Kantian Ethics
- Created by: ebcrankomills
- Created on: 29-05-19 16:36
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- Kantian Ethics
- Moral Law
- There is an objective moral law which is beyond our personal opinion, preference or desire.
- Knowable through reason
- Indepedent of all individual opinion or preference, it demands that all obey in its own right.
- Tells us what we ought to do
- we perceive moral law rhrough our rational capacity they are beyond price and cannot be used and discarded without concern.
- Duty and Good Will
- Good will is in accordance with duty but it is not enough to be consistent with duty.
- Our actions must arise out of duty.
- Emotions must not drive our moral thinking.
- 'to do good to others where one can is a duty.'
- We must strive for self-perfection and the well-being of others.
- Pursue the greatest good and not our own happiness
- We have the innate right to freedom
- Our duties:
- A duty not to destroy ourselves or commit suicide.
- A duty not to destroy or limit other huam nbeings
- A duty not to make false promises.
- Avoid drunkeness as this compromises our freedom to act reasonably
- We have the right to private property.
- The state is necessary to uphold our duty and good will
- A posteriori knowledge
- Knowledge from experience
- We can know something is true because we have experienced it to be true
- A priori knowledge
- Knowledge from reason
- Moral Knowlege comes from within and its a priori.
- We just know that 2 + 2 = 4
- 'though our knowledge begins with experience it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.'
- Synthetic and Analytic Propositions
- Synthetic
- The table in the kitchen is round
- The predicate is outside the sbject and therefore must be made with reference to something other than the meanings of terms and laws of logic.
- Propositions which require checking.
- A posteriori
- Moral Propositions must be synthetic.
- Analytic
- All batchelors are unmarried
- A statement where the predicate belongs to the subject
- A priori
- e an combine the judgement (analytic or synthetic) with the way that we find out thi sknolwedge (a priori or posteriori)
- Synthetic
- The hypothetical imperative
- Hypothetical knowledge is conditional
- Defined as; a moral obligation that applies only if one desires the implied goal.
- We must follow moral law.
- The categorical imperative
- Moral Knowledge is categorical
- Defined as: an unconditional moral obligation that is always binding irrespective of a person's inclination or purpose
- Commands that we excercise our will in a certain wasy irrespective of any end.
- The moral rues and acts reside in themseves alone, not in circusmtances o whether they bring personal happiness.
- Formula
- The Formula of the universal law of nature
- 'act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same will that it should become a universal law.'
- when we act morally, our action ust be something that we could always do, it cannot be an exceptional act that only applies in this situation or that culture.
- moral behaviour must be consistent through-out our life and everyone else's.
- 'every action is right if it or its maxims allows each person's freedom of choice to coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law.'
- Maxims taht cannot be universalised are self-defeating.
- moral law is a universal law which binds everything
- Kant's universability rule bans all lying
- Benjamin Constant argued that the duty to always tell the truth would make society impossible.
- 'no one has a right to a truth that harms others.'
- 'it would be a crime to tell a lie to a murderer who asked whether our friend who is being pursued by a murderer had taken refuge in our house.'
- Kant respond by saying that a lie always harms someone.
- 'no one has a right to a truth that harms others.'
- 'it would be a crime to tell a lie to a murderer who asked whether our friend who is being pursued by a murderer had taken refuge in our house.'
- Benjamin Constant argued that the duty to always tell the truth would make society impossible.
- The Formula of the end in itself
- 'act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.'
- We are rational agents capable of free will, this means that we are beyond price.
- Our actions must have regard for the intrinsic quality of the human beings which are involved and their freedom.
- You cannot use someone for your own pleasures to the detriment of your own human flourishing.
- Karol Wojtyla (before he became Pope John Paul II)
- 'Anyone who treats person as the means to an end foe violence to the very essence of the other, to what constitutes its natural rights..'
- The formula of the kingdom of ends
- 'act as if he were through his maxims always a law-making member in the universal kingdom of ends.'
- Kant forbids us from making a moral rule that presupposes others will not treat people as ends in themselves.
- We should not base our universal rules on uniform degradation. A universal disregard for all people is possible.
- It could be that we live in a world where no one is acting morally, no one is treating others as creatures who have worth.
- Kant makes this impossible as a moral maxim because of his thinking on the significant of a person as a rational law maker
- The kingdom of ends is the world that we must imagine when searching for universal laws.
- The Formula of the universal law of nature
- The three postulates
- Freedom and the Summum Bonum
- The psotulate of freedom if often called 'autonomy.'
- Autonomy means that humans and their wills are free and self-directing.
- For Kant it is improtant that we postualte freedom, this is because it is the 'highest degree of life and the inner worth of the world.'
- Freedom means that we have the freedom to choose the moral law over our personal instincts or desires
- Rational creatures are free but they gain this freedom by adopting a formal law of action whereby principles are universalised.
- We act consistently according to universal rules rather than momentary impulses
- Moral choices are only possible if people are free to make them.
- In order to do our duty we must be free,l autonomy of the will lies at the foundation of Kantian ethics.
- If we are restricted and our actions are controlled by another or we simply cannot act them we do not have moral responsibility.
- Immortality
- when we rech the summum bonum our duty is united with things that give happiness.
- To reach the summum bonum is not easy, in our present world good people who do their duty may not find happiness in this world and may meet an unhappy end.
- therefore, we must postulate the immortality of the soul to allow for the correct happiness's to be ensured beyond this life.
- some people believe that life after thisd one will give us ultimate happiness, Kant thant thought that humans have the oppoortunity for endless improvement even beyond death.
- Human beings were immortal, they lived on beyond this life in heaven and so sacrifical acts of duty are possile.
- God
- Some people see kantian ethics as a n attempt to step away from a theological starting point.
- Kant sought to advance ethical theory which did not begin with God.
- Some elements of Kant's thinking did imply God e.g. the idea of an eternal law and the idea that we are created as rational creatures.
- kant was able to see that not every virtuous act would lead to happiness in this world
- His belief in immoortality and heavenly situation would ensure that ultimately happiensses are distributed appropriately in accordance with the moral acts that people have undertaken.
- God ensured that in the end the word was arranged correctly to ensuyre the highest goo.
- God recognises the striving that many people have undertaken.
- some chrstians believe that God places too much important on human reason and doesn't give enough credit to other sources of reason and God, e.g. biblical revelation.
- Freedom and the Summum Bonum
- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
- Deontological
- Moral Knowledge comes from reason at first hand, a priori synthetic
- Moral Law
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