Kant key concepts

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  • Kant 17th Century
    • Good Will
      • 'Highest Good'
        • Good motive/ intention.
          • Doing your duty for the duty itself.
            • As long as the motive is good then the action is moral even if it does not have the intended outcome.
    • Summum Bonum
      • Kant believed this to be the ultimate good.
        • It is impossible to achieve in 1 lifetime so...
          • Kant devised the 3 postulates:
            • God
            • Autonomy
            • Immortality
      • Kant said this would be rewarded to those who did their duty according to the good will.
        • However, this is not to be mistaken as a goal, because then it cannot be achieved
    • Categorical Imperatives
      • These are imperatives that tell us what is obligatory or forbidden
        • Maxims
      • There are 3 formulations:
        • Universal Law of Nature
          • Is your principle acceptable to be universalised to be used by everyone, at all times and in all places.
        • End in Itself
          • We must not treat human beings as a mere means to an end as we are the highest point in creation and should be treated with such respect.
        • Kingdom of Ends
          • We should treat morality as if we live in a kingdom where we are the lawmakers and ends in ourselves.
            • "We do not discover morality - we create it" KANT.
      • Hypothetical Imperatives
        • These are different to categorical imperatives
          • They are not obligatory
            • 'I must do Action A in order to produce Outcome B'
    • Autonomy
      • Our actions are not moral unless they are autonomous, we have free will.
    • Reason
      • Our reason is what helps us to figure out morality.
        • Our pure practical reason is what helps us to follow the categorical imperatives.
          • It gives us the ability to do our duty.
        • It gives us rationality
          • This is the Noumenal Realm, the ability to reason.
            • The Phenomenal Realm is where needs and desires take over with no constraint.
            • This prevents us from being lead by desires.
              • Kant believed there is no room for emotion or desires in morality.
    • Duty
      • This is an obligation to yourself and others.
        • There are 2 types:
          • Perfect
            • These are obligatory.
              • E.g. Do not Kill, Do not steal, Do not lie.
          • Imperfect
            • These are duties to yourself
              • Not as important as perfect duties.
          • When these 2 conflict Kant said that imperfect duties are overriden by perfect duties.
            • W.D. Ross tried to eliminate this problem of conflicting duties.
              • Prima Facie Duties
                • There are 7:
                  • Fidelity - keeping promises
                  • Reparation - repay debts owed to others
                  • Gratitude - being grateful of others
                  • Non Injury - avoid harming others
                  • Harm prevention - preventing the harm of others
                  • Beneficence - do good for others
                  • Self improvement - improving yourself
    • Deontological
      • Duty based.
        • Absolute
    • Moral Statements
      • A priori synthetic - moral knowledge is logical and discovered with reason but can be true or false and need experience to understand it.
      • A priori - logical and rational
      • A posteriori - requires experience of the world.
      • Analytic - statement that is true or false by reason.
      • Synthetic - statement that needs to proven true or false.
    • Happiness
      • Kant believed that we do not do our duty to gain happiness, doing our duty just makes us worthy of happiness

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