Question

Extraterrestrials arrive, and they are far superior to us in intellect—the most brilliant human thinkers would be regarded as severely mentally deficient among these profoundly rational ETs, and their reasoning processes are far beyond ours: their mediocre high school students offer mathematical insights that astonish and awe our most advanced mathematicians. It turns out that the ethical principles of these super-rational extraterrestrials are very different from ours; would a Kantian conclude that we ought to adopt their ethical system, even though we can’t really understand the reasoning process by which they developed that system?

Answer 1

Kant says that we can not think about each and every aspect of anything. It is an impossible task. We can think up to an extent only. We have "defined thinking limits" and we can not go beyond that limit. It can be understood through an example. We come to hear new scientific innovations each and every day.

We can feel that such innovations were impossible at some point of time. One thing leads to another and this path making leads to some new point. We should adopt an open attitude. We should consider the fact that there are certain things which can not be sensed but they exist.

We can not be fully confident about our teachings and observations. Lets take another example. We all know that breaking traffic rules (breaking red signal) is an bad aspect. Now consider a situation in which a driver is carrying his son in injured condition.

He is driving very fast because ensuring timely reach to hospital is very much essential for saving his life. People who will observe him driving fast and breaking traffic rules, will definitely curse him without knowing the actual reason.

Now consider the situation as given in question. We can not rely completely on knowledge which has been taught to us. There may be different different dimensions of same thing. One event can be interpreted in numerous manners.

There remains a need to adopt a wide angle so that we can understand a situation in a complete manner. There remains a need of critical thinking and evaluation. We can not accept something blindfold.

We should not consider humans as the only master of this universe. There may be different unexplored paradigms which can teach us much more.than our existing form of knowledge. We should utilize our full potential before accepting any fact and it should be done with complete involvement of critical thinking.