For centuries, governments have struggled to reach the correct balance freedom and regulation for a society to be best suited. Some believe that strong civil liberties allow people to freely express themselves and make the best decisions based on their decisions. Others believe governments should regulate “bad” behavior to keep people on the correct path. In “What is Enlightenment?”, Immanuel Kant provides his views on how to best balance these two ideas to attain “enlightenment”.
Kant defines enlightenment as the ability to use and act upon one’s own rationality. He states that the main reason people are often unable to do this is the fact that they lack the courage to make their own decisions. It is often easy to allow society to take control of the way we act and think, preventing us from making our own decisions. This “laziness” is understandable, as the human instinct is to avoid unnecessary pain. The full use of reason requires practice in order to be fully developed. Kant even goes as far as to state that conflict is necessary for reason to develop, which is also understandably avoided. However Kant describes these as individuals to reach enlightenment and for societies to truly flourish.
Established religion is used as a strong example in “What is Enlightenment?” as an example of a societal lack of critical thinking. In a church, individuals attend ceremonies in which a pastor describes how they should be thinking. Rather than deriving morals and ethics from rational thinking, they allow themselves to mirror the mindset of the other members of their church. Furthermore, Kant explains how the pastor himself must also suspend his critical thinking. As a pastor, he is “bound to instruct his catecumens and congregation in accordance with the symbol of the church he serves, for he was appointed on that condition.” The pastor may use his critical thinking to find errors with these lessons, however he will not pass on this information to his congregation, as it is not his job to do so. With a congregation blindly following a pastor and a pastor blindly following his religious teachings, churches exemplify Kant’s idea of laziness. By relying on others for these ideas, individuals avoid burdensome thought, however they also avoid the increased understanding that would come from thinking about these issues.
Despite Kant’s calls for greater rational thinking, he does not believe that total freedom will lead to enlightenment. In describing an enlightened society, Kant separates public freedom from private freedom. He views the current climate as one in which people are told to refrain from arguing and just obey. Kant believes it is still required for people to obey the rules of their society in order for it to work properly, but that argument should be encouraged, or in his words "argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!". Public freedom is the ability to argue and think rationally in an open and free manner. This is the only way that the public can truly strive towards enlightenment. However, there would be no issue restricting private freedom, which would be viewed as obeying the rules necessary for a smooth running society. An example of this contrast would be an individual publicly decrying a supposed unfair taxation, while continuing to pay the tax. This allows individuals to strive towards enlightenment without disrupting the workings of a society.
When comparing the work of Kant to those of other philosophers, it is notably more realistic than some. The idea of maintaining order by restricting private use of reason shows Kant is less concerned with a overhaul of existing laws, simply a change in the way we think. Additionally, “What is Enlightenment?” reinforces the idea that quick revolutions are uneffective at helping people reach enlightenment, changes are only made through slow changes in thought. However, there are instances in which restricting private reason and focusing on slow changes would lead to problematic outcomes. Throughout American history, blacks have faced discrimination not only through the ideas of individuals, but even through discriminatory laws. Kant’s view of a situation like slavery or the African American civil rights movement would likely have been that rational thinking would slowly lead to a time in which slaves are freed or blacks are given equal rights. However these slow changes would have kept blacks enslaved or repressed until the full transformation was complete. The freeing of the slaves or the civil rights laws would be seen as breaking the restrictions on private reason. Kant’s ideas lay a good ground for a society in which people freely share ideas and think critically, however there are some extreme cases in which these ideas do not hold up.
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