I.Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804
      A.What is Enlightenment? (1784), The Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
      B.Metaphysics:
            1.The Phenomenal world can only be seen through the filter of reason
                   a.We cannot perceive or describe things as they really are
                   b.Good and evil cannot be proved to exist except as concepts
                   c.Causation itself cannot beproved to exist except as a concept
            2.The higher Noumenal world is inaccessable through reason
                   a.Neither God nor religious truth nor revelation are reasonable
      C.Ethics and Morality dictated by categorical imperitives
            1.An action is morally good if done in obedience to law and the state
            2.An action is morally good if done with right intention: duty
            3.Consequences of acts are unimportant if one has right intention and acts in
            obedience to the law or to the authority of the state
            4.No personal responsibility for actions conducted during the course of duty
            in obedience to the state, the law or other legitimate authority
      D.Important influence on Statism
            1.Reasonable discourse as regards all things internal (your thoughts)
            2.Yet absolute obedience to the State remains essential (your actions)
      E.Belief in continuous Progress towards an ideal, rational society
            1.Society will be perfected
            2.But perhaps not individual men and women
            3.Hence obedience to State, as guarantor/shaper of society
II.Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
      A.The useful is the good, but utility is relative, and so are good and evil
      B.An action is morally good if, on balance, it is more beneficial than harmful
III.George Friedreich Wilhelm Hegel, 1770-1831
      A.Scholars must use analysis & synthesis to understand
      B.Historicism: historical method of understanding man & universe
            1.To understand the history of a thing is to understand the thing itself
      C.Things are influenced by the spirit of the times in which they exist
            1.Zeitgeist
            2.Great men are great because they are aligned with the Zeitgeist
                   a.The course of history produces these great ones
                   b.If it hadn't been Caesar or Napoleon, then someone just like them
      D.Dialectic of History (A THEORY OF PROGRESS)
            1."Continuing struggle between opposing forces is the dynamic behind events"
                   a.Thesis=Dominant Idea (imperfect)
                   b.Antithesis=Challenging Idea (some solutions)
                   c.Synthesis=Result (new & more comprehensive solutions)
            2.This dialectic of history leads to freer and happier conditions
                   a.Every day in every way, better and better
                   b.Some unpleasantness inevitable on a personal level
            3.Hegel and the State
                   a.Thesis=desire for liberty
                   b.Antithesis=growth of the state
                   c.Synthesis=ever more perfect state
                   d.Glorification of the State as the highest evolutionary form
                         (1)The state can never die
                         (2)The "Hegelian" state can be all things to all people
IV.Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
      A.The World as Will and Representation/Idea
            1.Pessimism about human ability to perceive reality
            2.We perceive mental representations, not reality
            3.We create those representations through our individuated Will
      B.Champions compassion as a form of insight that transcends illusion
            1.Allows us some mystical union with a single metaphysical Will
            2.Allows us mystically to recognize the inner being of others
            3.Who are themselves representations of the single metaphysical Will
      C.Condemns egoism as excessive individuation and Willfulness
            1.Usually leads to vice, often leads to malice
            2.Always leads to suffering
      D.Salvation through renunciation of the individual Will
            1.Which can unify us with the single metaphysical Will