A Consideration and Critique of Bergson’s Moral Theory and Its Foundations with a Focus on a Critique of Kant’sDeontological Ethics

Since the beginning of philosophical thought until Kant, the faculty of theoretical reason was deemed the foundation of the faculty of practical reason. One influential philosopher in the West, working on practical reason and morality, was Henry Bergson–the French philosopher. In his intellectual system, perception is reinterpreted as the first result of action and reaction, and the human image with the external world, action, and the faculty of practical reason are viewed as having primacy over theoretical reasoning. The result of this fundamental turn is manifested in Bergson’s ethics. Given the predominant atmosphere in Bergson’s period, this modern philosopher is concerned with the revival of the moral and axiological human, elaborating his ethics in two realms: social ethics under “closed morality” and “human open morality.” In his close morality, he tries to correct errors in Kant’s deontological ethics, opening the path to the flourishing of a new ethics in terms of prominent models as moral models. Bergson rejects autonomous reason as the foundation of morality. In his account of open morality, he establishes it upon an evolved rationality, which reaches passion and consciousness in its creative development and reconnection with life, and can guide the human to acquisition of genuine knowledge.