Rigorism of Kant’s Ethic and the Stoa

Abstract

The main object of the article is to clarify the reasonableness of the consideration of Kant’s ethic as the ethic of rigorism. This consideration is often accused of the contraposition between duty and dispositions. For this reason the ethic of Kant is compared with the ethical views of stoics, whose rigorism is beyond any doubt. Herewith both the substantial analogies and the differences are brought to light. These analogies and differences confirm that the ethic of Kant is originally anthropological and that Kant had never sought to build his ethical system out of taught with the reality, on the contrary, he tried to take into account as full as possible and to reflect the needs resulted from the empirical part of human nature and the real possibilities of human being. The translation of the letter from J.A. Fessler that at the end of the 18th century has already tried to draw a parallel between Kant’s ethic and the ethic of Stoa and the translation of the fragment of Kant’s lectures from 1783/84 that helps to research the dynamics of the development of Kant’s ethical views are enclosed to the article.