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Analysis of Kant's categorical imperative
Essay on kantian ethics
Essay on kantian ethics
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Great philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and Plato unwittingly weighed in on this story, long before it ever occurred. Immanuel Kant is considered a significant and influential figure in modern philosophy. He may have single handedly set the tone on how humanity conducts themselves in society. Kant’s Categorical Imperative is basically a set of principles that we should follow. Essentially, it is our moral duty to uphold these laws whether you want to or not and that they are universal, meaning no one is immune to the rules. Michael Yudanin states one “to be compliant with the moral law, it has to be universalizable, that is, it has to be capable to be thought as a universal law that binds everybody, everywhere, and at any point in time, without contradiction” (Yudanin). In the previous story, Ridjie acted immorally. She used her little sister’s ingenuousness to her advantage. She knew her sister would have done whatever she’d asked and take the blame. This act not only earned her her father’s trust, it also weakened his relationship with her sister. Ridjie’s action were solely for her personal benefit. The possibility of how it could affect Sammy were the least of her concern. Additionally, Kant would also view Sammy’s action immoral. Although she lied to save them from a horrible punishment, she lied
Society is not a realm in which all of the rules are listed on paper; people naturally abide them due to their countless experiences. The results of these incidents or the incident as a whole sometimes transform itself into an unspoken code that people are assumed to know by heart. For example, humans are treated differently - usually with more respect and higher expectations (such as CEOs or famous actors and actresses) - when they are in a very high position or level in an industry. No matter how much or little they do, they are frequently noticed more by the media than anyone else. But how about those who live in their normal lives trying to bring home the bread and milk for their families? Or those who do a substantial amount of service and deeds for their communities and companies? Ty...
Human beings are an impressionable race who learn from each other what they should and should not do. While this is sometimes a useful trait, in other instances it can lead to death and cruelty. This is showcased copiously in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The book starts off with the French nobility horribly mistreating the destitute peasants, beating them and starving them without feeling any guilt whatsoever. To the rebels, it does not matter whether the people they execute are innocent or guilty of crimes against them, and instead see the entire upperclass as responsible for what a portion of them actually did. In this way, the cycle comes to a complete
In this paper, I will critique Kantian ethic’s failure to defend beings disputably labeled “irrational.” The concept of a rational being is a common motif throughout Immanuel Kant’s “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.” These beings comprise the foundation of his entire argument. Therefore, for the purpose of this essay, it is crucial to further examine what is meant by “rational.” Kant offers three essential requirements that separate rational beings from their irrational counterparts; the ability to reason, a moral will, and autonomy (53, 49, 41.) Rational beings are those included in his ideal “kingdom of ends” (39.) He defines this kingdom as “a systematic union of rational beings through common objective law” (39.) Since Kant’s code of ethics only applies to those deemed rational, some fundamental questions remain ambiguous. Firstly, in what manner should Kant’s higher capacity beings interact with those “incapable” of reason? Could those who fail to meet the three requirements be abused or exploited? Would this be justified? Some may conclude that Kant has evaded these inquiries altogether.
David Hume sought out to express his opinion in which sentiment is seen as the grounding basis for morality. This sentiment is acting as the causal reasoning for why we have morality or act in a moral way. David Hume, as well as Kant, believe that causal necessity governs humans lives and actions. In this essay, I will show how Hume, provides an argument in favor of sentiment being the foundation of our morality, rather than his predecessors who favored reason. To do this, I will begin to outline Hume’s theories, highlighting his main ideas for grounding morality on sentiment and bring up some possible counterarguments one of which being Immanuel Kant's theories and how that might potentially weaken his argument and how the roots of morality
Actions of any sort, he believed, must be undertaken from a sense of duty dictated by reason, and no action performed for expediency or solely in obedience to law or custom can be regarded as moral. A moral act is an act done for the "right" reasons. Kant would argue that to make a promise for the wrong reason is not moral - you might as well not make the promise. You must have a duty code inside of you or it will not come through in your actions otherwise. Our reasoning ability will always allow us to know what our duty is.
Immanuel Kant is a popular modern day philosopher. He was a modest and humble man of his time. He never left his hometown, never married and never strayed from his schedule. Kant may come off as boring, while he was an introvert but he had a great amount to offer. His thoughts and concepts from the 1700s are still observed today. His most recognized work is from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Here Kant expresses his idea of ‘The Good Will’ and the ‘Categorical Imperative’.
Philosophy is the study of knowledge, reality, existence and thought processes. Immanuel Kant from Prussia, (currently Russia) for whom was influential during the Enlightenment period; and John Stuart Mill from Great Britain whom was present during the Romantic era, explored ideas that they believed would create a more fair and just society, by trying to legislate morality. Morality cannot be legislated because it is a concept of right and wrong created by each different religion, region and culture; issues are not black and white.
...g our way through life. Some people choose to go the other direction and are trying to ruin our society by becoming criminals and lead a life of violence. In the outsider Meursault and his friend got caught in a fight with a bunch of Arabs who wanted to kill Meursaults' friend and Meursault himself for being there, the best solution Meursault and his friend had was to come back another day and try to do the same to those Arabs. Unluckily Meursault got caught and had to pay for his crime which according to society was also not showing any remorse to his moms death (and other things that are described in the book). In the case of the book of mice and men Lenny gets picked on by the husband of the bosses daughter because the guy was clearly jealous of Lenny and needed to make an excuse for wanting to fight with him, but this happened simply because the guy disliked Lenny, also for the reason that Lenny was retarded.
In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant argues that human beings inherently have capability to make purely rational decisions that are not based on inclinations and such rational decisions prevent people from interfering with freedom of another. Kant’s view of inherent ability to reason brings different perspective to ways which human beings can pursue morality thus it requires a close analytical examination.
Introduction Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous, especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to, but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority; for example, the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience, reflecting how this can be destructive in real life experiences. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid, hence useless.
The person who assumes responsibility has evaporated. Perhaps this is the most common characteristic of socially organized evil in modern society” (77). It was shown in the Obedience experiment, we see time and again that the dissipation of responsibility can lead any average human being to perform tasks that they themselves consider immoral and unethical. So long as we are told that the responsibility of the harm that we are causing will fall on someone else’s shoulders, humans as a whole are capable of unimaginable damage much like Police Battalion 101 and the hooligans of Jedwabne. The institution of authority imposed during the Stanford Prison experiment is similar to the institution of anti-semitism that was preached and instituted in Polish towns like Jedwabne where the Jews were used as a source of blame. While many members of the Police Battalion preached that they were simply following orders, other members, and the Polish hooligans of Jedwabne were up to something far more sinister, and it is truly startling to see the barbarity that humans can have towards other humans in times of crisis when they are told that the responsibility for those lives doesn’t fall on
The Holocaust was the systematic murder of six million Jews, and five million Roma Gypsies, mentally and physically disabled people, homosexuals and etc. These groups were targeted because the Nazis believed that Germans were the superior race and anyone who didn’t represent their perfect race was seen as a threat and inferior. There were many people responsible for the horrible crimes that occurred during that time, but only a few were tried for their crimes. One of those responsible was Adolf Eichmann, he was charged because he played a major part in the deportation of the Jews from Germany and other parts of Europe to death camps. "Perils of Obedience" a study that psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted to see the lengths people will go to obey authority, even if they're harming another person. (630-643). In "Group Minds" by Doris Lessing, she states people will violate common sense and moral codes in order to be an accepted
So now that we have an understanding of Kantian ethics, let’s take that lens and look through it at the VW scandal. One of the key arbitrators of the scandal was the engineer that designed the cheat program, James Laing. You may believe that because VW 's will and duty align in creating the emissions test and Kantian theory doesn 't consider the consequences a factor did James and VW act wrongly? Looking through our hypothetical lens with a Kantian perspective the answer is a resounding yes they did act wrongly. Why VW and James acted wrongly comes from the mere means
Frankly, if you read the novel, you can relate it to how humans behave in our time period. For example, a Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., believed that all human beings are created equal. Although, we may know violence, we may know impertinence, but that doesn’t mean we have a right to use it to our will. The things that we’re capable of can be used to bring justice to the people around us, that’s our responsibility to do it and to keep that promise. Without him, or any of the leaders, the United States wouldn’t be what it is today.
...bly in the world today. The creation of global moral standards would start the slippery slope to imperialism where the dominating moral codes would rule the rest of the world and therefore corrode the cultures of the lesser states. Every society could take a lesson from moral relativism by being tolerant and understanding of other’s beliefs.