...than decisions under natural phenomenon. (Practical reason vs. Rational reason) Morality First Proposition of Morality: The relationship between duty and inclination: inclination has more personal connection and motivations which make the decisions and actions more introspective, which is why we need a strong will. Decisions can be moral if people do not perform actions under what they are told but truly become introspective about what they have in mind. Second Proposition of Morality: Duty lacks personal responsibility and thus, it cannot be understood as having followed by material principle. Third Proposition of Morality: Similar to the above: duty does not have a full account of respect, therefore does not require personal commitment into thinking under morality Mill: Basic definition and Ideas: Mentions satisfaction level, yet happiness are ultimately due to pride and dignity. Happiness cannot be measured under any quantity terms and each type of happiness is different. Happiness is the absence of pain and pleasure and unhappiness is deprivation of pain and pleasure. He also believes that people should enjoy in order being truly satisfied.. Morality: All the good things under the system of morality, Mill states, should be under personal interest. He says that the system of priority is designed to intent to pleasure the individual alone. Mill > Kant: In order to attain morality, happiness should cooperate with duty and good will Examples: Family revenge ...
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...Immanuel Kant adheres to Deontological ethics. His theory offers a view of morality based on the principle of good will and duty. According to him, people can perform good actions solely by good intentions without any considerations to consequences. In addition, one must follow the laws and the categorical imperative in order to act in accordance with and from duty. Several other philosophers such as Hannah Arendt discuss Kant’s moral philosophy. In her case study: “The Accused and Duties of a Law-Abiding Citizen”, Arendt examines how Adolf Eichmann’s actions conformed to Kant’s moral precepts but also how they ran of afoul to his conception of duty. In contrast, John Stuart Mill adopts a teleological view of moral philosophy. He exposes his view of consequentialism and utilitarianism to argue that an action is morally right only to the extent that it maximizes the aggregate happiness of all parties involved regardless of the motive. In the present paper, I will expose Kant’s moral precepts and the importance of duty in his Deontological principles. Then, I will evaluate Arendt’s report on Adolf Eichmann to analyze the ways in which his actions were in accordance to or against Kant’s moral philosophy. I will conclude my discussion with an evaluation of Mill’s approach to morality in order to examine the differences between his teleological philosophy and Kant’s ethical principles. Kant’s moral philosophy is based on the categorical imperative (CI), good will, and duty. According...
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...Doug Ventura April 22, 2012 PHL 215 Mia Rowland Paper One A recent proposal to eliminate the ban of selling kidneys so that college students can pay for college has sparked much debate on the ethics of human rights and morality. The question is whether or not selling body parts for money is moral. I will be discussing how Utilitarianism, Kant’s Theory, and Negative Natural Rights theory determine morality and whether each theory deems the proposal as a moral act or not. The first theory we can use in deciding if selling kidneys for tuition is ethical is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism determines morality by saying an act is moral if it creates the greatest overall utility. This means it will require that we sacrifice our own pleasure and happiness for the greater good. The first step in determining the moral worth of the act is defining the utility. In this situation, financially poor student are selling their kidney to pay the tuition costs to go to school. The groups that are being affected are college students who cannot afford tuition and people who are in desperate need of a kidney. In the UK, “three people die every day in the UK while awaiting kidneys”. There is a clearly a high demand of kidneys. Since utilitarianism looks to produce the greatest overall utility, we need to measure the consequences to determine whether the positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences. The positive consequences are that poor students receive money for their kidneys so...
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...QUEEN OF APOSTLES PHILOSOPHY CENTRE JINJA (PCJ) CRITIQUE OF THE NOTION OF AUTONOMY IN KANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY AN UNDER GRADUATE DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE INSTITUTE OF ETHICS AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES OF UGANDA MARTYRS UNIVERSITY (UMU) NKOZI, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY BISIMWA MUNYALI EVARISTE MARCH 2011 1 DEDICACE This work is dedicated in a special way to: My ever loving and caring God, My family and the community of the Missionaries of Africa. 2 DECLARATION I………………………………………………………..have read the rules of Uganda Martyrs University on plagiarism and hereby state that this work is my own. It has not been submitted anywhere else for any qualification. I have acknowledged the secondary sources used in this work. NAME OF STUDENT…………………………………………………………. SIGNATURE…………………………………………………………………… DATE: …………………………………………………………………………… SUPERVISOR………………………………………………………………….. SIGNATURE…………………………………………………………………… DATE: ………………………………………………………………………….. 3 ABSTRACT The importance of a philosophical study dealing with moral issues, especially the principle of autonomy is indisputably great. It is a common agreement that morality is located within the scope of duty. Kant corroborates this held agreement by stating the categorical imperative which every human is obliged to act upon. He conceived this categorical imperative as the moral law which all those who claim to be moral beings have to live on. However, he also affirmed...
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...Wyatt Garrett Professor Schiller World Philosophies 2 February 2013 Material on Morality Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 and grew up in the town of Konigsberg, from which he hardly stirred. Growing up in a family that emphasized the importance of education, discipline and religious devotion. He enrolled in the University of Konigsberg at age sixteen, and would spend his entire life working there. In his life, Kant pioneered philosophy by severing philosophies rootedness to the doctrines of radical enlightenment: materialism determinism, and atheism. He felt a great tension between the humanists’ emphasis on ‘the dignity of man’ and sciences reduction of human beings to ‘specks of dust’. His rejection of many Enlightenment philosophies and work to reconcile others resulted in the philosophies that rocketed philosophy far beyond the debate between rationalists and empiricists. I will explore Kant’s views on what knowledge is and what is possible to know, which I will then compare these views to those held by sceptics and dogmatists. Similarly, I will discuss how Kant’s deviating epistemology led to the formation of his categorical imperative and views on morality, contrasting this moral code to the ones of the Hellenistic schools of thought. Lastly, I will deliberate on how Kant’s categorical imperative is nonoperational with the 20th and 21st century’s understanding of psychology and quantum physics. Kant believed that our understanding of the external world was two-part...
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...for our society than Immanuel Kant’s principle that it is better to do what's morally just. I will explain why Mill’s theory served as a better guide to moral behavior and differentiate between the rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society. Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill are philosophers who addressed the issues of morality in terms of how moral customs are formed. Immanuel Kant presented one perspective in The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that is founded on his belief that the worth of man is inherent in his skill to reason. John Stuart Mill holds another belief as presented in the book, Utilitarianism, which is seemingly conflicting with the thoughts of Kant. What is most unique about the ethics of morality is the idea of responsibilities to particular individuals. According to both Mill and Kant, moral obligations are not fundamentally particularistic because they are rooted in universal moral principles. Both philosophers have made great impacts in their niche areas in the field. An analysis of their theories may help develop a better understanding of them and their theories. Mill holds an empiricist theory while Kant holds a rationalist theory. Kant explains morality through forms that he believes are essential to free and sensible judgment. Mill’s utilitarian approach is a form of consequential theory because the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by the outcomes. Kant’s ethics of duty is the foundation...
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...Encyclopedia of Philosophy Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia Free Author & Citation Info | Friends PDF Preview | InPho Search | PhilPapers Bibliography Kant and Hume on Morality First published Wed Mar 26, 2008; substantive revision Sun Aug 12, 2012 The ethics of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is often contrasted with that of David Hume (1711–1776). Hume's method of moral philosophy is experimental and empirical; Kant emphasizes the necessity of grounding morality in a priori principles. Hume says that reason is properly a “slave to the passions,” while Kant bases morality in his conception of a reason that is practical in itself. Hume identifies such feelings as benevolence and generosity as proper moral motivations; Kant sees the motive of duty—a motive that Hume usually views as a second best or fall back motive—as uniquely expressing an agent's commitment to morality and thus as conveying a special moral worth to actions. Although there are many points at which Kant's and Hume's ethics stand in opposition to each other, there are also important connections between the two. Kant shared some important assumptions about morality and motivation with Hume, and had, early in his career, been attracted to and influenced by the sentimentalism of Hume and other British moralists. The aim of this essay is not to compare Hume and Kant on all matters ethical. Instead, we examine...
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...“The Final Form of Kant’s Practical Philosophy,” Mark Timmons (ed.) Essays on Kant’s Moral Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). The Final Form of Kant’s Practical Philosophy Allen Wood Yale University By the year 1768, Kant claimed to be at work on a system of ethics, under the title “metaphysics of morals” (Ak 10:74).[1] During the so-called ‘silent decade’ of the 1770s, when Kant was working on the Critique of Pure Reason, he promised repeatedly not only that he would soon finish that work but also that he would soon publish a “metaphysics of morals” (Ak 10:97, 132, 144).[2] Yet it was not until four years after the first Critique that Kant finally wrote a work on ethics, and even then he merely laid the ground for a metaphysics of morals by identifying and establishing the supreme principle on which a system of duties would be based (G 4:392). Three years later, in the Critique of Practical Reason Kant once again dealt entirely with foundational questions in moral philosophy. Kantian ethics is primarily known, especially among English-speaking philosophers, through these two ethical works of the 1780s, neither of which contains anything like a ‘metaphysics of morals’. Many of Kant’s chief works in the early 1790s are devoted to practical philosophy. The Critique of Judgment’s treatment of taste and teleology is concerned both with moral psychology and with the view of the world which a morally disposed person should take. Other works even...
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...For the Final research paper, you have asked us to compare our own views of morality with the ethics of two philosophers. I would like to examine Immanuel Kant and Ayn Rand’s moral systems for my essay. At first glance, you could say that these two thinkers seem diametrically opposed, but they actually share some similar views. I’ll start by reviewing some of the details of Immanuel Kant’s moral system. You could say that Kant’s views on morality are just an extreme form of altruism. Kant believed in duty ethics, or the act of judging the morality of an action within the context of a system of laws. He believed that humans alone possessed goodwill, a word which he defined as, “the ability to act in accordance with moral laws regardless of interests or consequences”. (Camoin) Kant credits human emotions with the power to know the greater metaphysical world by indiscernible means that he termed “pure reason.” Pure reason exists in the inexplicable human instinct for duty. Duty is an uncompromising obligation that one “just knows.” Kant held that an action is moral only if a person performs it out of a special sense of duty (MacKinnon 45). Morality is therefore derived through feelings from that metaphysical dimension of reality. That being said, these duties fall within Kant’s two moral codes: The first being that they must be logically consistent, not self-contradictory and that any truths must be universal. On the other hand, we have Ayn Rand, whose philosophies...
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...question of morality. We are going to take a look at positions taken by great German philosophers Kant and Nietzsche on the question of morality and the way people should be treated, based on their arguments presented in theories developed by them. Kant’s philosophy is based on the assumption that there is a metaphysical dimension which implies that there are some absolute things that do exist outside of human beings and which are the ends in themselves (not intended to promote an achievement of any other end). Kant calls these abstract absolute things the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative in his view is something that is not dependent on anything else and, therefore, should be something that we should strive for. The concept of the categorical imperative is important because we can use it to determine whether our actions are being moral through the application of the universal law, which implies the categorical imperative. The universal law says that we should never act except in such a way that we can also will that our maxim should become a universal law. The whole system of Kant’s morality is based on the assumption that there is an autonomous will, which is the source of moral action and decision-making. Kant refers to it as a good will, which can be regarded as good without qualification, because it is good only through its willing, i.e., it is good in itself. According to this, here arises an interesting point that explains how Kant’s system of morality affects...
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...Kant’s moral argument focuses on the notion that God must exist to provide structure to the moral universe. Technically he did not believe that is was possible to prove the existence of God through rational or empirical means. It is important to outline two key ideas before explaining the details of the moral argument. These ideas centre around his assumptions of the universe: that the universe was fair; and that the world around us is fundamentally rational. He begins with the unspoken assumption that the world is fair, owing to the dominance of the enlightenment belief that the universe was fundamentally knowable through reason. It is important to note that Kant began a new way of looking at knowledge. He believed that we could know the world through reason in a prior synthetic way. This was a complete change from how the world had been view previously and was known as Kant’s Copernican revolution. In essence Kant believed in two separate worlds of knowledge: noumenal and the phenomenal worlds. The noumenal world is the world as it truly is without being observed. It is fundamentally unknowable because the act of observation changes the very thing that we observe. It is as though human beings have a specific set of spectacles that cannot be taken off and like the proverbial rose tinted ones they change our perception of the world around us. This personalised view of the universe is the phenomenal world. However, what is key to explaining Kant’s moral argument is the fact that...
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...relationship between morality and religion. Within this writing, there was a passage which read, “Although on its own behalf morality does not need the representation of an end which would have to proceed the determination of the will, it may well be that it has a necessary reference to such an end, not as the ground of its maxims but as a necessary consequence accepted in conformity to them” (58). Although Kant’s writings can often times be confusing,this passage is understood if you know what he defines “end” and “morality” as. When Kant said “end”, what he was really referring to is an eternal afterlife,...
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...INTRODUCTION In ethics, consequentialism is explain that an action should be judged right or wrong on the basis of their consequences. Consequentialism theory is also known teleological moral theories. Which teleological word is from Greek ” Telos”,means “end” and ” logos” means “science”. This theory of morality derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same kind. ( www. plato.stanford.edu) Consequentialist, have two major theories that is ethical egoism and utilitarianism. Both these theories agree that human beings ought to behave in ways that will bring about good consequences. They differ, however, in that they disagree on who should benefit from these consequences. The ethical egoist essentially says that human beings ought to act in the interest of all concerned. ( Jacques P. Thiroux , Keith W. Krasemann) The rough idea behind ethical egoism is that the right thing to do is to look out for own self-interest. That’s mean we are morally required only to make ourselves as happy as possible and have...
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...THE MORAL ARGUMENT KANT’S MORAL ARGUMENT - Immanuel Kant analysed Aquinas’ 4th way and devised his proof for God based on morality INNATE MORAL AWARENESS - Kant’s starting point was that we all have a sense of innate moral awareness: ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new increasing admiration and awe… the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me’ His argument for the existence of God follows: 1. We all have a sense of innate moral awareness – from this we are under obligation to be virtuous 2. An ‘average’ level of virtue is not enough, we are obliged to aim for the highest standard possible 3. True virtue should be rewarded with happiness 4. There is an ideal state where human virtue and happiness are united – this Kant called the ‘Summum Bonum’ 5. Moral statements are prescriptive – ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ 6. Humans can achieve virtue in a lifetime but it is beyond us to ensure we are rewarded with happiness 7. Therefore there must be a God who has power to ensure that virtue and happiness coincide Kant’s moral argument does not postulate that God is necessary for morality but that God is required for morality to achieve its end ‘Therefore it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God.’ CARDINAL NEWMAN “We feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is one to whom we are responsible.” For Newman, the existence of conscience implies a moral law-giver whom we are answerable...
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...3.2 God in the Critique of Pure Reason's Transcendental Dialectic 3.2.1 The Ens Realissimum The Transcendental Dialectic's “Ideal of Reason” contains the best known and most frequently anthologized components of Kant's philosophy of religion. In addition to its portrayal of the ens realissimum, one finds within it Kant's objections to the Ontological, Cosmological and Physico-theological (Design) arguments for God's existence. It is thus the text most central to the negative elements of Kant's philosophy of religion and is integral to the widely held view that Kant is deeply hostile to faith. The general aim of the Transcendental Dialectic is to expose reason's excesses, its drive to move beyond the limits of possible experience, and to bring all concepts into a systematic unity under an “unconditioned condition.” The Transcendental Dialectic begins with a critique of reason's illusions and errors within the sphere of Rational Psychology. It then moves on to a critique of cosmological metaphysics, and then to the “Ideal of Reason” where Kant turns to Rational Theology and its pursuit of religious knowledge. As Kant explains, underlying all the traditional proofs for God's existence is the concept of the ens realissimum, the most real being. Reason comes to the idea of this being through the principle that every individuated object is subject to the “principle of complete determination.” While the generality of concepts allow them to be less than fully determined (e.g...
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