Aristotle And Kant's Influence On Modern Society

One often wonders what is the meaning of life, what is the purpose of our existence, how should one live one’s life, what is the highest good in one’s life etc. When faced with such question one usually turns to philosophers, people who have dedicated their entire lives to answer questions such as these. Among all the philosophers out there personally I felt that Aristotle and Kant have had the greatest influence on society and most of their writing are still relevant in modern day society. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, born in Macedonia, his father, Nicomachus was the court physician who died when Aristotle was young in 367 BCE, he was sent to Plato’s academy where he spent some time and then left the academy to form his …show more content…
If one had to choose one over the other, then I would have to go with Kant and there are a few reasons why I would have to go with Kant over Aristotle. Firstly, Aristotle was regarded as one of the most important philosopher than ever lived, but as society progressed a lot of new philosophers felt that Aristotle’s ideas were a little outdated and the fact that he lived in a time where slaves were traded openly and a woman had very few rights tells that Aristotle’s principals might not be universal. People like Nussbaum and other have taken it upon themselves to modify Aristotle’s teaching so that they are more acceptable as of today. Kant, on the other hand is more relevant today actually if one thinks about it, Kant is in a way responsible to shape society to what it is today. Concepts such as dignity, autonomy changed the way we saw things the concept of dignity went on to become the core principals of the human rights movement. Moving on the idea that “morality is a freedom to act in accordance of one’s own values is another concept” that revolutionized the world and is still used by us today, one can say that this one line has been the American foreign policy for the last 100 years. The constitution of America was largely influenced by enlightenment era ideas and Kant being one of the last major figures during that era only makes his idea more prevalent in our society today. Finally, Kants ideas and concepts completely changed the way we look at metaphysics, ethics and even philosophy, in a society where it is acceptable and possible to kill people thousands of miles away with a click of a button it is the only Kants philosophy of where the end doesn’t matter, but rather it is the reason behind the action that matters is that the only thing which can provide us with justification for the