Civil disobedience is the refusal of one individual to obey certain laws of a government. Civil disobedience was first introduced in the 19th century by Henry David Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau, writer of “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, was an individual who strived for the idea of an individual’s conscience to be morally based. He believed that the American government was being corrupt in 1849 due to an unnecessary war against Mexico and slavery becoming a necessity. He states his opinion of how Americans have no morality when it comes to the deciding their nations actions. About one hundred years later, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in 1963, a response to Alabama clergymen’s letter. He states his responses
Kant is define the Good Will as the only thing good in itself which is means doing something because you think is good doesn’t make the action good (Shaw et al. 2013, pp74-75). Nevertheless it matters on what it is and the attitude you behave on it (Shaw et al. 2013, p74). For example, a charity auction, although they are selling goods, the aim of them is to help more people. So they are moral. On the contrary, there are some selling
Before I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I associated a love for money as greediness and materialism. “The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.” This statement has changed my view of money and it’s impact on society. In Rand’s book, a character by the name of Francisco d’Anconia gives a speech on the virtue of wealth after being called out for being a depraved product of money. He is scorned for his profits through the downfall of his competitors, but then ultimately talks about the problems his own company faces. Through his speech, he brings about a different perspective of the opinion on wealth and how people should view money.
Money is the king of everything and everyone. It controls everyone on this planet. Money is power and can change the minds of everyone. No one is safe from its influence. It has the power to make things and to remove those things from existence. This is shown in The Great Gatsby. It shows how much of an influence money has. I turned a nobody into a somebody. It changes the social status of people. It can also diminish social status. The social mobility of people in the 1920s was controlled by money.
Most people have a firm belief about going from rags to riches, but is it worth it? In Paul Piff’s T.E.D. Talk “Does Money Make You Mean?”, he discusses the outcomes that money has on an individual and society. Piff argues that money has a degrading influence on humanity. Through the use of an established credibility, multiple case studies, and a call to action, Paul Piff is able to persuade the audience to believe that money turns you corrupt.
In the late 18th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote extensively on the basis of morals. In his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals¸ Kant describes the dichotomy present in humans which is a result of humans being both a rational and a natural creature. The rational portion of human pulls them towards acting morally through use of reason. At the same time, the natural aspect of human beings acts as a counterweight, pulling people towards their natural inclinations, especially self-interest. The strength of this counterweight seems massive when a look is taken at human history. In the past, human beings have appeared to participate in wars and immorality more so than they have in using reason to act morally. Kant examines the
To prove this, the philosopher looks at frequent inclusions on objective good list theories. All of them, he says, are only good if the possessor of them has a good will. Money can make an individual happy, but if someone uses that money to act in bad will or contrary to their duty, its argued that those riches were not used for good. The same can be said about, intellect, wit, talents, favoruable tempraments or even reason itself when employed in a nefarious fashion. In this way, Kant's singling out of the good will as the only universally good thing focuses more on the well-being of the society rather than on that of the individual. Hedonism focused on the pleasures and pains of the individual in determining the overall moral worth of an act. Utilitarianism had a slightly more societal skew by focusing on the net good and bad of the group, but Kant's view factors out the individual almost entirely, with exception to the motivations of his act. Because of Kant's singling out of good will as what is the only universal that has moral worth, Kant can use this focus to then lay out a way to judge the moral worth of individual act's. He calls acting on this good will, acting from the motive of duty. Kant argues that if an individual acted from that sense of duty, then that act would be considered right. If the act is done taking into account any other motivators, no matter
A market failure may be the lack of ability of individuals to earn a living wage. The government may correct this failure by setting a minimum wage. Businesses may think that the minimum wage is too high to pay.
The Bible says, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” However, why would we desire the luxurious lifestyle of the billionaires if we perceive money as “the root of all evil” and believe that “money can’t buy happiness”? To William Hazlitt, the pursuit for money is neither the source of evil nor the corrupter of one’s soul. In his essay “On the Want of Money,” Hazlitt advocates that money is the essential ingredient of a prosperous and comfortable life through parallel structure of “it is,” “or to,” “to be,” depressive tone, and sarcasm towards the end of the passage.
In “Because It Is Wrong”: A Meditation on Torture the argument that is being made is torture is illegal because is wrong. The moral that this article presents is that there is no such thing as reasonable torture.
What happens when a particular moral claim is made in a morally defective culture? Ayn Rand explores this question through her novel Atlas Shrugged. Rand is a moralist, albeit of a very different kind than someone like Jonathan Edwards. She sets out a specific, rational morality that is based around human ability and explores the repercussions of moral claims in a society that has rejected rational right and wrong. The heroic characters of her work, particularly Francisco d’Anconia and John Galt, defend her moral code, one that is not muddied by the false virtue of unselfishness -- that of loving others more than oneself, or any self-consuming moral claims of collectivism. Instead, these characters speak of a new morality that is centered around the act of making money and values human ability. Today our moral attitude
In the journal Kant's Commitment to Metaphysics of Morals Theunissen analyzes the work of Kant explaining how Metaphysics of Morals is an important part of human’s own minds pertaining to their own morals and gives insights of other Kantians views of Kant’s moral theory. He also gives his own critique and the input of other Kantian writers claims and views compared to Kant’s own. Theunissen interpreted Kant’s view of Metaphysics of Morals as a term regarding one of the many parts of philosophy. This part is made up of two sides, one being purity of an individual’s beliefs and morals while the other being purity of reason through their own artificial truth. He (Kant) believes that reason is made from prior knowledge and experiences from different categories that give a kind of structure to kinds of actions or anything an individual may encounter in their own lives.
For consequential analysis of an action Kant would reply although the consequences of the action were right but the action itself was morally wrong. There are several reasons behind this. In the second scenario, the person should’ve acted out of duty and not any particular interests. Secondly his action also didn’t result in the greater happiness instead of stealing if that person could’ve tried to find a job and earn money to buy food for his family. Or he could’ve looked for other ways to solve this. Since, such solutions seem tougher and difficult for him to do that is why he opted for the extreme solution of stealing to solve the problem. If that person had opted for the earning money solution, it would’ve resulted in greater happiness
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. Immanuel Kant designed ‘The Categorical Imperative’ theory which was associated with the fact that it was commanding us to practice our morals and desires in a specific way which was exercised through two rules. Kamm (2000) claims that these components were to ‘(1) treat persons as ends in themselves and (2) do not treat them as mere means’. Kamm is basically suggesting that we seek happiness of others, as that is morally right, however fulfill capacities of one’s own intellect. From following both of these we arrive at an imperative and it is categorical. Kant also discussed the importance of perfect and imperfect duties in relation to good morality between humans. He suggested that although we have ‘moral leeway’ in how or when we perform imperfect duties, we must ensure that we always succeed in carrying out perfect duties: ‘they must be done’ as negative duties are ‘more stringent’ than positive duties (Kamm,
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. Hypothetical imperatives are conditional sentences. Thus, they are contingent and dependent on our desires and what we want to accomplish. However, categorical imperatives are not contingent and not have any material