Kant key concepts
- Created by: Shelby Morris
- Created on: 18-05-17 12:39
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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.
- Doing your duty for the duty itself.
- Good motive/ intention.
- 'Highest Good'
- 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 devised the 3 postulates:
- It is impossible to achieve in 1 lifetime so...
- 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
- Kant believed this to be the ultimate good.
- 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.
- We should treat morality as if we live in a kingdom where we are the lawmakers and ends in ourselves.
- Universal Law of Nature
- Hypothetical Imperatives
- These are different to categorical imperatives
- They are not obligatory
- 'I must do Action A in order to produce Outcome B'
- They are not obligatory
- These are different to categorical imperatives
- These are imperatives that tell us what is obligatory or forbidden
- 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.
- This is the Noumenal Realm, the ability to reason.
- Our pure practical reason is what helps us to follow the categorical imperatives.
- Our reason is what helps us to figure out 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.
- These are obligatory.
- Imperfect
- These are duties to yourself
- Not as important as perfect duties.
- These are duties to yourself
- 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
- There are 7:
- Prima Facie Duties
- W.D. Ross tried to eliminate this problem of conflicting duties.
- Perfect
- There are 2 types:
- This is an obligation to yourself and others.
- Deontological
- Duty based.
- Absolute
- Duty based.
- 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
- Good Will
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