Their intention is all that matters. Kant focuses on what should be done, rather than doing things for their outcome. This means that even if something terrible happens as the result of a morally good action, it is still morally right. Kant had an absolute view that the right moral action must always be done. Kant tried to make moral ethics scientific through universalisation.
Kant devised two different types of imperatives which allow us to make our decisions, hypothetical imperatives are the rules that we follow to attain a personal outcome or a selfish wish whereas categorical imperatives are intrinsically right. His first categorical imperative was meant to establish that humans should only act according to a law that can be universalised. ‘’Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law’’ – (Kant the moral order). The second of the imperatives is that we as humans should never use another human as a means to an end, treat them all with value. ‘’Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end’’.
Kant emphasizes the role of the moral philosopher to reveal the ambiguity about what it is moral to be crystal clear, and humans are rational beings who should strive for moral maxims motivated by the good will. Furthermore, he argues that human don not need a moral philosopher to show which action is right, we already know what he calls the common human reason. Kant favours to endeavor to do the right actions over the good actions as his attempts to portray the ideal world or the moral utopia. Kantian Deontology theory and the Categorical Imperatives frameworks urge decision-makers to strive for beneficence as a mean to resolve the challenging ethical dilemmas they face, obligating the decision-maker to act ethically and morally motivated by duty. The categorical imperatives are impartial, autonomous, and strict by which tackle respecting others and their dignity, universalize the maxims of our actions, and targeting the Kingdom of
Explain the concept of Relativist Morality. Moral Relativism is an ethical judgement. It is the claim that there is no ethical system better than another. It stems from the fact that to judge an ethical system, it must be judged by a moral standard. Since every ethical system should evaluate itself as the best and only moral system, and every other system is flawed and immoral, it is assumed that moral judgements about ethical systems are meaningless.
Therefore, deontologists follow the belief that certain actions are inherently good if they follow the stated rules even if the action has bad consequences, it can still be defined as moral. In contrast, teleological ethical systems focus completely on the outcomes and consequences of an act. Teleology is a theory of ethics according to which the rightness of an act is determined by it's end. Also known as consequentialism, actions that result in what can be considered as a good consequence must be good and so the end result will justify the reason that the act was committed in the first place. Both deontological and teleological ethical systems use opposing ethical guides yet they both have the same aim, to help people make moral decisions.
Personality and moral self explain how and why human beings make free choices. The libertarianism theory has been explained by CA Campbell, who said that human beings see themselves as free agents and therefore accept moral responsibility for their actions. Humans must accept responsibility for these actions and face any consequences that may come their way. John Stuart Mill - an influencal figure in Liberatarianism – believe we are free and morally responsible for all our actions. Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society.
In order to evaluate the claim that the possession of knowledge carries ethical responsibility, it is important to understand ethics and knowledge in the general sense To put it simply, ethics is moral philosophy, or rationalization of conduct as either right or wrong. Normative ethics is the study of determining a moral course of action. The two most prominent ethical guidelines are Kantianism and Utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant suggested that ethics revolve around duty, rather than emotions. All actions are related to an underlying principle.
As a further definition, Mackie posits that an objective moral value has the quality of ‘ought-to-be-pursued-ness’, it is something one should or ought do because it contains an inherently normative aspect. If Mackie’s argument is to succeed, it must prove that this supposed normative aspect has no existence within any act in itself, but has its origin in the agent of said act, and as such, all moral claims are false. Mackie’s exposition of moral relativism comes in the form of two main arguments, the first being his ‘argument from relativity’, the second, his ‘argument from queerness’. It is with the argument from relativity that I shall be here concerned. The argument from relativity is based around the purely ‘descriptive’ idea that it is an empirically observable fact that there seems to be
PHIL 2230 – Moral Philosophy The Views of Kant and Aristotle on Morality: the Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives Immanuel Kant discusses in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals the idea of morality as abiding by moral laws – or categorical imperatives. An imperative is “the formula of the command”[1] which indicates to a will – who does not always obey – what is good to do, and what is good to refrain from doing. Kant divides imperatives into two categories; hypothetical and categorical. The hypothetical imperative says “only that an action is good for some purpose, either possible or actual”[2] and therefore an action is only good for its ends. However, the categorical imperative represents an action as “objectively necessary in itself”[3], with no end in mind.
Deontology is the study of duty. “The theory of deontology states that we are morally obliged to act in accordance with a certain set of principles/rules regardless of the outcome.” On Kant's view, the sole feature that gives an action moral worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the action, but the motive that is behind the action. (Plato). Kant’s ethical theories revolve around personal duty to make one’s actions produce a moral value and respect for other people. In the business and stakeholders context, Kant’s principle of respect for persons asserts that every human being is entitled to be treated not merely as a means to the achievement of the efforts of others, but as a being valuable in his or her own right; that each person is entitled to be respected as an end in himself or herself.