A public ceremony in honor of Professor Samuel Paty, who was murdered on Friday in Conflans, was held with the presence of the Head of State and 400 guests at the Sorbonne. The Legion of Honor was posthumously awarded to the teacher.
In Nice, a demonstration took place in the late afternoon at Jardin Albert 1er, organized by several associations. But how can we understand this act of deadly violence? How can we accept that a hand is raised to take another’s life for reasons of custom?
Let us seek an answer in philosophy, which etymologically means “knowledge, wisdom.”
In the “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,” Immanuel Kant defines them by associating them with respect for human dignity. If every person has a value that belongs to them uniquely, intrinsically and unconditionally, then “others are worthy of my respect just as I want to be worthy of the respect of others.” In other words, every human being has dignity, says the German philosopher.
For the thinker of Königsberg, “a human being loses reason when he no longer recognizes in his fellow human the reason that is also his own.”
Kant’s reflection is enriched in “Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason,” when he affirms the necessary compatibility between reason and faith.
The depiction of God in fanciful forms, subjected to the folklore of mysticism, to naïve anthropomorphisms, to fetishisms of all kinds creates a moral deficiency, a voluntary and knowingly delinquent or even criminal tendency to do evil for evil’s sake.
To reflect… with dignity, with firmness, and by coming together around the Nation’s values.
