Immanuel Kant Biography and Contribution

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Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724 in the Prussian city of Königsberg (Germany). Kant lived in the remote province where he was born for his entire life. His father was a saddler and his mother was an uneducated German woman, remarkable for her character and natural intelligence. Both parents were devoted followers of the Lutheran church, which taught that religion belongs to the inner life expressed in simplicity and obedience to moral law. The influence of their pastor made it possible for Kant, the fourth of nine children but the eldest surviving child, to obtain an education. Kant studied and worked at the local university until three years before his death in 1804, and never travelled further than fifty miles outside of the city. It is unusual for a philosopher in any time-period to make a significant impact on any single topic in philosophy, probably the reason fathers do not often allow a student to major in Philosophy. So, for a philosopher to impact as many different areas, as Kant did, is exemplary. His ethical theory has been as influential as his work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and metaphysics. Most of Kant's work on ethics is presented in two works: The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), wherein Kant "searches for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality." Secondly, in The Critique of Practical Reason (1787) Kant seeks to unify his account of practical reason with his work in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant is the primary proponent in history of what is called deontological (the study of duty) ethics. Deontological theories of ethics differ from utilitarian theories in several ways. The most notable of these is that while utilitarianism aims at a certain goal, such as happiness, and justifies any act that achieves that goal precisely because it achieves it. Deontological theories hold that some acts are
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