Kant + Kierkegaard

8/10/2019 Kant + Kierkegaard

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Miriam Elhajli

12/1/2014

Professor KirosEthics

Examining Kant and Kierkegaards Views On Friendship

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, is a work of prose containing the poem

MEDITATION XVII writtenby 16th

century cleric John Donne where he states, No

man is an island in the opening line of the poem. Using anthropomorphism, Donne is

attempting to portray how man does not stand alone in this life project, but rather is a

small part of a complex network that makes up mankind. Each fragment, every person, is

tied together within the network through bonds, this bond can be called friendship. The

idea of friendship has been one of much controversy and contemplation since it is a part

of the larger question, Who am I, and how can I live my life virtuously? The answers to

this question remain one that should ultimately be addressed on an individual level;

however, when purging oneself of the unnessesaries in ones life is the concept of

friendship to be kept or thrown away? Two philosophers that are on the opposite sides of

this spectrum are Immanuel Kant and Sren Kierkegaard. For example, Kant believed

true friendship to be the whole end of man, while Kierkegaardbelieved it to be selfish

and iniquitous.1However, even though these two thinkers have antithetical views there

are similarities and comparisons that can be drawn.

Kants Lecture On Friendship given during his teaching career at the University

of Konigsberg, revolves around his central idea and thesis on friendship, which is that

man has two underlying motives to all his actions: self-love and love of humanity. These

two motives drastically conflict and split mans psyche into having to choose between

1Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 215.


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pleasure and morals; assuming however that what is morally correct vs. what is

pleasurable does not align. Kant writes, Are we first, from our own self-love, to secure

our own happiness, and having done that, look to the happiness of our fellows; or should

the happiness of others be our first concern?2If one is to secure their own self-love prior

to that of others as Kant suggests, this search for satisfaction could turn out perilous since

desire is regenerative. On the other hand, being solely concerned with the welfare of

others could stunt or even eliminate ones happiness. However, Kant writes that there is a

solution, or rather exception, to this conflict by introducing the concept of reciprocal

love. The foundation that supports this idea of reciprocal love is one based on equality

where the welfare of each would be secured by the efforts of his fellows.3Yet because

Kant believes that I cannot love another more than I love myself, and since this ideal

of reciprocity is based on equality, man must love others as he loves himself; a friend

must become another self as Aristotle once wrote inNicomachean Ethics.4Kant does

allude to Aristotle much throughout his lecture, and reinterprets his idea on the three

types of friendship.

The first type of friendship comes from one of need. Encountered usually in

primitive social conditions, it is the original form of friendship brought forth when man

can trust one another in the mutual provision for the needs of life.5This form of

friendship is not for enjoyment but rather confidence unlike the second type of friendship

that is based off of taste. The friendship of taste consists in the pleasure we derive from

each others company and not from each others happiness,where man seeks out in

2Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 210.3Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 210.4Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 211 & 216.5Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 212.


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another what he does not yet understand or have; it is an unequal friendship of variety

rather than uniformitythat will soon cease to exist since tastes change as time

progresses.6The ultimate bond is one of dispositions; one of friendship in its absolute

sense that, as mentioned in the introduction, is stated to be the whole end of man.

Communication is not withheld as it is with the other two forms of friendship, and

communion is achieved through the unburdening of one heart to another.7However, Kant

advises that man must not reveal himself fully, in his natural state, for if animosity would

pervade throughout a friendship, revenge could ensue and be of detriment to oneself.

Withholding ones full self isnecessarybecause friendship is not of heaven but of

earth, and earth is not a place of complete moral perfection; therefore, one must be

cautious. Ultimately however, friendship no matter what type develops the minor virtues

of life.8

Within Kierkegaards book Works of Love, the chapter You Shall Love Your

Neighbor II B examines friendship through the Christian lens by deconstructing the

differences between poetic love vs. love of neighbor. As Kierkegaard explains, poetic, or

partial love, belong to the poet who thrives off of sensuality and eroticism, while love of

neighbor is spiritual and self-renouncing. Friendship and erotic love belong solely to

paganism for Christianity has thrust erotic love and friendship from the throne in order

to establish spiritual love in its place, love to ones neighbor.9Through the Christian

lens the poets friendship is also selfish because it is not concerned with the love of all,

but rather the love of a few distinct individuals whom the poet chooses to spend time

6Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 214.7Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 214.8Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 217.9Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 243 & 235.


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with. For example, If your friend complains that you did for a neighbor what he thought

you would do only for him, be at rest, it is your friend who makes the mistake.10

This

line illuminates one of Kierkegaards central points on how poetic love, or erotic love,

strains in the direction of the one and only beloved which causes ones affections to be

limited and given to few.11

Concerning the type of love that is ethical, Kierkegaard states how to the poet

love and friendship contain no ethical task, but areonly good fortune since the poet

does not have an obligation to find the beloved or foster friendships as in Christianity, but

only to be properly grateful for the fortune found, showing therefore that this obligation

to love ones neighbor is an ethicaltask.12

Both of these forms of love cannot co-exist

for there is an impossibility to love according to both explanations simultaneously.13

In

the last statements of the chapter, Kierkegaard writes how one must realize that ones

neighbor is ones equal regardless of social circumstance. This agrees with Kants

argument on a love of disposition to be one based on equality. Despite onesposition in

the eyes of society, neighbors are equals nonetheless since with your neighbor you have

before God the equality of humanity.14

To view another as an equal, be it friend, lover or neighbor is what perhaps at the

core both Kant and Kierkegaard were stating. It seems that in the modern world the

question to contemplate should not be to whom one must distribute their love, but simply

to love regardless of what type of love it is. Friendship is of earth and not of heaven,

but mankind is also of earth and must therefore stay in the present moment even through

10Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 239.11Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 237.12Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 238.13Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 238.14Pakaluk, Michael, ed. Other Selves. Cambridge: Hackett, 1991, 247.


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their aspirations to commune with God in the future. If God is love as Christianity states,

then to love all selflessly is what is important. For selfless love given without prejudice

towards all is virtuous, and ultimately the goal.


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distribution of ones love and admiration should not be the topic of discussion, but

rather to love.

love of neighbor sees friendship as selfish for the I is intoxicated by the other I, as well

as a distraction from the highest love which is God for

Poetic love Love of neighbor

Partial

Friendship is selfishness (233)

To the poet love and friendship contain no

ethical task (238) but are only good

fortune. The poet does not have an

obligation to find the beloved or foster

Spiritual

Self-renunciation

-You cannot truly regard another as an

equal unless you love him in just the same

way as you love everyone else (234)


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friendships as in Christendom, but rather to

be properly grateful for the fortune found.

This sense of obligation to love ones

neighbor is an ethical task (238)

Christianity has thrust erotic love and

friendship from the throne in order to

establish spiritual love in its place, love to

ones neighbor (235)

-Erotic love is based on disposition that

there is only one beloved in the whole

world (237)

-Erotic love strains in the direction of the

one and only beloved

-Erotic love and friendship belong to

paganism (235)

Love and friendship are the very height of

self-feeling (243)

The I intoxicated by the other I

No amount of education can make you

attain love for your neighbor

Ones neighbor is your equal even if life

and circumstance has made you unequal to

the eyes of society because with your

neighbor you have before God the equality

of humanity (247)

Poetic love vs. love of neighbor

Partial while the other is spiritual

-Friendship is selfishness (233)

-As well as passion that makes distinctions and can only be either or

-Shortest way to find the highest good (239)

-Kierkegaard is stating that friendship should be dethroned since it is not the

highest love.

-It is a betrayal to love friendship and a higher love (236)


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-In Christian love, one cannot exclude a single person to love for that would not

follow the principal of loving ones neighbor

-The poet and Christianity explain things in opposite ways (238)

-Impossibility to love according to both explanations simultaneously (238)

-Christianity teaches a man immediately the shortest way to find the highest

good: shit your door and pray to God-for God is still the highest (239)

To admire another person certainly is not love, but to be the one and only friend

of this rarest object of admiration, must no this relationship turn back in a doubtful way

to the I from which it proceeded? (242)

Needs (212)

-original form of friendship brought

Tastes (214)

-pseudo friendshio

-lost as time progresses and tastes change

Dispositions (214)

-friendship in its absolute sense

-communicate whole self, nothing is withheld

-whole end of man (25)

-However, it warns and urges one not to reveal themselves fully

in Aristotles organizational system of the three different types of friendship.


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which therefore refers to Aristotles famous line inNicomachean Ethicsthat A

friend is another self15

welfare of each would be secured by the efforts of his fellows (210)

mans perennial mental struggle between self-love and love of humanity.

Kant Lecture on Friendship

Self love vs. love of humanity

IDEAL: If each loves another as himself

A friend is another self (216)

I cannot love another more than I love myself (211)

The relation of friendship is a relation of equality (213)

Three Types of friendship, much like Aristotle illuminated in Nicomachean Ethics

Documents

Kant + Kierkegaard