The Humanness of Hume and Kant's Moral Theories Essay

Humans make choices daily, both through reasoning and how they are feeling in that moment. There is a collection of external factors that result in choices that lead to an individual to both reason and feel some sort of emotion. Objectively speaking, there is a no fine line between reasoning and how one feels, however there seems to be a distinct difference between the philosophers Immanuel Kant and David Hume views on the matter. Both are life changing philosophers with very opposing views. One sees the feelings in human nature while the other seems to see nothing but rationality. One can argue both are used but according to these two there is only one or the other dominating the brain of individuals. Both philosophers give a compelling insight as to which is truly dominant, and out of the many examples they use to prove a point , there is a similar example put into both theories, suicide. This morbid topic is an interesting debate because many people have opposing views as whether it 's 's negative or positive, right or wrong, justifiable or injustice. Basically, whatever the morality of it is. I believe it is morally justifiable or permissible, based on Hume 's views and that he has a more humanistic and better approach than Immanuel Kant. To understand this, one has to briefly understand the ideals that both Kant and Hume portray.

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.

‘The relationship between Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and David Hume (1711-1776) is a source of wide spread fascination’ (Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Kant and Hume on Morality). Purpose of this essay is to provide Immanuel Kant’s claims on sympathy and David Hume’s assessment on it, backed up by their reasoning’s. By doing so, strong argument will separately be provided from both sides and the task then is to present my personal opinion on whose argument seems more compelling. David Hume’s assessment and arguments appear more compelling than Immanuel Kant.

Hume’s ultimate goal in his philosophic endeavors was to undermine abstruse Philosophy. By focusing on the aspect of reason, Hume shows there are limitations to philosophy. Since he did not know the limits, he proposed to use reason to the best of his ability, but when he came to a boundary, that was the limit. He conjectured that we must study reason to find out what is beyond the capability of reason.

David Hume wrote Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in 1748, right in the middle of the Enlightenment and on the eve of the Industrial and Scientific Revolution. So it only makes sense that some of the ideas and comparisons used are slightly outdated, but science, if anything, helps his argument regarding causality. Hume is ultimately concerned with the origins of causality, how we are able to gain knowledge from causality, and if we can even call the knowledge derived from causality real knowledge. This is essentially the problem of induction, and is a central pillar of Hume's overall philosophy. There are some significant objections to Hume's ideas concerning causality, but they do not hold much clout and are no match for his

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

In this section of David Hume’s writing, he discusses the aspects of a benevolent person is. He describes them in something along the lines of generous, good-natured, humane and so on and so forth. Which then leads him to say that benevolence, is found in almost every single language. I believe he says that because throughout human history, we have put the people obtaining these qualities on a pedestal, thus, showering them with all kinds of admiration and love. It is kind of a universal truth to say that these people should be held up to a higher standard than regular everyday people. And in most cases, that is the truth, because usually these people are some of the best leaders and rulers.

“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.

In the late 18th century one of the most influential philosophers by the name of Immanuel Kant introduced the third major ethical philosophy, Deontology. The basis behind Deontology is that people are duty bound to act morally by certain standards despite the outcome. Determining whether a person’s actions are morally right involves look at the intent of the actions. Like other ethic theories, Deontologist applies the golden rule of treating other people the way you would want them to treat you. Deontology can be broken down into three different theories: agent-centered, patient centered, and contractualist. Each branch of Deontology can be traced back in some way to Immanuel Kant. Can Deontology be applied to today’s society?

David Hume is considered to be one of the big three British empiricists, along with Hobbes and Locke, and lived near the end of the Enlightenment. The Catholic Church was losing its control over science, politics and philosophy and the Aristotelian world view was being swallowed up by a more mechanistic viewpoint. Galileo found the theory provided by Copernicus to be correct, that our earth was not the center of everything, but the celestial bodies including the earth circled the sun. Mathematicians abounded. Pascal developed the first mechanical calculator and Newtonian physics was breaking new ground. Not even the arts were immune. Within the same era Mary Shelley authored Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. The main theme for this

Engineers are trusted individuals which the public has set high standards for. The public relies on engineers to efficiently, and accurately determine the safety of all products they create. Engineers are required to follow safety procedures in order to ensure the quality of the products they create. However, are these procedures enough to ensure the safety of the public? Or can additional actions be taken in order to improve the safety of a product? If so, to what extent should engineers be required to take matters into their own hands and ensure the safety of products, in return reducing the number of injuries and fatal accidents?

German philosopher Kant was first to introduce the Kantian ethics; hence, the named after him. According to Professor Elizabeth Anscombe, Immanuel Kant was Unitarianism’s rival; he believed actions that are taboo should be completely prohibited at all times. For instance, murder should be prohibited. Even though nowadays a person cannot be punished if death is involved as a self defense, from Kant’s perspective this is still prohibited, although sometimes these actions bring more happiness to the big majority of people than sorrow. Kant stated that before acting, one should ask his/her self: am I acting rationally and in a way that everyone will act as I purpose to act? Is my action going to respect the moral law or just my own purpose? If the answer to those questions is a no, the action must be abandoned. Kant’s theory is an example of the deontological theory that was developed in the age of enlightenment. According to Elizabeth, these theories say that “the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfill our duty.”( Anscombe, 2001) Kant said that morality is built based on what he called “Hypothetical Imperatives”, but rather principles called “Categorical Imperatives” he referred to it as the supreme principle of morality. (Texas A&M University, n.d.) Cavico and Mujtaba reported on their book that Kant stated that morality

The scope of Natural Sciences is to create principles, theories and laws about the natural world. Natural Sciences theories and laws are based on a scientific methodology (hypothetico-deductive method ). The scientific method always tries to connect theory and observation, this is one manner to consistently organize our observation of the natural world . Experiments are often used in order to replicate aspects of the world in which we are interested. In fact, following this method before stating something to be true scientists needs first to arrange an hypothesis then make some tests in order to prove the theory and finally make up the law. Doing that we can say to acquire a proof and, therefore, good knowledge.

The concept of the ‘self’ is regarded as an “entity which persists through time and change” (Grayling, pg. 540), in spite of other variations, albeit unnecessary ones, that occur in a person. Ones self is alleged to be the backbone of “thinking, perceiving, memory, and the like – the ultimate ‘bearers’ of our psychological properties.” (Grayling, pg. 540) The idea of ‘self’ is a topic of important philosophical debate, and one which Kant and Hume dexterously engage themselves in. This essay will begin by outlining Hume’s philosophical approach and his theory of self. Following that Kant’s theory of self will be looked at.