Ethics Vs Utilitarian Theory

In this essay, I will show that Immanuel Kant is wrong to think that the only good without limitation is the good will. My first step in defending this thesis will be to review Kant ’s argument about how the good will is intrinsically good. I will then try to undermine his view by showing it supports implausible claims. For example, the premise of Kant’s claim is that good will is unconditioned.

Friedrich Nietzsche argued that it is absurd that there is only one kind of human goodness. It is naive to suggest that we all ought to have the same virtues and vices considering we are all nurtured in different ways, therefore, we have our own understandings of what is deemed

He says that one must act not only in accordance to duty, but for the sake of duty However, According to the Utilitarianism, Mill emphasizes that the actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness Immanuel Kant is the founder of the Kantian branch of ethics and morality, and his theories are personally my favorite theory of ethics so far. According to the utilitarianism, the best action is the one that maximizes utility. However, in Kant’s moral philosophy, people

Nonconsequentialism came from the work of Immanuel Kant, who is known to be the founder of critical philosophy. Markham (2007) described Kant as ‘the giant in philosophy’. Through his research and work, Immanuel Kant labelled himself a deontologist. According to Markham (2007), a deontologist is ‘a person who recognises that there are absolute moral prohibitions that must be applied consistently to all situations’. Different from consequentialism, people who tend to have the mind set of a deontologist believe that you should do your ethical duty, regardless of the outcome.

In the Groundwork, the notion of the good does not rely on feeling or sensation; rather than it derives from the rational directly. Kant points out that every motive has an intended effect on the world. When desire drives us, we first examine the possibilities that the world leaves open to us, selecting some effect at which we wish to aim. But, if we act in accord with practical moral law, we encounter a significant difference since the only possible object of the practical law is the Good, since the Good is always an appropriate object for the practical law. Viewing the Good as rational consolidates

Deontology is contrasted with teology, which maintains that the rightness or wrongness of acts depends solely on ends or consequences. For deontologists, moral law is not defined by consequences, unlike that of egoism and utilitarian theory; instead, moral law is an end itself. There are four levels of deontological theory namely, basic-principle deontology, general-principle deontology, rule deontology and act deontology. Basic-principle deontology deals with logical priority to basic, fundamental, or ultimate principles. One known proponent of such level is Immanuel Kant, who gave rise to some of the most influential philosophy in Western history.

Kant emphasizes the role of the moral philosopher to reveal the ambiguity about what it is moral to be crystal clear, and humans are rational beings who should strive for moral maxims motivated by the good will. Furthermore, he argues that human don not need a moral philosopher to show which action is right, we already know what he calls the common human reason. Kant favours to endeavor to do the right actions over the good actions as his attempts to portray the ideal world or the moral utopia. Kantian Deontology theory and the Categorical Imperatives frameworks urge decision-makers to strive for beneficence as a mean to resolve the challenging ethical dilemmas they face, obligating the decision-maker to act ethically and morally motivated by duty. The categorical imperatives are impartial, autonomous, and strict by which tackle respecting others and their dignity, universalize the maxims of our actions, and targeting the Kingdom of

For Nietzsche „ Each person has a fixed psycho-physical constitution, which defines him as a particular type of person”, in this sense, substance must be understood and as consequence, people’s actions are determined by their non-conscious-type facts. On this basis, he argues the issue of free will. The „moralities” which he criticises, admit the presupposition that the agent is morally responsible because he/she has free will, but Nietzsche argues that for this to be valid, he/she would have to be causa sui (self-caused, or the cause of itself – see Kant). As each person is a type, and his/her type is predetermined, it cannot be self- caused; therefore free will does not exist.

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher of the 1800s was a very bold thinker and introduced ideas on the fundamental origin of morality, contrary to the ones believed by psychologists of his time. The theories that these psychologists had suggested that people considered an action to be “good” if someone benefitted from another person’s actions if they were doing it for themselves, claiming that any action someone committed was good if it gave an advantage to someone else. On the other hand, Nietzsche believed goodness came from those who created the term, He believed that there were two moralities that depicted the origins from where morality and the ideas of being good and bad come from. These moralities are known to be the “slave” morality

In his famous work “The Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals” Kant tries to develop a moral philosophy which depends on fundamental concepts of reason and tries to show that while making moral choices we should use reason. Kant, as an Enlightenment philosopher, places all his confidence in reason. In the first chapter, we generally recognized that an action is moral if and only if it is performed for the sake of duty. Duty commands itself as imperative. There are two types of imperatives as hypothetical and categorical.

Every action is done to achieve some form of good, and the greatest good/most ultimate end achievable is happiness. Happiness is our natural function. 10. Genealogy of Morals, Essay 1- Nietzsche questions the origin of our established values, claiming that where they came from must be evaluated. He believes that the values humans hold became reactionary, with the original reasons for those values being good getting lost over time (the true meaning being lost)

Chapter 8 begins by talking about the classical version of the theory of Utilitarianism. This classical version was developed by three philosophers: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. According to the author, "Classical Utilitarianism can be summed up in three propositions: (a) The morality of an action depends solely on the consequences of the action. (b) An action's consequences matter only insofar as they involve the greater or lesser happiness of individuals. (c)

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory summed up by the phrase, the right action is one which creates the sum total amount of happiness for the greatest number. Therefore, utilitarians believe that morality’s purpose is to maximise the number of good things, such as happiness, and decrease the number of bad things, such as unhappiness, in the world. Critics of utilitarianism believe that this theory cannot accommodate moral rights since we go against our intuitions in moral dilemmas. However, utiltarians have a response to these criticisms which shows that utilitarianism is defensible. Utilitarianism was developed into an ethical theory by two philosophers named Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.