection based on a single observable fact, they will wonder why Aristotle didn't see the same thing or why it took a composer of music and an amateur in philosophy like myself to finally solve it after 2,400 years of philosophers failing to perform the same feat. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

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Concerning KevinDW78's asking for an example of a contradiction in the CI, Kant's CI is in essence a Utilitarian imperative, at least as Kant himself elaborated on it. For Kant it is the general consequence in society, that is, the utility, of an act that is the standard of whether one treats it as an imperative or not. At one point in one version of the CI Kant himself talks about social harmony as the criterion of whether an act should be an imperative! Thus a contradiction in at least one version of the CI is that it is not actually a priori, at least in deciphering its moral dimension. In other words, Kant was, against his own conscious intention, ultimately a Utilitarian, just like Hume, the difficulties posed by whom Kant wrongly thought he was answering with his CI.

Kant definitely wasnt a utilitarian. The whole point of Kants ethics is that the CI is objectively true in the same sense that the laws of arithmetic are true, namely that it is graspable by a rational mind using logic and reason alone, and does not require justification by empirical reality. Although Kant probably did believe that universal adherence to the CI would result in a better society, he never made an attempt to justify the CI on utilitarian/psychological/sociological grounds - his argument is entirely logical in nature. For Kant, the reason why you should accept the CI isnt because itll improve your life or because it'll make the world a better place - you should accept it because its a brute fact in the same way that 2+2=4 is a brute fact. Asking "why should I act according to the CI?" is (for Kant) akin to asking "Why should I accept that 5+5=10?" - you should accept it because its demonstrably true regardless of the effect that it has on the world, and refusing to accept it just because it may have an adverse effect on your life is intellectually dishonest. Kant believed that the consequences of actions were morally neutral - as long as an action was in accord with the CI, it was ipso facto moral regardless of what effect it had on the world.

Edited by eriatarka
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Sorry KevinDW78 for my last reply to your request for a contradiction unearthed by the universalization formula of Kant. Totally my fault for misunderstanding what the professor asked by not reading your posting slowly. Here goes a second shot. First, the act of sharing would not be a possible contradiction unearthed by the univeralization formula inasmuch as the expectation of others of the act performed by you would not be contradicted. Besides, the act of sharing is not a contradiction to man's nature. Man's own well-being includes connections with other people, especially with those whom he loves, and as a result with whom he performs acts of sharing as an investment in the context of that love.

Besides, in my opinion Kant would not have accepted the formulation of the question as you put it. Kant's universalization principle is a social construct. It is not inferred by the definition of man, i.e. by man's nature, but rather is associated with the general social utility of performing an act, a utility, I might add, which Kant always assumes as self-evident, never proves. [This is the unsolved and unsolvable problem that all Utilitarians face. For any attempt at defining their criterion of conduct would render it a prior principle of action, not a posterior state, i.e., a consequence of an act, which they stupidly insist it must be.]

To repeat for emphasis, the contradictions of the univeralization formula of the CI in which Kant seems interested are usually social, either a disrupting or a fostering of social harmony as the consequence of indulging in a certain act in question. In that case, Kant's CI, his own emphasis taken into account, is a Utilitarian imperative, which is the opposite of what Kant himself thought he was proposing. Could he have been more confused?

But Kant, unlike, Hume, rightly saw that a moral imperative must be distingusihed from a mere expedient. The CI is Kant's stab at this distinction. He failed, but in the process he emphasized the whole point of morality, which is a code of values to guide men's conduct by means of absolute or categorical imperatives, not mere expedients or hypothetial imperatives.

Your professor could have wanted three types of contradiction to the universalization formula. The first would be similar to a logical self-contradiciton or a contradiction by definition. A common example given is breaking promises. If promises could be broken universally then promises as an assumption would not exist to be broken. In such a world a promise would be an empty vocalization. The definition of a promise is the expectation by others of an intention which is not going to be broken. The upshot is that the contradiciton here is almost logical.

The second type of contradiction your professor might be thinking of which is unearthed by the universalization formula is associated with a cost-benefit analysis of an act to be performed. Using the usual example, if breaking promises whenever one felt it to one's advantage to do so were a universal practice, then it would not accrue to one's advantage to break a promise. The advantage of breaking a promise ensues from others' expectation that one will keep it, which would not be the case if breaking promises were universally practiced and everyone, therefore, knew that you would not keep it when you thought it would be to your advantage to break it, and they acted accordingly in their own defense thereby nullifying your advantage.

The third type of contradiction would simply be the absence or fostering of any general utility to the act performed. Kant proposes in one version of the CI, supposedly an a priori imperative, that the social harmony or lack thereof a posteriori resulting from the universal indulgence in an act should be the criterion of whether an individual should indulge therein. Kant's Utilitarian bias is obvious. It is surprising that Kant did not see the "contradiction" of supplying the deficiency of Hume's hypothetical imperative, e.g., if you want Y then do X, with his own posterior state, the general social consequence Y of doing X, i.e., if you want social harmony then don't steal, lie, break promises, murder, whatnot.

After reading Rand I at first loathed Kant on faith as an extremely dangerous philosopher, which he in truth is. But the more I familiarized myself with his ideas the more I respected him as one of the cleverest of men. His danger is precisely that he came so close to the mark without hitting it, especially in ethics. Kant's thinking about the CI even led him to a version of it which is Randian, amounting to treating yourself and others as ends in themselves, not as simply means to ends.

But then there is his crazy synthetic-a priori category of knowledge. Actually, of the four categories of knowledge the very one which Kant discounts, the analytic-a posteriori, is the only category which is in fact the description of how man gains knowledge of the truth! His blunders are moonumental. But I have an affection for the man, dangerous as he is. I think that he would have been an enjoyable dinner companion. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

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Kant definitely wasnt a utilitarian. The whole point of Kants ethics is that the CI is objectively true in the same sense that the laws of arithmetic are true, namely that it is graspable by a rational mind using logic and reason alone, and does not require justification by empirical reality. Although Kant probably did believe that universal adherence to the CI would result in a better society, he never made an attempt to justify the CI on utilitarian/psychological/sociological grounds - his argument is entirely logical in nature. For Kant, the reason why you should accept the CI isnt because itll improve your life or because it'll make the world a better place - you should accept it because its a brute fact in the same way that 2+2=4 is a brute fact. Asking "why should I act according to the CI?" is (for Kant) akin to asking "Why should I accept that 5+5=10?" - you should accept it because its demonstrably true regardless of the effect that it has on the world, and refusing to accept it just because it may have an adverse effect on your life is intellectually dishonest. Kant believed that the consequences of actions were morally neutral - as long as an action was in accord with the CI, it was ipso facto moral regardless of what effect it had on the world.

eriatarka, do you take everyone at their word? Just because Kant did not say that he was a Utilitarian, just because he was horrified by Utilitarianism--as who shouldn't be, Utilitarianism being the most absurd moral code concocted by the fevered brains of philosophers--does not mean that he did not ineluctably entrap himself in its absurdity just the same. The whole point of Kant's ethics being that the CI is objectively true in the same sense that the laws of arithmetic are true is irrelevant if that in fact is not what Kant's CI in any of its versions actually demonstrates. The whole problem for Kant is that no proposition, cardinal or ordinal, can be derived from axioms, that is, from a priori formulations. I challenge any a priorist to answer my criticism that the a priori proposition collapses into the reductio of it having to be explained how the proposition itself is not a priori, i.e., validatable. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

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Kant's entire "philosophy" is just one really big floating abstraction and grand larceny when it comes to dealing with concepts. To have a proper epistemology, one needs to base one's conclusions logically on the facts of reality and then integrate those together into concepts. But Kant claimed that we do not observe real reality, to him we only observe the phenomenal world not the real reality, so he basically just pulled things out of thin air with no observable basis and claimed they were the real truth, and it is all bunk.

Moral precepts are proven in the same way mathematical truths are proved -- by observation. 2+2=4 is true because one can observe that if one has this ## and one adds this ## then one has this ####. Likewise with the derivation of ought from is, which has already been solved by Ayn Rand, what something is determines what it ought to do in order to sustain it's life.

Kant's Categorical Imperative is not based on any observations and is therefore invalid. It would be like saying that all zigords ought to ricolard; without a reference to observable reality it is entirely meaningless. And the biggest danger from that type of "philosophy" is that some people try to figure out what a zigord is and what to ricolard is, when it doesn't mean a damned thing! So, people try to figure out what Categorical Imperative they ought to be following and mess up their lives because the Categorical Imperative has no reference in reality.

And if you don't understand that then you ought to follow the code of the yerdicotes.

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something is determines what it ought to do in order to sustain it's life.
Well I fully agree with this but its not really an argument against Kant, since he didnt deny the possibility of a moral system like Rand's which consisted entirely of hypothetical imperatives, he just thought that moral philosophy should look for something higher than this. Rand was quite happy with a moral system containing only if/then statements ('IF you want to live and be happy THEN...') but Kant had totally different goals.

Kant's Categorical Imperative is not based on any observations and is therefore invalid. It would be like saying that all zigords ought to ricolard; without a reference to observable reality it is entirely meaningless.
Kant's first critique is basically a long-winded argument for the claim that concepts/thoughts need to refer to empirical reality in order to be valid ("Concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind" / "All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason" / "All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.") so he was perfectly aware of the fact that you couldnt just pull concepts out of thin air and start using them - literally his entire philosophy was based around that principle. However he had specific reasons for thinking that transcendental logic could provide conclusions about the formal conditions moral statements had to meet in order to be valid. Its crucially different from 'pulling concepts out of thin air' because he didnt believe that you could have a priori knowledge about the content of true moral judgements, only about the form which they had to take (ie that they had to be universalizable). All of Kant's transcendental arguments are about deriving formal conditions rather than about deriving content, since that would have violated his first critique.

To have a proper epistemology, one needs to base one's conclusions logically on the facts of reality and then integrate those together into concepts. But Kant claimed that we do not observe real reality, to him we only observe the phenomenal world not the real reality
Kant thought the 'phenomenal world' was real reality, and perfectly sufficient for both gaining objective knowledge about the world and obtaining valid scientific theories. The noumena isnt meant to be some kind of device used to discredit science or empirical knowledge. Kants position is quite similar to Rand's in ITOE (consciousness has identity which determines how the world appears to it, but this doesnt mean that knowledge is subjective or invalid). The only meaningful difference is that Kant didnt rule out the possibility of a hypothetical entity which had a non-conceptual knowledge, but this has no real impact on human epistemology.

Epistemologically, Rand and Kant dont really differ that much in their conclusions (Rand misinterpreted Kant as being a skeptic, which he wasnt), they mainly differ in the arguments used to justify them, since Kant's epistemology is based on his highly dubious views about the nature of space and time. When it came to ethics they were light-years apart though yeah. Kant's ethical system is a disaster.

Edited by eriatarka
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