“Two things, above all others, fill the mind with ever increasing awe and wonder: the starry heavens about and the moral law within” - Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant’s theory of ethics is deontological. Kant relies heavily on duty and principles. Kant ignores consequences and decides if an action is good or bad by it’s intention. For example, if a person sets out to do something good; but fails and it turns into be something bad, they are not to blame. Their intention is all that matters.
Western Civilization Essay The Greeks had a profound and affected on our system of government and laws; architecture, including a system of roads and very advanced systems of sewages; and they had a very advanced system of education. Other ways the Greeks influenced us was language, literature, trading systems, mathematical systems, science and philosophy. Truly the Ancient Romans and Greeks can be seen as a foundation for Western Civilization. People who have helped this create system are people who are trying to find the truth through reasoning and questioning. These people are called humanist.
Philosophy in the Real World-Philosophers Kant and Nietzsche Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche are two admirable philosophers from different times with many contributions to philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the key concepts and analyses that comprised each of these philosophers theories, identify and, describe each philosophers contributions to philosophy, describe how the culture and the time period each lived in influenced their ideas, and compare and contract these philosophers thoughts with that of their predecessors. After reading this paper we hope that a deeper understanding of both Kant and Nietzsche is acquired. Kant provided many great theories to philosophy, one of Kant’s key concepts to the idealist philosophy was on time and space has been noted as his best theory. The idea that time and space are merely conditions of our own animalistic instincts combined with intuition and life experiences opens the door to explore ideas of why humans seem to be in such a rush.
It is therefore not surprising that the grounding for this notion has been the subject of heavy debate. Taking central stage in the history of this debate are Hume and Kant and their examinations of the concept have been very influential. I will attempt to show how they unfold their different conceptions of cause and effect and how the two compare to each other. A note on Terminology: While Hume and Kant discuss more or less the same subject matter they do as most philosophers, discuss it in their own (or that most native to them) terminology. For sake of clarity I shall utilise the concepts of each in their respective sections.
In this sense it is a consequentialist theory. This contrasts with religion, as religion is more absolutist, meaning moral views have a complete and universal authority that derived from God. Religion focuses on the consequences in the after life for example heaven, hell and purgatory. Unlike religion, utilitarianism thinks about the consequences in the present. The first kind of utilitarianism, developed by Bentham was designed to be secular (non-religious).
Genesis 1-2 can show us that God is all-powerful and all-loving. As far as Genesis 1-2 goes, it is more important to understand the scripture, rather than prove it to be factual. “Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavor, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization” (Ferngren, 2). Genesis 1-2 is the cause of much unnecessary tension between the religious and scientific communities. The writers of Genesis 1-2 wrote it in a way that presents the Earth’s creation as a factual account of God creating the heavens and the Earth.
He also believed that the most important characteristic of our personalities is created by how we treat others. While Chuang Tzu preached that things are categorized as good or evil. Everything is everything, and we make our own opinions on the level of goodness or the amount of evil. Chuang Tzu is also a complete anarchist. He believed that the world “does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed.” He also proclaimed that good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.
The old ideal of science Aristotle and many more Greeks played an important role in defining what we now know as science and hence the relevance of mentioning their contributions when discussing issues of scientific philosophy and all that it concerns. The ideals of scientific discourse are now far removed from what initially was for the Greek, the reason for this is due to the contributions of other scientists, however, the current intentions deep scientific method and the definition of science as such, correspond to the same intentions of Aristotle: "know the reality and make it intelligible" Something very important that we
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
Deontology versus Utilitarianism There are many ethological theories that have helped shape the thinking of today. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the best well-known German philosophers who basically created the theory known as Deontology. His theory is based on rules (maxims) and is also known as categorical imperative. Kant’s theory about the rational individual who is the forefront for moral law has been defined and interpreted in many different ways by many different philosophers (Bourke, 1951). Oddly enough, with this theory, it is prohibited to tell lies or commit suicide because that is morally wrong within itself and does not support the universal good of a rational decision, but if people acted in line with their duty to the universal law of their society, the results were of no consequence (Butts & Rich, 2008, Chapter 1).