In Prolegomena to any future metaphysics, Kant indicates that applying a universal label to anything is a mistake because all judgments are based on personal experience; he states: “I passed off as universally valid that which was a condition for the intuition of things…because I referred it to the things in themselves and did not restrict it to conditions of experience” (Kant 86). As Peter Byrne adds, Kant did not view religious assent as a precondition for understanding moral law: for a proposition to have objective merit or universality, it had to “be something that can be communicated to others and that can command universal agreement. Religious experience as a ground of assent fails this test, for Kant” (Byrne 53). In short, Kant did not view faith in God as a means of knowing right from wrong. For Kant, God’s existence was a matter determined by faith. One could not provide objective evidence of God’s existence and so, therefore, could not provide objective evidence of a first cause or first Mover. All that should ordinarily follow from the first cause could not because the first cause, for Kant, could not be objectively established. This condition negated any ability to arrive at conclusive evidence as to whether actions had a universal or moral character to them that could be objectively defined or even identified. On the contrary, Kant insisted that actions like perceptions could only be known subjectively and that this prevented one from making the assertion that if God exists, murder is immoral. One could not say for all human beings that God existed: one could only say that in so far as he or she was concerned, God existed and thus that person applied to his moral framework a set of conditions that would typically include murder as being immoral (basically because of the Western religion associated with God—i.e., the Judaic and/or Christian religions). If one chose not to admit of the existence of God, what was the precondition for establishing a rightness and wrongness to actions? What was the external ruler by which one could judge?
This does not mean that Kant does not have a view on morality or ethics. His view ultimately was that ethics for an individual depended upon one’s duty. So for instance, if one’s duty was to be a soldier, would it not correlate that it was his ethical responsibility to kill the enemy? Morally speaking, the murder of his fellow human being would be justified by the person’s duty. For an individual whose duty was to be, say, a banker, murdering his fellow man would not correlate with his duty and thus would be viewed as immoral.
By contextualizing morality within the framework of the individual and the duty of the individual, Kant was able to maneuver around the issues of universalism and objectivity, which troubled philosophers, and apply and subjective framework that would make…
In Cultural Ethical Relativism, Universalism, Absolutism (2005), it was mentioned that Kant said that people engage a particular space in creation and morality can be figured out in one supreme directive of reason or imperative that all responsibilities and duties drawn from; Kant described an imperative as any intention which asserts a particular act or inaction to be compulsory; a hypothetical imperative requires action in a particular condition: "if I
Kant Morals Kant focused on presenting the idea of good as being a concept that should not be defined by relating to a series of attitudes and behaviors that some communities are likely to identify as good. Instead, he attempted to show morality in its entirety as the only good thing and as being strongly related to good will. Even with the fact that he emphasizes occasions in which people can
Guilt, it seems, is an emotion, and in an a priori, deontological account of morality, emotions do not factor into the judgment. This issue is less pronounced under Mill's view, but still, the issue of guilt seems to be missing from a strict utilitarian calculus (or, at the very least, it does not seem to be of great importance in the judgment). "Crimes and Misdemeanors," draws some inspiration from
lying and deceit and questions its acceptability in society. Lying is something which stands at a different perspective for everyone. Every form of lying is because an individual is trying to gain or achieve something, most of people's actions are meant to deceive in some way for personal gain, and this goes on underlying, since people are so used to doing it. There is, however a possibility to change
56). This refers the fact that the AMA "…allows the withdrawal of what it calls extraordinary means of preserving life" (Sullivan, 1977, p. 56). Ordinary means refers to " & #8230;All medicines, treatments and operations which would offer a reasonable hope of benefit for the patient ands which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain and other inconveniences" (Sullivan, 1977, p. 57). Extraordinary means refers to "…
Moral Philosophy Can desires and feelings be in accordance with or contrary to reason? Are they under the control of, or guided by, reason? Compare, contrast, and critically evaluate the answers of Aristotle and Hume to these questions and their arguments in support of those answers. David Hume is one of the most significant philosophers of the 18th Century. Hume is skeptical about moral truths, and he ascertains that ethics comes from