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The Bible also calls for the application of human free will to morality, as does Kant. Stories in the Bible reveal how human actors either obey or disobey the moral codes prescribed to them by the Biblical authorities, namely God. When God issues a "thou shalt," that moral law is ensconced. The person has free will, and therefore can be tricked by a malicious force symbolized by Satan. It is necessary to have free will for the categorical imperative to work, which is why there is the problem between good and evil in the first place. If it were easy for human beings to always do good, then Kant would have not had the impetus to write Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. There would be an imperative to act, but it would not be categorical. Free will empowers the human being to make morally righteous choices, in accordance with the tenets of human reason.
One formulation of the categorical imperative that illustrates the concept is related to gay marriage. Interestingly, many "Bible thumpers" use the Mosaic law foundation as a means to bolster a spurious case against equality and human rights. Yet there is nothing in Mosaic law that prohibits gay marriage per se. Gay marriage as a sociological phenomenon did not exist at the time of the writing of the Bible: Hebrew or Christian. Therefore, one must look to the moral codes embedded in...
In this case, the imperative is to do right by all human beings. Universal truth and human rights are ensconced in the American Constitution as well as in the Bible. The ethically wrong act is barring equal access and preventing the extension of civil rights to all people. Kant would argue that it is irrational to confer a hetero-normative notion of marriage, because the imperative is not to support heterosexual patriarchal marriage but to support love and human liberties.
Gay marriage is a new social phenomenon, but it is a universal moral phenomenon. Kant's categorical imperative shows that it is always morally right to treat human beings with respect and to offer all human beings equal protection under the law. Prohibiting same-sex couples from having access to the same social institutions as straight couples is morally incorrect. There is a duty on behalf of all citizens to acknowledge this truth, which is rational, as opposed to the laws that are coded by bigots in positions of power. Bigots in positions of power have no moral jurisdiction or authority. For any moral code to work, it must be rooted in free will rather than coercion, and be phrased as an "ought," according to Kant. In this light, we "ought" to support love in all manifestations.
Living authentically "as if" my actions had the force of reason strikes me as very similar to living in deliberate opposition to reason -- which, in a contemporary milieu, often entails structuring a life according to personal experience or even faith. In an era in which the irrational is widely accepted and even embraced -- through the thought of Freud, Kierkegaard, and others in addition to Nietzsche himself --
Fidelity is also an obligation, to the journalist's ethics in particular truthtelling. Beneficence could be applied to helping law enforcement. As the decision at hand consists of two mutually exclusive options, one of these obligations would need to be overriding. It is most likely that for the journalist this would be to communicate all of the information in keeping with the journalistic code of ethics. This approach, however, does
According to utilitarian ethical theory, a lie would be very moral indeed if it increased someone's happiness without creating detriment to anyone -- telling a child that their unintelligible crayon markings is a great picture of a house, for instance, boosts their self-esteem and helps them to feel loved, and no one in the art world suffers for this white lie. Utilitarianism also provides a solution to conflicting duties that
Introduction The consideration of when it is or is not legitimate to use military force against another group or country is one that requires astute ethical analysis. Deontological ethics can be useful for determining the moral righteousness of military intervention, specifically given the ability of a duty-based ethical system to offer the international community a set of ground rules member states can agree upon. The Geneva Convention is a prime example
Ethics The nineteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant presented an ethical code that assigned a strict "right" or "wrong" to every action. Called the categorical imperative, Kant believed that it does not matter what the consequences or outcome of actions are; there are certain things that are right and certain things that are wrong. These ethical categories of right and wrong are not negotiable. It can never be "sometimes" ok to
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical framework. The consequences of an action are more important than the motivations behind the action or the action itself. An action has "utility" if it serves the greatest good. The basic principle of utilitarianism is creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people, or the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. The ethics of utilitarianism differ from ethical egoism in that