Duty And Reason As The Ultimate Principle
: Kant Essay, Research Paper
Duty and Reason as the Ultimate Principle: Kant
Kant claims that lone actions from responsibility have moral worth. In other words, actions from motivations other than responsibility deserve no positive moral rating. I like and agree with Kant? s position because I believe that a good will makes a good individual. I besides believe we have all been put on this Earth to make our responsibility. We should make our responsibility merely for responsibility entirely ; we should non be concerned about anything else. I will get down by discoursing Kant? s differentiation between what is good simply as a agency to an terminal and what is per se good, or good in itself.
A good will is non good because of what it accomplishes ; it is good through its willing entirely. Contrary to some people? s belief, to be healthy, affluent, or happy does non vouch that a individual is morally applaudable. Many people object to this statement because these features are good characteristics of human nature and benefits of a good life. However, they have value merely under appropriate conditions, since they may be used either for good or for evil. For illustration, Hitler had all these features, but he had an ailment will. Therefore, he was undeniably non a good individual. Therefore, these features do non do the owner a good individual.
I will utilize Bill Gates as another rebuttal to the expostulation I mentioned earlier. Bill Gates has been the richest adult male in America for a few old ages. He doubtless has more money than he will of all time pass, but merely late has started to donate some of his money to charity. Some people would state he donates money because he has a good will, and, hence, he is a morally good individual. But did Bill Gates truly donate money because he had a good will? No, I feel he gave money to charity because of societal force per unit area, non a good will. He would hold started donating much earlier if he would hold had a good will. However, it wasn? T until he and Microsoft started to acquire a bad, avaricious repute that he started to donate his money. Therefore, Bill Gates did non donate because of a good will, and is non a morally good individual for making so.
A good will is easy distinguished from one that acts from an indirect disposition, making the right thing simply as a agency to an terminal, for a selfish intent. For many people, the hard thing is to separate a good will from a will that has a direct disposition to make something that is right. For case, it is non surprising that many people think if you are assisting others because you have love in your head, you have moral virtuousness. However, Kant does non believe this is true. There are people so sympathetically constituted that without any motivation of selfishness they find an interior satisfaction in distributing joy and assisting others. Many of us look at these people as holding moral virtuousness. I must acknowledge I was one of these people before I understood and took a liking to Kant? s position. To Kant, holding a natural disposition to make what co-occur with responsibility is non the same thing as moving from responsibility. Merely if person acts without any disposition, from the interest of responsibility entirely, does his or her actions have echt moral worth.
Kant? s moral theory provinces that actions are morally right in virtuousness of their motivations, which must deduce from responsibility, non disposition. The clearest illustrations of morally right action are exactly those in which an person? s finding to move in conformity with responsibility overcomes his or her apparent self-interest and obvious desire to make otherwise. In such a instance, Kant argues, the moral value of the action can merely shack in a formal rule or & # 8220 ; maxim & # 8221 ; , the general committedness to move in this manner because it is one? s responsibility. Therefore, he concludes, & # 8220 ; Duty is the necessity to move out of fear for the law. & # 8221 ; This brings about an interesting inquiry. What should we make today, if tomorrow is the terminal of the universe? Should we put to death all the felons who are on decease row, or would this be a
selfish, inappropriate action? Kant would state, and I agree, that if tomorrow is the terminal of the universe, it is our responsibility to put to death all felons sentenced to decease. If we do non, we will non hold performed our responsibility to make so. I do non believe this act is selfish or inappropriate because it is non done out of hatred or fury, merely responsibility. This position to make your responsibility is normally used in the military today.
Harmonizing to Kant, so, the ultimate rule of morality must be a moral jurisprudence conceived so abstractly that it is capable of steering us to the right action in application to every possible set of fortunes. So the lone relevant characteristic of the moral jurisprudence is its generalization, the fact that it has the formal belongings of universalizability, by virtuousness of which it can be applied at all times to every moral agent. For this concatenation of concluding about our ordinary moral constructs, Kant derived as a preliminary statement of moral duty the impression that right actions are those that practical ground would will as cosmopolitan jurisprudence.
A categorical jussive mood unconditionally demands public presentation of an action for its ain interest ; it has the signifier & # 8220 ; Do A. & # 8221 ; It states, & # 8220 ; Act in such a manner that the axiom of your will can ever go a cosmopolitan law. & # 8221 ; That is, each single agent respects itself as finding, by its determination to move in a certain manner, that everyone, including itself, will ever move harmonizing to the same general regulation in the hereafter. I believe this look of the moral jurisprudence provides a concrete, practical method for measuring peculiar human actions.
See, for illustration, the instance of person who contemplates alleviating a fiscal crisis by borrowing money from person else, assuring to refund it in the hereafter while in fact holding no purpose of making so. The axiom of this action would be that it is allowable to borrow money under false purposes if you truly necessitate it. But doing this axiom into a cosmopolitan jurisprudence would be clearly self-defeating. The full pattern of imparting money on promise presupposes honest purpose to refund ; if this status were universally ignored, the false promises would ne’er be effectual as methods of adoption. Since the universalized axiom is contradictory in and of itself, no 1 could will it to be jurisprudence, and Kant concluded that we have a perfect responsibility non to move in this mode.
Kant supposed that moral duties originate even when other people are non involved. For illustration, killing yourself whenever you feel like it could ne’er be a moral regulation. It could non be universalizable because everyone would be dead. Since it would be contradictory to universalise the axiom of taking one? s ain life if it promises more wretchedness than satisfaction, we have a responsibility to ourselves non to perpetrate self-destruction.
Kant offered another categorical jussive mood stating, & # 8220 ; Act in such a manner that you ever treat humanity, whether in your ain individual or in the individual of the other, ne’er merely as a agency, but ever at the same clip as an end. & # 8221 ; This places more accent on the alone value of human life as deserving of our ultimate moral regard. This imperative can be applied to the instances I mentioned earlier. For case, go againsting a responsibility by doing a false promise ( or killing myself ) would be to handle another individual ( or myself ) simply as a agency for acquiring money ( or avoiding hurting ) , and go againsting a responsibility by declining to offer benevolence ( or pretermiting my endowments ) would be a failure to handle another individual ( or myself ) as an terminal in itself.
In decision, merely a morally good will makes a morally good individual, and merely actions from responsibility have moral worth. Kant? s position has opened my eyes and has inspired me to make my responsibility in life. He gives people a simple manner to measure whether their actions are morally good. A individual should merely inquire himself or herself whether their actions could be universalizable. If they could non be universalizable, so they are non moral.
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