Practical Anthropology and Moral Philosophy Distinction Essay

Practical Anthropology and Moral Philosophy Distinction - Essay Example The essay "Practical Anthropology and Moral Philosophy Distinction" presents the analysis of the difference between Kant’s moral philosophy and the empirical moral philosophy in terms of their principles and major determinants. The basis of finding the supreme moral principle should not be on the descriptive part but on the authoritative normative principle that is most fundamental in deciding human actions. Kant claims that morality commands human beings to be natural using the prior principles but never through the posterior ones. The two principles must be clearly distinguished in order to help determine what the conditional and the unconditional truths are as they may vary from species to species. What may be prudentially good to one person may not be so in another. The only way of justifying such a statement would be to analyze the moral philosophy and the empirical moral philosophy of the species concerned. Kant asserts that all moral theories prior to this fail to explain the categorical nature of moral obligation and to articulate a supreme moral principle that could capture the categorical nature of morality because those previous moral theories had neither recognized moral agents as autonomous nor recognized that the supreme moral principle must be self-legislated. The result of self-legislation in the previous theories on moral philosophy could only lead to hypothetical imperatives whereas Kant’s theory, solely based on the autonomy of legislation, could lead to categorical imperatives.