Similarities:
In Bhagwad Gita the supreme duty is action without desire. Action without desire does not mean unmotivated action but acting with a sagacious Tuition of submission to God.
Thus, according to the Gita activities which are conjoined to a desire for results are improper. Gita is not utilitarian. It holds that those who entertain any desire for the result of their activities are extremely poor in the same way Kant, too does not look upon the result as the object of moral judgment.
According to him, there is nothing which supersedes goodwill. If the volition is good the action is good, whatever may be the result. Moral laws are categorical. Their propriety is self evident being unaffected by the result the other point where Gita and Kant coalesce is that both emphasize service.
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Another point of similarity between the opinions of Kant and the Gita is in regard to the control of feelings. Mental tendencies cannot motivate action. And when a person acts under such motives as love and jealousy he becomes entangled in worldly processes.
Sex causes anger and anger leads to confusion which causes memory failings and consequently destruction of reason. Thus the passions guide one hi the direction of ignorance. Gita has preached abstention from both love and hatred.
The senses should be won over by practice and abstinence. Thus it is best to act unattached. This opinion of the Gita confirms very nearly to the moral theories of Kant, according to whom the supreme duty is the suppression of despicable desires. A pure moral life is a life of pure reason. The sole correct motive is faith in law.
Differences:
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But here it should be remembered that in spite of similarity between the opinions of Kant and Gita on the subject of feeling, there is also a major difference upon the same issue. Gita does not treat desire, emotion and feelings as completely evil.
Gita has stressed devotion and worship for the development of man’s emotional aspect It is necessary to transform or divinize and not to exterminate feelings. On the other hand, Kant crowns feeling itself with immorality and wants to remove it completely from life. In this way his opinion becomes rigorist.
It is Kant’s view that one is to “act as a member of a kingdom or ends”. It is a theory which resembles very nearly Gita’s Varna organization and the ideal of loka sangrha. Both Kant and the Gita have recognized individual and social interests as mutually interrelated and preached public service but while the motivating cause of public service.
According to Kant, is faith in the moral cause of public service, according to Kant, is faith in the moral law, in Gita the sole aim of every activity is realization of God. (XII4). Thus, for Kant the ultimate end is duty while in Gita it is God. Kantian ethics is Jural while the ethics of Gita is teleological.
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In Kantian ethics, the necessity of God arises for the protection of moral law but hi Gita the moral laws emerge from the Godly existence. Kant’s ethics is not very much related to religion while the ethics of Gita is religious and intellectual.
According to Kant, ethics is the final step hi human progress. According to Gita, religion is beyond ethics and spirituality is beyond it, too.
Kant has extolled the importance only of knowledge and action. His ethics has [become heartless and rigorous but by assimilating devotion to the supreme means Gita has presented an order conducive to the all-round progress of mankind. The ethics of Gita is more integral than the theories of Kant. Moral qualities, according to the Gita, include pity, forgiveness, love, sympathy, etc.
Kant’s ethics has become individualistic due the negation on his part, of the importance of human feelings, because the element which draws man to man is emotion and not reason.
The ethics of Gita is universal because it contains the feeling of world community. Love and attachment are distinct Pure love is the supreme means of the divine consciousness.
Thus, in the ethics of Gita and Kant, in spite of some similarity, there is a fundamental distinction. Kant’s rationalism is merely a step towards the integrals of the Gita.