Deontological Ethics: Robin Hood

426 Words1 Page

Do you think deontological ethics represents a strong theory? Why or why not? What is the danger of focusing on intentions as our moral guide? Do you think reason is objective and universal as Kant does? Explain.
Deontological ethics “judges the moral rightness or wrongness of an act in terms of the intrinsic moral value of the act itself.” (Lawland pg. 462). Listening to the lecture this week on deontological ethics, the only thing I could of think of was Robin Hood. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Under, deontological ethics Robin Hood’s intentions are good., therefore, his actions should be morally correct. However, the categorical Imperative would disagree that it was morally right to steal because Robin Hood could not have convinced everyone to steal from the rich and give to the poor, it is against moral law. I …show more content…

Just because we have the intent to do something, does not mean it will turn out as we expected or that we will be able to what is needed, when it is need. A few quotes that come to mind are “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” or “Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.” In reality, we should probably use our good intentions to work towards our moral obligations. As the quote states we can not only intend to be good, we must work towards goodness.
Immanuel Kant argued that “that morality is based neither on the principle of utility, nor on a law of nature, but on human reasons” (justiceharvard.org). I do not agree that reason is objective if anything I would say that reason is subjective. Humans are subjective, we are often lead to our personal feelings and our opinions. That and my opinions are not going to reflect my neighbor opinions, our “reason” could be completely different. If my “reasons” are subjective and differ from my neighbors “reasons” then it cannot be

Open Document