Kant And Moral Politics

Immanuel Kant is said by many to be one of the most influential “thinkers” in the history of Western philosophy (McCormick, n.d.), this being said, most of his theories continue to be taught and are highly respected by society. Kant was a firm believer that the morality of any action can be assessed by the motivation behind it (McCormick, n.d.). In other words, if an action is good but the intention behind the action is not good, the action itself would be considered immoral. Those who follow the utilitarian view would disagree, arguing that an action which benefits the most number of people would be considered moral regardless of the intentions behind it. Kant argues that the intention behind an action matters more than the number of people benefited. This theory of morality falls hand in hand with Kant 's concept of good will, and through examples I hope to explain to readers, in a simple way, what Kant was trying to convey.

The ethics of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) generally emphasize the necessity of morality and reason when it comes to certain actions. In his Moral Philosophy lecture, he discusses the essential human action of sexual desire and impulse. When reading Of Duties Towards the Body in Respect of Sexual Impulse, Kant describes why sexual impulses are immoral and how marriage is the only condition under which sexual impulses are permitted. Kant is right about certain sexual impulses being immoral but sex only after marriage isn’t as common as it used to be in his day and age. In this essay, I plan to argue how Kant’s views on moral and immoral sexual impulses are still present in today’s society but have changed over time. I am convinced that this is

Kant argues that mere conformity with the moral law is not sufficient for moral goodness. I will argue that Kant is right. In this essay I will explain why Kant distinguishes between conforming with the moral law and acting for the sake of the moral law, and what that distinction means to Kant, before arguing why Kant was right.

Another topic that Kant contributed to is morality. According to Kant, moral laws cannot be derived from human nature. To put it in other terms, it is not human nature that should be used as a model to how we should behave morally. Kant believed that humans do not always make the right moral decisions because human nature can be flawed at times, often times choosing an animalistic desire over doing something that is morally permissible. In addition, Kant believed that the outcome of human nature is not the central issue when it comes to knowing what is right or what is wrong. Instead, Kant believes that it each of the individual actions that should be analyzed to see if it is morally wrong or if it is morally right. Kant’s point of view about morality is different from previous philosophers, because most of them looked to human nature in order to find the morally right things to do.

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.

Media, defined as a mean of mass communication that reaches and influences the general audience. When the media is combined with moral theories, known as the guides for humans to figure out what actions are either right or wrong, it creates a balance in our entertainment about what is ethical or not to display on society. By having various Moral Theories and none of them being one 100 percent perfect, it causes humans to create their own satisfactory moral theory. My own satisfactory moral theory, in essence, is a combination of being able to take into consideration my personal relationships while still making an impact in my community, society and the world. Having morals in the media is what allows us to know when one may cross the line.

So many people put their lives on the line for the sake of this country. It would be nice if, after all the damages they suffered, there was organization that could help them recover that bit of life they lost in war; that would not mislead them with false promises, or squander their money. The Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) has been one of the best-known organizations providing assistance to Iraq- and Afghanistan- war veterans for the last several years. But as time has gone one the organization has broken down, and is lately the focus of negative media attention after it CEO, Steven Nardizzi and COO, Al Girodano, who were accused of lavishly spending over $800 million in donations to the WWP. The following paper therefore analyzes the background

In “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals”, Immanuel Kant states that one test for whether an action is morally permissible is that it can be universalized. This means that you are not allowed to do anything yourself that you would not allow others to do as well; you should not be allowed to make exceptions to yourself. Actions that you perform should be actions that you would allow everyone to perform, making this action universalized. If everyone is allowed to do it, than it should be considered a morally permissible action.

German Philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed that it is morally wrong to use a person merely as a means to your end. This judgement helps us to understand and determined sexual morality. Thomas A. Mappes supports Kant’s claims and helps to further explain Kant’s statement by defining it and introducing the idea that one must give their voluntary informed consent in order for certain actions to be moral. Mappes also illustrates that voluntary informed consent can be undermined through both deception and coercion. This helps us in the understanding of sexual morality.

There is two views of the form of ethics concerning towards the law. [1] Abel states teleological view is when someone is viewing the existence of the action and deems it as a form of excuse. The second view, a deontological view is the normative ethical position that judges on the morality of an action and based on the action’s adherence to a rule or rules. For example, Immanuel Kant follows a form of deontological because he introduced the form of categorical imperative which states that if any actions are not universal then they are considered immoral.

Among many of the scholars who have attempted to defend Kant’s political philosophy as part of the social contract tradition, there has been a general tendency to attenuate Kant to overcome many of the objections considered above. In Jeffrie Murphy’s investigation, he argues that Kant’s theory does not attempt to answer the question of why we have a moral obligation to obey the law, but instead to answer the question of when a law is just (Murphy, 1978). Like so many other scholars writing on Kant, Murphy gets stuck upon a passage in Theory and Practice where Kant states that the social contract never had to be an historical event upon which consent was given by the governed to the state because the social contract theory is only “a mere idea of

Kant’s view on the aspect of republicanism derives from the traditional mindset of the need of unwanted change and the views on traditional attitudes and values that run a society. Kant was associated with the Monarchial era of ruling a country, that proved supplemental at the time as it is a system that provides cultural stability and allows for the capacity of the people to sustain the functional republic. He provides insight towards the understanding that entails greater limitations on the freedom of an individual, that poses threats on one’s spiritual freedom. Kant views the sense of a lesser degree of civil liberty in the light of his classical approach towards a republican society as there is the allotment of potential focus on what an

“There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in this world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualifications, except a good will.” (Kant, pg.7 393). No other thing that may appear good can be unqualifiedly good, as even “Talents of the mind…Gifts of power…[Other] qualities…Have no intrinsic unconditional worth, but they always presuppose, rather, a good will, which restricts the high esteem in which they are otherwise rightly held.” (Kant, pg.7 393-394). So Immanuel Kant introduces the public to his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, which results not in simply a grounding work, but one that is utterly groundbreaking. This opener, wholly devoted to the establishment of the importance of will and intention, notes the guiding characteristics of a good will. As enumerated previously, Kant recognizes the plausible potential positivity of plenty concepts, but remains of the mind that none of these are good in themselves without the efforts of a good will to guide and restrict them in a manner that perpetuates their positivity.

Immanuel Kant addresses a question often asked in political theory: the relationship between practical political behavior and morality -- how people do behave in politics and how they ought to behave. Observers of political action recognize that political action is often a morally questionable business. Yet many of us, whether involved heavily in political action or not, have a sense that political behavior could and should be better than this. In Appendix 1 of Perpetual Peace, Kant explicates that conflict does not exist between politics and morality, because politics is an application of morality. Objectively, he argues that morality and politics are reconcilable. In this essay, I will argue two potential problems with Kant’s position on

Immanuel Kant concerns himself with deontology, and as a deontologist, he believes that the rightness of an action depends in part on things other than the goodness of its consequences, and so, actions should be judged based on an intrinsic moral law that says whether the action is right or wrong – period. Kant introduced the Categorical Imperative which is the central philosophy of his theory of morality, and an understandable approach to this moral law. It is divided into three formulations. The first formulation of Kant’s Categorical Imperative states that one should “always act in such a way that the maxim of your action can be willed as a universal law of humanity”; an act is either right or wrong based on its ability to be