Immanuel Kant And John Stuart Mill Essay

John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham have been recognized as the founders of Utilitarianism. Contrary to Kant’s moral theories, Utilitarian’s would disagree with most of Kant’s theory. While Kant believed that it is the intention of the action that should be recognized as moral or unmoral, J.S Mill and Bentham would say that it is in fact the outcome of said action that determines morality.

Through utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill explained that the most moral action is the one that provides the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Some say this encouraged selfishness and he invited

In this paper I am going to attempt to answer a question utilizing a little help from one of two philosophers. First of all the question I will be answering is “Should the moral value of an action be determined by the intentions/character that inspire the action, or the consequences that result from the action?” Second, the philosophers I am going to discuss throughout this paper are Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Now before I tell you my answer to this question I am going to explain these who these two philosophers are and what their viewpoints on ethics are.

Immanuel Kant was an influential philosopher that looked at ethics and morality from a different perspective from Utilitarians. Kant believed that people are obligated to follow

Lying the one form of communication that is the untruth expressed to be the truth. Immanuel Kant states that lying is morally wrong in all possible ways. His hatred for lying has made him “just assumed that anyone who lied would be operating with a maxim like this: tell a lie so as to gain some benefit.”(Landau,pp.171) This is true for a vast number of people, they will lie in order to gain a certain benefit from the lie rather than the truth.It is similar to if you play a game of truth or dare, some rather pick a dare because it would release them from having to tell the truth. However, those who do pick truth still have a chance to lie to cover up the absolute truth.People lie in order to cover who they truly are. Even if you lie to benefit someone or something else, it would not matter to Kant because he does not care for the consequences. If you lie but have a good intention it is not the same for Kant, he would argue that you still lied no matter the consequence that a lie is a lie. “ While lying, we accuse others for not being transparent. While being hypocrites ourselves, we expect others to be sincere.” (Dehghani,Ethics) We know how it feels to be lied to by a person, so in order to not have the feeling returned, we hope the person will be truthful. We rather be surrounded by truthful people constantly despite all the lies that some people tell. No

Kant diverges from Mill’s concept with utilitarianism because Kant believes that happiness should not be a result of doing a duty whereas Mill believes in order to be moral, one needs to maximize their pleasures. Kant could care less because he feels that action is done out of the self-interest of the person. I tend to agree with Mill’s concept more than Kant’s because in today’s world a

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who was concerned with producing an ethical theory that was logical and absolute, and did not change depending on the situation, countering the views of John Locke and other empiricists of the time. His ethics are based on duty, rather than looking at the end product of an action. He thought that his theory was so important that it could be rivalled with the Copernican revolution, in that it would utterly change everyone’s concept of morality in the same profound manner. There are two main dictionary definitions of duty, obeying a superior, and obeying the moral law in doing the right thing, and Kant was concerned with the latter.

Immanuel Kant refers to happiness as contentment (Kant, ) whereas John Stuart Mill refers to it as the pursuit of pleasure and the absence of pain (Mill, p.7). Kant does not base his ethics on happiness. Instead, he argues that morality is based on our duty as a human (Kant, ). To do what is right for Kant is to do what is instinctually moral without giving thought to the overall happiness. On the other hand, Mill does in fact use happiness as the bases for his ethics. He proposes that actions are right if they promote overall happiness and wrong if they promote the opposite of happiness (Mill, ). In this paper, it will be argued that Mill 's views on happiness are more reasonable than those of Kant 's because happiness should be the base for ethics.

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics both agree that happiness is essential to a good life but differ on what an individuals happiness consists of. They both recognized the importance of happiness to man and aimed at defining it. Aristotle believed that happiness comes from virtue. He argued that in order to be happy, man must complete his function (Aristotle). On the other hand, John Stuart Mill, argues that pleasure and freedom from pain are what make up someone’s happiness. He felt that man’s purpose in life is to find pleasure, and that pleasure will bring him happiness (Brink). The two philosophers spent much of their time contemplating what it means to be happy, and although they came across different views, they agreed on the overall idea that in order to attain true happiness, men should be engaging in activities that are distinct to

Kant’s Ethics may best apply to modern business. Kant said right action based on a set of moral rules, and the right action is supposed to be the one that conforms with these rules, whereas certain other types of action are morally forbidden. He also suggests that people should be treated "with respect and as ends in their own right, not solely as means to other's ends." On the contrary, Mill’s ethics only concern about the happiness of majority instead of duty itself. Thus, the question how could Kant’s “austere” system do better for business needs than Mill’s flexible business ethics. I would say that although Mill’s Ethic is a functional system of moral analysis, but the decision is easily changeable when the consequence change and in

Hume and Kant offered two differing views on morality. Hume's philosophy regarding moral theory came from the belief that reason alone can never cause action. Desire or thoughts cause action. Because reason alone can never cause action, morality is rooted in us and our perception of the world and what we want to gain from it. Virtue arises from acting on a desire to help others. Hume's moral theory is therefore a virtue-centered morality rather than the natural-law morality, which saw morality as coming from God. Kant's notion of morality stems from his notion of one universal moral law. This law is pertinent to all people and can be used at all times before carrying our actions According to Kant, you ought to act according to the maxim

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

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant in my opinion was two great scholars with two great but very different views, on morality. John Stuart strong beliefs was named Utilitarianism. Simply stated Utilitarianism is the belief in doing what is good specifically for the greater good of the masses/everyone not just someone.

Ethics refers to what people consider good or bad and right or wrong. It is a theory dealing with values that relate to human behaviour; with respect to their actions and purpose. The two most important philosophers that deal with ethics are Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Kant’s ethical theory is Kantianism or deontological ethics. Mill’s ethical theory is utilitarianism. Both philosophers’ theories have many differences; Kant’s theory deals with conduct, seeking reason for good action in duty. Mill’s theory deals with consequences and maximizing human happiness. However both Kant and Mill’s ethics relate to the important biblical principal of the Golden Rule.

Aristotle established what is known as virtue/character ethics where morality is realized in the development of character traits. Immanuel Kant, however, refers to ethics as that which focuses on objectives, where if one has the intent to do well, they will achieve happiness described as deontological ethics. The next concept, utilitarianism, expanded by John Stuart Mill, is similar to Aristotle’s virtue ethics in its dependence on happiness but emphasizes that some pleasures are more valuable than