Good Example OF Essay On Kant´s Notion OF Love In “The Talking Bird, The Singing Tree, And The Golden Water”
Type of paper: Essay
Topic: Immanuel Kant, Kant, Enlightenment, Birds, Relationships, Conversation, Love, Happiness
Pages: 1
Words: 275
Published: 2020/09/17
“The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water” narrates the story of a sultan and his children. In the following lines I will explain which elements of the story would be approved by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, according to his notion of human love and sexuality.
Kant sustains that “Human love is good will, affection, promoting the happiness of others and finding joy in their happiness.” (“Readings: Immanuel Kant”) That kind of relationship is found in the story between the sultan´s children. The two princes and the princess care deeply for each other and procure each other’s happiness. We see that in different moments, for example, when the princess expresses her desire for the talking bird, the singing tree and the golden water and her brother says: "nothing can concern you in which we have not an equal interest.” (“The Talking Bird”) Another demonstration of the closeness of their relationship is when the princes, after being invited by the sultan tell him: "we have a sister younger than ourselves, with whom we live in such perfect union, that we undertake nothing before we consult her, nor she anything without asking our advice." (“The Talking Bird”)
Another kind of love Kant would approve of would be the relationship between the sultan and his wife on the moment when they marry and decide to have children. Matrimony is the only way that sexual activity is morally admissible according to Kant, for only in that relationship a person gives himself as a hole to another and receives another in return, also wining themselves back in this interaction; then they become one will. Therefore “Whatever good or ill, joy or sorrow befall either of them, the other will share in it. Thus sexuality leads to a union of human beings, and in that union alone its exercise is possible.” (“Readings: Immanuel Kant”) In marriage, two people unite and share everything, and it is only in this type of union, when a person is taken for all that he is, that his sexuality may be enjoyed.
Summarizing, the pure love between the sultan´s children and his decision to marry and procreate, are the relationships that Kant would approve of in “The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water”.
References
Hsieh, Diana. “Readings: Immanuel Kant on Sex, Marriage, and Masturbation.” The Blog Noodlefood. Philosophy in Action. 13 September 2013. Web. 9 January 2015. <http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?p=12054>
Unknown. “The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water.” Arabian Nights. Ed. Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith. Project Gutenberg. 27 March 2007. Web. 9 January 2015 < http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20916/20916-h/20916-h.htm>
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