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Recommended: Kant's moral principles
Often, an important question in ethics is how important is consistency and impartial rationality? I believe consistency and being impartial are important because it gives us a basis of how to act morally in a universal way. His ethics doesn 't allow us to be impartial towards our friends or family because he negates emotion. Our actions are to be completely selfless and pure. Kant believes the value of actions cannot come from their consequences because we do not know whether the outcome will be bad or good. If we are doing an action for the good, it shouldn’t matter whether or not the end was good too. If you try to save a drowning kid, you might get there too late, but you still tried your best to do so. The motivation for the action is important to distinguish between the good and bad. People are motivated by different "ends". An example of this is that food is "good" to someone starving, but it might not be good to …show more content…
This "test" shows us what is right versus what is wrong, but it often ignores what we need to do. So, when looking at examples like whether we should fight in the war or stay with our dying mother, it doesn 't help us decide which is better. An example of the categorical imperative that we discussed in class is borrowing money knowing that you will never be able to repay it. You lie and say you will be able to at a different future date. So, the maxim would be making a lying promise. The next step would be checking whether this is universalizable or not. We assume this is not because if everyone lied and no one kept their word, we wouldn 't have trust in each other. It does not work as a universal rule. By lying, we are taking away the authority of making a promise. It would no longer have worth to
Kant says that good will is the only thing that is good. Human’s will, functioning well, is the only thing worth moral approval. It doesn’t matter if the person is smart or courageous if the person has a bad will. If someone is doing something for the wrong reason, but they still have courage doing it, it’s still not moral. The point of reason isn’t happiness, which is opposite from what Aristotle says. Some actions might seem like duties, but are just conformities with duty and because of that have no moral worth. An example we used in class would be the case of the misanthropic philanthropist who hates airports, but goes and helps the refugees because it’s the right thing to do. This shows that happiness doesn’t always come with moral
Kant states that moral worth is the value of a good will in dutiful action. Dutiful actions done “from duty” have moral worth while dutiful actions that are merely “according to duty” have no moral
According to Kant “… nothing can protect us from a complete falling away from our idea of duty and preserve in the soul a well-grounded respect for duty’s law except the clear conviction that, even if there never have been actions springing from such pure source, the question at issue here is not whether this or that happened but that reason of itself and independently of all experience commands what ought to happen.” (Kant, Page 20(lines 407-412)). Kant points out that the duty is done not because of the ends but because of what is fundamentally good or
The nature of humanity is a heavily debated topic. While many believe that humans are by nature evil, many others believe the opposite, which humans are by nature, good. Are people capable to do good deeds for the sake of being good, or are good deeds disguised under selfish motives. Kant stated the only thing that is unconditionally good, or as he termed it a categorical imperative, and the only categorical imperative, is good will. If good will, is unconditionally good, and is the only categorical imperative, then categorical imperatives are nonexistent, because there is no such thing as having a good will. Every action has an underlying reason for it. No action is done simply as a means for itself. No good willed action is done for it’s own sake, for the sake of obligation or for the sake of being good. It is impossible to act without being influenced by external influences.
Kant conveys his beliefs by introducing the idea of a moral law. He believes there is a moral law that is to be upheld by everyone. The moral law is an unconditional principle that defines the standards of right action. Good will is a form of moral law because it’s a genuine attitude behind an action. Anything that is naturally good is morally good which sums up to be good will. Actions of good will do the right thing for the reason of simply being the right thing to do. There is no qualification, benefactor or incentive its good will and no personal gain, inclination, or happine...
Also, another critique is that people would be acting out of moral duty instead of inclination, which is bad. Would you want somebody to do something because they must or because they want to? For example, if you were very sick and your friends came to visit you and they told you they only came because it was their “duty”. That would not feel too good. If we were to follow Kant’s ethics of duty, us people would seem more inhuman since we would only obey absolute rules for duty instead of
I will now respond to this objection. When faced with the dilemma of lying, the maxim this counter focused on is to always tell the truth, stating that a world with only lies would not function. However, the more important maxim that one should follow while lying depends on the situation, and could be to value life or compassion. Not everyone chooses to have the maxim of honesty because it could sometimes prove more useful for everyone to have other maxims which could produce the greatest good in a given situation. For instance, you are married and are going out to dinner with your wife. She comes out in a dress that is unflattering to her, but she is very excited to be wearing it. If your maxim is to never lie, you would spoil your wife’s happiness and your night out. This shows that telling the truth is not always helpful to those involved. However, a better maxim to follow could be that you always try to make your wife happy, which produces the greatest utility for this situation.
Kant believes the morality of our action doesn’t depend on the consequences because consequences are beyond our control. According to him, what determines the morality of action is the motivation behind the action and that is called will. Kant states that there is anything “which can be regarded as good without qualification, except a good will” (7). He suggests other traits such as courage, intelligence, and fortunes and possessions such as fortune, health, and power are not good in themselves because such traits and possessions can be used to accomplish bad things if the actions are not done out of goodwill. Thus, the good motivation is the only good that is good in itself. It is the greatest good that we can have. Then, the question that arises is how do we produce good will? Kant claims that our pure reason
However, Kant’s moral philosophy view is not without its problems. This is because the good will is not always inherently good without being qualified despite what Kant may claim. This can be seen as even if a person is an altruist who always tries to do their duty they can end up generating misery instead of pleasure. For example, say that you are going out and stealing from the rich to give to those less fortunate. In doing this you are only trying to help people and follow a duty to aid your fellow man, and it does not matter what consequences you may face due to your actions as you are supposed to have a good will even if it will get you into trouble. For a more extreme example say you are hiding Jews in your attic in Nazi Germany. The
Kant believed consequences were irrelevant and an individual should do as they please at that very moment in time. An example would be a person went to their neighbor’s home while they were gone to turn on the heater so when they returned home it was warm. A consequence to turning on their heater is their house burned down, but according to Kant, since your intentions were good you cannot be at fault. Kant also believed each person has dignity and not to treat others as a means, to one’s personals ends (Rich, 2008). In other words, do not treat others as an instrument to achieve a goal. For example, a researcher that is risking the well-being of an individual participating in an experiment for the sake of finding a drug that may save many lives.
I agree with Kant on this point because, I like to see that my actions are born from a desire to achieve a higher sense of morality, rather than an attempt to just receive some sort of reward for my actions. “A man whose possessions are sufficient for his needs is well-to-do; if he has sufficient not only his needs but also for other purposes, he is a man of means; if he has sufficient for his needs and other purposes and then to spare he is a man of wealth; if he has so much as would enable him to make others also well-to-do, he is rich.” Whenever I
... value through discussing duty in light of a priori and experience. In conclusion, he suggests that because actions depend on specific circumstances, a priori beliefs cannot be extracted from experience. People’s experiences and actions are based on circumstantial motivations; thus they can’t conform to categorical imperatives either because categorical imperatives are principles that are intrinsically good and must be obeyed despite the circumstance or situation. Kant concludes that rational beings are ends in themselves and that principle is a universal law, which comes from reason and not experience.
The first formulation of the categorical imperative is “act only in a way the maxim of which can be consistently willed as a universal law of nature.” This formulation in principle has as its supreme law, “always act according to that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will” and is the only condition under which a will can ever come into conflict with itself. The “universalizability test” is one meaning of the first formulation. This test has five steps which are, first formulate a maxim that holds sacred your reason for acting as you propose. Second, recast that maxim as a universal law of nature governing all rational agents. And third, think whether your maxim is even conceivable in a world governed by the law of nature. The fourth test is to ask yourself whether in this world you could, rationally will to act on your maxim. With five if you could then, your action is morally permissible. An example of the first formulation of the categorical imperative would be lying. “I will lie for personal benefit.” So lying is the action and the motivation is to get what you desire and together they form the maxim.
The first formulation of the Categorical Imperative is defined by Kant to "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. Good moral actions are those of which are motivated by maxims which can be consistently willed that it’s generalized form be a universal law of nature. These maxims are otherwise known as universal maxims. Maxims can then be put through the Categorical Imerative test to determine their universalisability and thus the premissability of the maxim. To test a maxim we must ask ourselves whether we can consistently will for a maxim to be obeyed by everyone all the time....
Ethics are moral principles or values that govern the conduct of an individual or a group.It is not a burden to bear, but a prudent and effective guide which furthers life and success. Ethics are important not only in business but in academics and society as well because it is an essential part of the foundation on which a civilized society is built.