Immanuel Kant 's Philosophy And Philosophy

Immanuel Kant, a philosopher, main goal was to discover the answer to how human beings could be genuinely good and kind, apart from the expectations of traditional religions. Immanuel Kant was born in the year 1724 to parents who were extremely modest. His father was a saddle maker who never made an excess amount of money. He was very thankful for his family and all things God had him blessed with. Kant got a late start in his studies, unlike David Hume. It was not until he was in his fifties that he became a professor that acquired a full salary and received a considerable amount of respect. Kant’s family held him to high standards and made it appoint to practice their religious beliefs. As Kant grew in age and knowledge he did not have any orthodox religious beliefs, but still saw the role that religion had played in his parent’s ability to deal with their hardships and blessing and how useful religion could be in creating a society where everyone was united.

Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals serves the purpose of founding moral theory from moral judgment and examining whether there is such thing as a ‘moral law’ that is absolute and universal. In chapter three of his work, he discusses the relationship between free will and the moral law and claims “A free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.” He stands firm in his belief that moral law is what guides a will that is free from empirical desires. To be guided by moral laws it would require men to be ideal rational agents.

There is very little question as to what action a strict deontologist would do in the scenario for this assignment he or she would unequivocally adhere to his or her duty. The more pressing question, of course, revolves around just where that duty lies. For a deontologist, that duty would lie with the job at hand and its responsibilities. As one who took an oath to only program software in accordance to the company that he or she works for which is essentially operating as an extension of the government that wishes the programmer to 'push the button' and destroy millions of innocent lives in World War II it would strongly appear that such an individuals would consider it his or her duty to effectively start World War III.

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.

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

In his publication, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant supplies his readers with a thesis that claims morality can be derived from the principle of the categorical imperative. The strongest argument to support his thesis is the difference between actions in accordance with duty and actions in accordance from duty. To setup his thesis, Kant first draws a distinction between empirical and “a priori” concepts. Empirical concepts are ideas we reach from our experiences in the world. On the other hand and in contrast, “a priori” concepts are ideas we reach as an end point of reasoning prior to or apart from any experience of how things occur in the world. Kant

Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals presents an interesting moral duty: that all people be treated as ends in themselves. As a result to this duty, Kant outlines imperatives adressing how to—and not to—treat other people. Some people regard these imperatives as “strict” and “not applicable” to reality. They believe Kant’s moral imperatives have practical exceptions despite suggestions for strict adherence, and they feel that Kant’s imperatives fail to answer real-world dilemmas; however, such criticisms are misunderstood and narrow-minded. To address such criticisms, it is necessary to first understand Kant’s construction of this duty to others—the Formula of Humanity.

In Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that one’s duty requires an individual to act against one’s inclinations, wants and desires, in order to achieve a higher moral worth. For Kant, the concept of duty is something that you ought to do despite not wanting to, assuming the duty is possible. A duty contains the concept of good will, or acting on one’s duty, against one’s inclinations, which is how moral worth is achieved. In order for an individual to achieve a higher moral worth, he must not act out of any inclination beyond his duty. Likewise, an individual should only act on a maxim that at the same time he wills to be universal law, common knowledge, as explained by the categorical imperative

Prompt: Kant argues that in Groundwork, it is morally wrong to not develop talents: What is his argument and is he correct?

The philosophers Aristotle and Immanuel Kant express the sources of virtuous and dutiful actions in a similar, yet different way. Both philosophers agree that an action has moral worth, when it is preformed for its own sake. However, the difference contains a more significant meaning. Aristotle believes that pleasure can be included when preforming an action; while Kant believes that a duty is preforming the right action without the need of inclinations.

The idea of an action to be intrinsically good is not as straight forward as proposed by Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill in The Groundswork and Utilitarianism respectively. Kant, in The Groundswork, and Mill, in Utilitarianism, come to different conclusions about what is intrinsically good, yet neither of them come to a valid explanation for the following reasons; Kant produces a narrow view focused entirely on having a good will, acting only based off of duties, and ignoring the outcomes of your actions, while Mill calculates intrinsic value based off of the greatest happiness principle which doesn’t take into account a good will. The correct and most reasonable explanation of what is intrinsically good is a combination of what both

Mary Midgley critically analyzes philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume, and argues that they have greatly influenced our way of thinking. She quotes G.R. Grice, in which he states that not all classes have natural rights, and questions just what rights and duties, by an extension, are. By delving into the thoughts of John Stuart Mill and Kant, she formulates her own arguments and contends that duties should be applied to everything and everyone around us. She stresses that that a person is responsible to everything, from another human being to an inanimate object. She then separates these duties into five different sectors: the human, animal, inanimate, comprehensive, and miscellaneous (such as oneself and God). Using this chart, she demonstrates that it is quite easy for one to exclude minorities when you only look at a portion of the scale and refuse to examine the entire image. Furthermore, she makes a very clear distinction that we should not have duties towards these inanimate sectors because we must personify them, but rather because these objects contain value to those who are animate. Therefore, she concludes that we all have to duties to these sectors, not just in concerns of them.

When it comes to guiding our moral actions, I believe that care ethics is the better moral philosophy to follow over Kantian deontology. While both moral philosophies strongly believe in defending the dignity of our fellow man, care ethics believes that nurturance and caring is the best way to defend a person’s dignity, as opposed to Kant who believe that our actions alone determine our dignity and worth. There are a number of reasons why one should choose care ethics over Kantian deontology. The first reason is that, in his moral philosophy, Kant chooses reason over feeling. The second reason is that Kant lacks compassion for the unique situations of others by suggesting that the principle of good is universifiable. The third reason is that Kant ignores how the consequences of our actions affect others. Finally, the fourth reason is that Kant implies that while we should all seek to perfect our moral selves, we are not responsible for the moral growth and perfection of others. Instead, we are merely obligated to help others and promote their happiness.

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who took ideas from the empiricists and rationalists to create is own view of how humans come to knowledge. Essentially updating and blending science and logic based knowledge. Kant was a rationalist, yet had empirical views much like John Locke and David Hume. Kant agreed with Hume and Locke on experience. Yet, Kant developed a priori idea of how humans learn to learn that was very different from Locke and Hume.

In his essay writing “What is Enlightenment?” Immanuel Kant defines enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity” (Kant, 1). In order for us to completely understand this definition, we must first understand what Kant meant by “Immaturity”. In the writing Kant defines immaturity as “the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance from another”(Kant, 1). Furthermore, Kant believes that this immaturity is self-imposed, and that it is the individual’s fault for lacking the courage and resolve to think for themselves, but instead pay others to think and understand for them. I substantially agree with this idea, however, his remarks on immaturity in relation to the government, the way people should live, and religion is quite impetuous and irrational. Likewise, I do agree that people should be able to live freely, and think for themselves, however I do not agree that they have to live without rules, regulations or a government. In his essay Kant says “. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.”(Kant, 1). Kant believes that these guardians restrain our minds and have us lack the capabilities to think for ourselves. However, I believe that these same guardians are those entities that help nurture our mind and enable us to think