Kantian Ethical Analysis

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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.

Kant firmly believed that the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether or not our duty is fulfilled. Kant believed that the Categorical Imperative was “the supreme principal of morality, and determined what our moral duties are” (Kantian Ethics). The Categorical Imperative is expressed as, “acting only on a maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (“Internet”). A maxim is defined as a rule or principle on which you act. The command basically stated that you are not allowed to do anything that you wouldn’t allow everyone else to do. In other words, one is not able to make an exception of oneself. For example, if one expects others not to steal from one, one is not allowed to steal from anyone else. More precisely, it stated that every maxim one acts on must be one that one is willing to argue that everyone would act on if one was in a similar situation. For instance, if one wants to lie to get something one wants, one would have to be willing to argue that everyone lies to get what he or she wants. This makes the maxim universal.

According to Lucas and O’Neil, we should determine the moral permissibility of an action by seeing whether the action is universally justified by those around us. Furthering on this idea, one cannot act in a way that places you as the sole exception to principles that we otherwise believe rightly obligate everyone else. Furthermore, one ought never to perform an action without the full knowledge and consent of those involved. Through this idea, Kantian ethics aims to eliminate deceit by granting others the basic right to not be unknowingly caught up in one’s own self-serving strategies. As O’Neill relates, one cannot use another as a “mere means” in their scheme of action. This means that one must commit actions that do not intentionally manipulate others as a mere tool for their actions. To determine whether an action is permissible, Kantian ethics considers whether the scheme of action utilizes others as mere means. If it does not, then the action is permissible. If the action uses someone

Categorical imperative is a nonconsequentialist theory formulated by the deontological German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kantian ethics were a clearly opposition to the theory of the utilitarianism proposed by Mill; to Kant, the consequences were irrelevant to moral evaluations. Unlike Mill, Kant believed that Morality should not be influence by feelings or desires (inclinations). Nor should be by societies or circumstances. Morality must be based on reason and because average adults are able of rational thinking and self-governing, It also must be autonomous. Human begins have an irrevocable responsibility to act from a good will that at the same time is subject to rational principle. "Morality is a matter of duty" (Kant, pg 489)

When considering Kant’s argument on our moral obligations toward animals, it becomes clear that some of his premises contradict the main contention. Kant makes the case that, “people who are kind to animals will be kind to other humans,” yet fails to give any evidence in support of this statement (Kant 564). Furthermore, Kant says it is permissible for animals to receive torturous treatment if it benefits humanity. However, he gives the example that the butches and doctors who are accustomed to making morbid decisions around animals are unable to serve on juries, as they are desensitized from their work.

1. Categorical Imperative are derived from a principle that every rational person must accept. As Kant stated, “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”(p.128) Which means that you will only act in the way that you would want the rest of the world to act. For instance, we will take lying. According to Kant lying is immoral no matter what and in any situation. So if we wanted to consider lying to someone, under the Categorical Imperative, we would need to think of the lye and its consequences. After you think of the lye and its consequences, you then need to think about if you would want the rest of the universe to be able to do the same thing at any given time. In the case of lying, lying is always immoral according to Deontology because it is not something that we would want people doing all the time. If we allowed people to lye all the time, it would be self-defeating and people would stop believing one another. In order for something to be moral in Deontology you have to think about the actions and the consequences of the action, and if you would allow the whole universe to do the action at any given time.

Kant’s ethical theory is a theory by Immanuel Kant, a german philosopher that was introduced in the year of 1785 in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant’s theory is mainly divided into two parts: categorical and hypothetical imperative. Categorical imperative, is an unconditional moral obligation which is binding in all circumstances and is not dependent on a person’s inclination or purpose (oxforddictionaries.com) whereas hypothetical imperatives is a moral obligatio that applies only if one desires the implicated goal (oxforddictionaries.com).

Kant’s theory of ethics, known as the categorical imperative, is an absolutist theory. This means that if something is wrong then it is always wrong. For example, if suicide is wrong then it is still wrong even if an elderly person at the end of their life is asking for assisted suicide. Kant’s theory is also deontological which means that it is linked to the morality of duty. We all have a duty and that is to obey the categorical imperative. An action can only be correct if we do it out of duty.

Kant claims that humans have a special kind of value that nothing on this earth has. To support this claim, Kant says that humans are the only beings on earth who can have this intricate reasoning: “…we are each rational and autonomous and that these traits are what justify our moral status. . . It takes a lot of brainpower to be able to formulate your goals, to imagine a world where everyone pursues them as you do…” (Shafer-Landau, 2012, p175). Kant believes that being rational and autonomous makes humans worthy of respect. A respect that makes humans worthy of greater respect than anything else. As humans we possess the responsibility for the choices we make, the goals we aim for and the manner in which we do so. This makes

Kantian ethics is inferred on what Immanuel Kant claimed is the supreme principle of morality, the Categorical Imperative (Woodard, 2013). As indicated by Kant, there are two diverse but correspondent ways for defining the Categorical Imperative. The first way is the Universal Law Formula. According to Universal Formula, we ought to act only on principles that we can will to be an universal law that applies to all people (Potter, 2001). In other words, an action could be moral if there is no issue when all people are doing that action as well. An illustration would be the burglary or robbery. What happen if everybody doing the burglary or robbery? Obviously, it will create a great deal of issues. For instance, nobody will not be willing to

According to Kant, We have these absolute duties to ourselves and these duties to oneself become the supreme principle of all duties. Therefore, these supreme self-duties are the reason why moral ethics exist, and without our duties to oneself there would be no other duties, nor would we, as a species, survive at all. However, these self-regarding duties can be very contradicting, but can help us understand the bigger picture of the categorical imperative.

“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.

Kant was born in 1724-1804, he was a German thinker from East Prussia (now Russia), and he spent his whole life in his hometown. Kant wanted to create a logical, stand-alone theory that wasn’t just based on assumptions, he believed in an objective right or wrong that is decided on reason and that we shouldn’t do the right thing just because it’s right and not to fulfil our desires. Can we lead a life following his ideals are there not some situations where a perfect moral decision cannot be made, are all our choices fuelled by personal gain and desire?

According to Timmons, the field of philosophy is not complete without the mention of Kant whose contributions were major (205). This, he adds, was influenced by his originality, subtle approach and the difficulty of his works. Timmons cites that moral requirements are a requirement of reason, which is the ideology of Kant’s Moral theory; hence, immoral act is an act against reason. Consequently, speaking on the terminologies of Kant we visualize moral requirements as Categorical Imperatives (CI) grounded on reason and can, therefore, get derived from a supreme moral principle. The imperative in this case refers to a command.