Kant and the 21st Century

Kant and the 21st Century

Everything changes. There is no denying this constant truth in life. In fact, this is especially true for humanity. We change as individuals in terms of individual, personal development. We also change collectively as a society and culture, integrating new cultures and ideas as these are presented to us and made worthy of our time and attention. These changes are driven by a variety of external and internal factors. The question is whether the philosophies constructed during the 18th century can be applicable to the individualism experienced within society during the 21st century. To investigate this, Emmanuel Kant's moral philosophy can be investigated. While it may seem somewhat ambitious to apply an 18th century philosopher's ideas and ideals to the contemporary world, one might gain valuable insights from such an effort. The first and central question is then: Can the "empty self" cultivated in the decades after World War II and the self-actualization focus and drive of today fit into Kant's world, and vice versa? Kant acknowledges a collective morality. Today's worlds, however, is far more individualistic thank Kant may have ever acknowledged. On the strength of this, one might argue that Kant's philosophy is no longer applicable to the world of separate individuals we know today, unless his views are significantly modified to adhere to individuals and their choices.

Cushman (1990, p.599) argues that external influences, such as culture, the economy, and politics, have a far more prominent impact on the development of the self-concept held by individualism than may be supposed by those who would decontextualize this ideal. In this, for Cushman, individuality is also culturally driven, where each particular culture has a common understanding of how to "be human." By this argument, Cushman (1990, p. 599) makes the claim that there cannot be any universal theory about a common human self. Instead, there are several concepts of self, all of which are driven by external local factors, including the ethnicity within which one is born and lives.

In terms of Kant's theory then, one might cite this as one of the difficulties in terms of application. In his theory of morality, for example, Kant appears to make no distinction between or allowance for cultural individualities. Instead, his idea of individual choice and autonomy appears to be grounded in an assumption of a humanity that is far more uniform than the one we are experiencing today (Johnson, 2012).

Kant's idea of the "good will" can be cited as a case in point, for example. The philosopher assumes that the idea of "the moral good" is universal (Johnson, 2012). In other words, "good will," for Kant, means that the individual will choose to do only what is "morally worthy," which in turn is the reason for making such choices. For Kant, the moral worthiness of actions and using such morality as the ultimate goal of decision-making is a universal value system that is highly prized by all human beings (Johnson, 2012).

If one were to return to the ideas of individualism and culture, however, Cushman (1990, p. 599) clearly disagrees with Kant's "universal" ideal, especially in its capacity for relating to all human beings across the world and across time. Today, one might take this idea even further by arguing that individuals themselves can no longer be said to adhere even to the collective of a certain culture or country. This is an idea forwarded by Twenge (2006), who focuses on individuals and their sense of self today. According to Twenge, the individual today is so focused on the self and the pursuit of satisfaction for the self that morality plays a role only as far as it benefits or satisfies the individual. In other words, one of the manifestations of his is that, while the individual today experiences satisfaction in helping others via charity work, which is a morally laudable decision, this is only done as far as it does not interfere with the individual's schedule and desires (Twenge, 2006, p. 5).

According to Cushman, the emergence of individualism after World War II and beyond has created a sense of emptiness in the self, or a type of "empty self" (Cushman, 1990, p. 600). What Cushman means with this is that the self has become empty resulting from the loss of the community, tradition, and shared experience connected to specific cultures or communities (Cushman, 1990, p. 600). This empty self then needs emotional fulfillment, which individuals have sought in consuming products and ideas offered by the media and by shops. Indeed, the author claims that the current psychological phenomena of narcissism and borderline states are the direct product of the emptiness created by the post-World War II loss of connection to humanity via common culture and belief systems.

Twenge (2006, p. 2), on the other hand, believes that individualism has reached an ultimate high with today's young generation, or what the author refers to as the "Generation Me." This is a generation for whom morality and human connection are exclusively focused upon the individual as well as individual desires or ideals. Even love needs to be directed at the self first before it can be directed towards others.

In these terms, it is difficult to imagine how Kant's ideal of the collective moral good can still apply. Indeed, Twenge's theory is even further removed from Kant's than Cushman's. For Cushman, there remains a sense of the collective. This collective experiences a common emotional hunger for the loss of culture and common mores. As such, even though the bond has been severed, the resulting hunger becomes the new bond that binds individuals into an unhappy but universal whole. There is no common morality, because there is no common culture. The only possible conclusion is therefore that Kant's ideal of the common moral good cannot apply. Consumerism is at the basis of everything.

For Twenge, individualism has progressed so far that the hunger has been replaced by an almost feverish drive to prove one's individual self to the rest of the world (Twenge, 2006, p. 17). In other words, the drive to put the individual self on display becomes somewhat extreme. One can conclude that this drive is so far removed from Kant's ideal of the universal law and the universal good that no reconciliation is possible.

In the same spirit, however, one can surmise that Kant's theory is not entirely useless for the world today. When using modification as applied principle, one can acknowledge that the elements of Kant's philosophy are far more subject to choice today than in the philosopher's day.