Autonomy provides self-identification and placement in a person culture. Immanuel Kant believes that autonomy plays a big role in making ethical decisions. I believe that is correct and this is because morals vary from culture to culture and universalizability does not exist. Morals are supposed to bring good but there are circumstances where a moral action might bring damage. Due to this premise I feel as though it is not always right to do the duty that is expected. I also believe that if a duty is imposed on us, the fulfillment of that duty will not make us any more ethical.
To explain my universalizability statement, Immanuel Kant believes that acting immorally is unreasonable because it is inconsistently unfair and unjust towards whomever it may have a negative impact on, even though that person may not know. According to Kant, an action is morally right if its maxim is universalizable. In which a maxim is a “principle of action you give yourself when you are about to do something” (162), and universalizable means that your acts of your maxim would be supported by everyone. According to Russ Shafer-Landau in The Fundamentals of Ethics, Kant believes that, “the morality of our actions has nothing to do with results. It has everything to do with our intentions and reasons for action, those are contained in the principle we live by” (163). Morality relies on people acting out with a good intention, but the action has to be universalizable, and if it is not, we are being inconsistent. Being inconsistent contradicts the reason of the action and therefore the immoral act is irrational. According to Russ Shafer-Landau in The Fundamentals of Ethics, “Kant thought all moral duties are categorical imperatives” (168), and “categorical imperatives are rational requirements that do not depend on what we care about” (168). If all our moral duties are categorical