Immanuel Kant Quotes About Purpose

Quotes about: Purpose

• A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose.

  Immanuel Kant

  Philosophical, Would Be, Purpose

  Immanuel Kant (1993). “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: with On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns”, p.25, Hackett Publishing

• Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose.

  Immanuel Kant

  Respect, Mean, Men

• Without man and his potential for moral progress, the whole of reality would be a mere wilderness, a thing in vain, and have no final purpose.

  Immanuel Kant

  Reality, Men, Progress

• Always regard every man as an end in himself, and never use him merely as a means to your ends [i.e., respect that each person has a life and purpose that is their own; do not treat people as objects to be exploited].

  Immanuel Kant

  Mean, Men, People

• Art is purposiveness without purpose.

  Immanuel Kant

  Art, Purpose, Art Is

• ...as soon as we examine suicide from the standpoint of religion we immediately see it in its true light. We have been placed in this world under certain conditions and for specific purposes. But a suicide opposes the purpose of his creator; he arrives in the other world as one who has deserted his post; he must be looked upon as a rebel against God. God is our owner; we are his property; his providence works for our good.

  Immanuel Kant

  Suicide, Suicidal, Light

• The universal and lasting establishment of peace constitutes not merely a part, but the whole final purpose and end of the science of right as viewed within the limits of reason.

  Immanuel Kant

  Peace, Science, Finals

  Immanuel Kant (1887). “The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right”, p.230, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

• The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally, and for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed.

  Immanuel Kant

  Race, Perfect, Political

  Immanuel Kant (1914). “Eternal Peace: And Other International Essays”

• The human heart refuses To believe in a universe Without a purpose.

  Immanuel Kant

  Believe, Heart, Optimism

• Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal. Her giving to man reason and the freedom of the will which depends upon it is clear indication of her purpose. Man accordingly was not to be guided by instinct, not nurtured and instructed with ready-made knowledge; rather, he should bring forth everything out of his own resources.

  Immanuel Kant

  Mean, Men, Giving

  "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" as translated in '"On History" by Lewis White Beck, (Third Thesis), www.marxists.org. 1963.

• Reason in a creature is a faculty of widening the rules and purposes of the use of all its powers far beyond natural instinct; it acknowledges no limits to its projects. Reason itself does not work instinctively, but requires trial, practice, and instruction in order gradually to progress from one level of insight to another.

  Immanuel Kant

  Order, Practice, Progress

  Immanuel Kant (1986). “Philosophical Writings”, Continuum

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