Kant and Mills Moral Philosophy

Kant and Mills Moral Philosophy

Deontological vs. Consequentialist Ethics

The philosophers Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill proposed two opposite definition of ethics. Thus, Kant believes that the only thing that can be called 'good' in itself is the 'good will', that is, the abstract principle from which a certain action is derived. According to Kant, neither the action itself nor the consequences or the results of the action can be considered as good. His argument is that good can be many times the outcome of a self-interested action or of a person's conformity with his or her duty. The will to do good, the intention or the idea that leads to the moral law are the main grounds for morality: "It is impossible to conceive of anything at all in the world...which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will." (Kant, 61) in Kant's view it would be therefore illogical to consider that good in itself can exist in any other form than in the abstract human will. Consequently, the purpose of an action cannot have any moral worth; it is only the maxim that dictates the action which can be considered truly good: "An action done from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon." (Kant, 67-68) Only the abstract idea or concept that determine the moral law can be termed good: "Nothing but the idea of the law in itself, which admittedly is present only in a rational being, -so far as it and not an expected result is the ground determining the will- can constitute the pre-eminent good which we call moral..."(Kant, 69)

Mill, on the other hand, maintains just the opposite view on ethics: he states that the quality of any act stands in it 'utility', that is, its ability to promote or induce happiness on oneself or on the others. The philosopher thus equates ethics with the result or the purpose of a certain action: "Actions are right in proportion as they promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."(Mill, 7) to guard from a possible misunderstanding, Mill proposes that man, through his superior nature, automatically pursues only higher kinds of pleasure and would never be content with the mere gratification of the senses (as the Epicureans would have it). Thus, according to Mill, a state of thriving morality would be that in which each individual constantly pursues his own happiness and at the same time that of the others, through all his actions. Mills uses as a central argument for his theory of morality the 'golden rule' of Christianity, as he calls it, which states that each individual should only act as he in his turn would be acted upon by his fellow beings and that each person should love his neighbor as himself: "In the golden rule of Jesus we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility: 'to do as you would be done by' and 'to love your neighbor as yourself."(Mills, 17) Morality is thus grounded on the awareness and the pursuit of individual good as well as the good of the whole.