The Metaphysics of Morals Immanuel Kant, is known to be one of the most influential philosophers in history. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of morals Kant discusses the idea of Goodwill and how it can be attained through duty and our morals. Throughout my paper I will talk about the meaning of people acting upon their morals and acting upon their duties, as to Kant refers in his words, what you want to do vs. what people ought to do. I will compare what is right vs. what is wrong considering hypothetical imperative and categorical imperative. According to Kant, goodwill is conditioned, being absolutely good, which blocks out one’s moral act.
According to Mill, “acts should be classified as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the agent compelled, not merely persuaded, and exhorted, to act in a preferred matter. A moralist can sum up the units of pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to be affected, immediately and in the future, and could take the balance as a measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action” (West). The moral value of an action can be based on what is called hedonism. This says the only thing can be good is pleasure or happiness. Utilitarianism shows how moral questions can have objectively true answers.
The AHA’s discussion of dialogue and truth connect to the ethical theory of Kantianism. Kantianism is a form of Deontology that provides us with the Universal Law Formula and the Humanity as an End in Itself Formula. The Universal Law Formula says that we should treat others in the way that we expect others to treat us. The Humanity as an End in Itself Formula explains that humans should never be used as a means to an end or we should simply respect humans. Through these formulas come the idea of imperfect and perfect duties.
They no longer question their own position/point of view, or how this influences what they see as morally right or wrong; but assume their pseudo-relativism to somehow give them superior insight into all morals. Thus the absolutist critique of the relativist as self-contradictory is not a valid critique, unless one is merely talking about an absolutist who pretends to be a relativist, in name alone. ================================================== So it seems relativism is easier to defend, not if we treat it as prosribing values for us, in absolutist fashion, but as calling our values into question. Our morals are not beyond question, are not absolute, are subject to change with position.
This requires that an individual perceives the “truth or falsity of any claim to which she grants or withholds assent” (Sheridan). We must be moral agents. According to Locke an individual agent must perform the intellectual analysis and demonstration himself in order to truly know his moral duty (Sheridan). For Locke though, the opportunity of finding one’s moral duty and gaining such moral knowledge is very narrow. Even worse-- there are people who have such means and the leisure, but “satisfy themselves with a lazy ignorance” (Essay,
He first illustrates that a moral action proceeds from duty, obligation or moral law. He then states that a right action does not proceed from duty, obligation or moral law, but rather from another motive such as self-interest, generosity, or happiness. Kant has an understanding that ethics deals with reason, motives, and intentions whereas Mill believes in reason, feeling and interest. In order to disprove the idea that self-interest, sympathy, generosity, and happiness is connected with ethics, Kant creates the concept of the Categorical Imperative. Kant portrays this concept by stating, “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature” (Kant 30).
903729366 Essay 1: Kant In Kant’s “From Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals”, he elaborates on the significance of the goodwill: that doing something out of good will means doing it strictly for the purpose of duty, because it is your duty as a person to do the right thing. To support this statement, one must agree that the the good will is a morally valuable thing. For example, my interpretation of Kant says, “if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these (gifts of fortune) in the mind, then these fortunes can over-take good will and bad occurrences may happen.” Kant believes that when we perform an action, the morality of our actions do not depend on their outcomes. When we perform actions with a good will in mind, they will result in a morally valuable consequence. To ask if it is morally valuable would be to ask the question if good will assists people in making the better decision — whether deciding
The Formal and Non-Formal Values Controversy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy This paper will focus on the Formal and Non-Formal Values controversy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy. Primary in this line of inquiry is the question of whether Kant explicitly or implicitly support the formal and Non-Formal Values in his theory. In recent, the Kantian philosophers, Korsgarrd 1990, O’Neil 1992, Wood 2000; as the formal value opponents, claim that such value derives from Kant’s formal ethics where moral law is formal and universal, the universality is a syntactic aspect of every permissible, universalized maxim, which is a formally structured maxim. And the unity of three formulations of categorical imperative tends to emphasize the formal value of humanity,
Kant’s principal of morality is a standard of rationality he called the “Categorical Imperative.” He believes that there is one, ‘super rule’ that helps you decide if the maxims you are following are morally sound or not. Kant believes one’s duty means acting in accordance with certain moral laws/imperatives, “so act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” [Section 2. pg 14]. Therefore, Kant is saying that moral worth appears to require not only that one’s actions be motivated by duty, but also that no other motives are a driving factor in getting to that end. He further elaborates on this by stating that reason does not simply find the means to end, it decides on proper ends. This all leads to the conclusion that someone of moral worth in the eyes of Kant is only morally ideal if their actions are done from
around elsewhere in order to see what effects may be bound up with it for me (Kant 70). In this quote, Immanuel Kant addresses whether an action’s moral worth, such as telling the truth, is able to be considered good no matter the circumstances. Kant already established to have moral worth an action must be done from duty, have its moral worth from the maxim, or the intention, that a person wills in doing it, and to be done in reverence of the law (Kant 66-68). Kant sees telling the truth for the sake of duty as having moral worth as it is already in line with what he believes gives an action moral worth. While telling the truth out of fear of a lie’s consequences may give the same result but have different moral undertones.