Kant and the 21st Century Essay

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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For Twenge, individualism has progressed so far that the hunger has been replaced by an almost feverish drive to prove one's individual self to the rest of the world (Twenge, 2006, p. 17).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.

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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.

If one considers, for example, Kant's ideal of "duty" as determined by a universal moral law, in which such duty is to adhere to the collective rules and mores of society (Johnson, 2012). In terms of individualism today, the loss of culture and ethnic roots in favor of becoming a self-actualized individual also includes a loss of collective rules and mores.

In this way, a new universal law arises, where individuals choose their morals, values, and laws, and act accordingly. Such choices are also neither consistent nor permanent, where individuals make choices depending upon their own goals and needs, even if the choice is not necessarily directly related to the pursuit of such a goal. Hence, Kant's ideal of "universal law" could still apply, but only in a much modified sense. For the individual, this law is by no means universal across he world or indeed across time, even during the individual lifetime. Indeed, choices are far more available today than Kant ever acknowledged, even while acknowledging a certain extent of autonomy for the individual.

In conclusion, it is found that Kant's moral philosophy, as it stands, places the universal human ideal above individuality, which means that it cannot apply today, where individuals make choices based on their own ideals. However, his does not mean that an individual is without any sense of morality, in which case a modified version of Kant's theory might well apply......

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