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Kant's moral principles
Kants view on morality
Immanuel kant nonconsequentialism
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The moral quality of an action is judged by the motive that shaped the consequence of an individual’s actions, not by the actual action’s consequence. Kant believes actions are really only moral if they are commenced out of respect for the moral law (as opposed to John S. Mill who thinks the motivation is based off of need or desire). An action is moral if it stands in the Categorical Imperative Category. The categorical imperative is acting only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. In simpler terms, Kant’s definition of the C.I. can be described as act as you would want all other people to act towards all other people. Kant wants everyone to eventually get to a moral enough place …show more content…
According to Kant and the C.I., lying is definitely not permissible. We should do only those actions that conform to rules that we could adopt universally. This rule could not be adopted universally, only because it would be self-defeating, meaning people would stop believing one another, thus proving why lying would not be good for society. Even though Kant would probably disagree, there can be some exceptions to this law. Lying to save someone’s life, lying to cover-up a surprise, or even to help yourself. In this case, lying could become part of the universal law. This is my personal perspective on the moral theory, but thinking in this way would still be to treat others in a way that challenges the moral law. It is correct that everyone uses people as a means to an end, it’s just part of a society these days. Bus/taxi-drivers get us where we want to go; factory workers are the means to manufacturing objects and ultimately gaining profit for their employer. But using people only to get what we want and consistently disrespecting their human worth is against the moral law as Kant would put
With different views on when it is OK to lie, the people continue to debate. But personally, I respect Kant’s views on the idea that lying is bad. Lying weakens the purpose to serve justice, destroys the liars’s dignity, and messes up the records. But I think that rare situations justify lies. I believe lies to save someone's life or just to protect someone from a big danger is the only type of lie that is justified. Those situations are the only times I think it is OK to lie. It might seem that lying to get yourself out of trouble is a situation that makes the lie justified. But I think that is a selfish reason for your own good and that people are thinking less about the society and more about their own good. Lying to get out of trouble is one of those many lies that are not justified.
Philosophy is one’s oxygen. Its ubiquitous presence is continuously breathed in and vital to survival, yet its existence often goes unnoticed or is completely forgotten. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant was one of the many trees depositing this indispensable system of beliefs into the air. Philosophy is present in all aspects of society, no matter how prominent it may be. As Kant was a product of the Scientific Revolution in Europe, the use of reason was an underlying component in the entirety of his ideas. One of his main principles was that most human knowledge is derived from experience, but one also may rely on instinct to know about something before experiencing it. He also stated that an action is considered moral based on the motive behind it, not the action itself. Kant strongly believed that reason should dictate goodness and badness (McKay, 537). His philosophies are just as present in works of fiction as they are in reality. This is exemplified by Lord of the Flies, a fiction novel written by William Golding. The novel strongly focuses on the origins of evil, as well as ethics, specifically man’s treatment of animals and those around him. Kant’s philosophy is embedded in the thoughts and actions of Piggy, Ralph, Jack, and Simon throughout the novel. Kant’s beliefs also slither into “Snake,” a poem by D.H. Lawrence, focusing on the tainting of the pure human mind by societal pressures and injustices. Overall, both the poet in “Snake” and Piggy, Ralph, Jack, and Simon in Lord of the Flies showcase Immanuel Kant’s theories on ethics, reasoning, and nature.
Kant argued that the Categorical Imperative (CI) was the test for morally permissible actions. The CI states: I must act in such a way that I can will that my maxim should become a universal law. Maxims which fail to pass the CI do so because they lead to a contradiction or impossibility. Kant believes this imperative stems from the rationality of the will itself, and thus it is necessary regardless of the particular ends of an individual; the CI is an innate constituent of being a rational individual. As a result, failure ...
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.
The modern European critical tradition has its origin in the Enlightenment movement particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who attempted at a critique of reason. Kant during his philosophical inquiry of the revision of the liberal humanist tradition replaced metaphysics with critique. As far as Kant was concerned, critique involved the tracing of the origin of experience back to the human faculties of the mind. If science meant a passive description of the world before Kant, science became an active domain where the human categories were imposed. For Kant and his followers, science no longer created knowledge from things in themselves but produced it from the phenomena of the world (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)
would be unfair to use the one to the side as a means to save the
After all, Kant’s theories rely on his depiction of humans as being rational beings that possess a will and are both influenced by emotions and inclinations. With reason, one is able to discover the principles provided by necessary, obligatory, and universal moral laws “a priori,” with which it is one’s duty to act out of reverence for. Yet, while reason determines the will, or the “power of determining oneself to action,” the inclinations may lead one to falter. Thus, it is when a person acts from their duty as a result of a good will, as my mother does when she donates to charity, that they perform moral acts. When one fails to have the proper action or motivation, like when my roommates stole silverware, one’s will has been influenced by another inclination besides duty. Consequently, all humans possess the same rational capacity and principles of law and duty, but it is simply the effect of inclinations and emotions on the will that creates
Even if telling the lie is to benefit others it is wrong and immoral. Kantians do not care about consequences, just the purity of will. This trait is one key difference between a Kantian and a rule utilitarian. Rule utilitarians only care about consequences and don’t even consider purity of will. Much like Kantians, rule utilitarians do not believe in exceptions to rules. They mainly care about what has the overall best consequence for society. A no tolerance attitude towards exceptions is one of the problems with both methodologies. Lacking exceptions to rules could lead to dissatisfying results in some cases. Looking at a rules overall positive consequences blinds them to the few negative
Immanuel Kant, like his predecessors John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, believed morality was based on standards of rationality. His influential work, The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, argues for the existence of a “foundational principle of a metaphysics of morals”. 1 Such a principle, he asserts, must account for three propositions of morality: only actions done from duty have genuine moral worth, moral value arises from the maxim its action involves, not from the purpose that is to be achieved through it, and that a duty is an obligation to act in a specific manner out of respect for the law.2 Kant names this foundational principle the categorical imperative.
The Transcendental Deductions of the pure concept of the understanding in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in its most general sense, explains how concepts relate a priori to objects in virtue of the fact that the power of knowing an object through representations is known as understanding. According to Kant, the foundation of all knowledge is the self, our own consciousness because without the self, experience is not possible. The purpose of this essay is to lay out Kant’s deduction of the pure concept of understanding and show how our concepts are not just empirical, but concepts a priori. We will walk through Kant’s argument and reasoning as he uncovers each layer of understanding, eventually leading up to the conclusion mentioned above.
We were told that we should be honest no matter what happens. However, today it seems lies are somewhat part of our lives. Sometimes dishonesty really does harm to others, but there are some situations when lying is acceptable and it's a better decision. I myself lie bad and good all the time. I think lying is okay in a certain situation.
We lie all the time, lying is not something new to our culture. We lie to our parents, we lie to our friends, we even lie to our significant other, but why do we do it? There is not one set reason on why we lie but they can vary from an insignificant reason to something more nefarious. A good operational definition of a lie is “A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person or group who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally.” (Freitas-Magalhães) We have been raised to know that lying is usually a bad thing, and it’s better to tell the truth, not to mention the circumstances get exponentially worse if you are caught lying. No one wants to be labeled as a liar, or untrustworthy. This may sound unorthodox but I personally think lying is perfectly fine; depending on the situation. If you have a prima-facie duty to be dishonest it’s perfectly acceptable. Ross says a prima facie duty or obligation is an actual duty. “One’s actual duty is what one ought to do all things considered.” (Carson) I’m not the only one who finds this too be true. Ross would also agree with me, He says “Lying is permissible or obligatory when the duty not to lie conflicts with a more important or equal important prima facie duty.” (Carson) As I was doing research on this topic I did read one extremely compelling argument on why we ought not to lie. Aristotle basically said a person who makes a defense for lying could never be trusted. (King.)
While Kant’s theory may seem “overly optimistic” (Johnson, 2008) now, it was ruled as acceptable and rational behavior then. Kant believed that any moral or ethical decision could be achieved with consistent behavior. While judgment was based on reason, morals were based on rational choices made by human beings (Freeman, 2000). A human’s brain is the most advanced in the animal kingdom. Not only do human beings work on instinct, but they have the ability to sort out situations in order to make a decision. This includes weighing the pros and cons of decisions that could be made and how they affect others either positively or negatively. This is called rational thought. Kant believed that any human being able to rationalize a decision before it was made had the ability to be a morally just person (Freeman, 2000). There were certain things that made the decision moral, and he called it the “Categorical Imperative” (Johnson, 2008). If someone was immoral they violated this CI and were considered irrational. The CI is said to be an automatic response which was part of Kant’s argument that all people were deserving of respect. This automatic response to rational thinking is where he is considered, now, to be “overly optimistic” (Johnson, 2008).
Using Kantian philosophy a lie is always immoral and wrong, no matter what the situation is. Kantian ethics establishes the idea that good will be based on the action itself rather than outcome or any inclination one may have to perform an act could be good will.
In fact, the “radical evil” is a thought that Arendt borrows from Kant. According to UCSD professor Henry E. Allison’s “Idealism and Freedom”, Kant is the first person who uses this concept in his work “Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason”. Kant believes that human’s inclination will seduce them to do evil. When people do not abide by the moral law, but follow their own preferences to behave, it is human’s “radical evil”. The “evil” is called “radical” which does not indicate a specific or extremely awful “evil”, but it refers to any possible source or basis from the “evil”. Kant concludes the cause of the moral conduct as a universal (or general) morality from rational practice. In “Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason”, Kant indicates that the “evil” is primarily chosen from “subjective” basis which is opposite to the moral conduct. The characteristic of it is a designed self-deception which means subjective