However to act morally then we must be capable of exercising freedom or the autonomy of the will .The opposite of this is what Kant did not believe in and this is heteronomy and that is something is right because its satisfies some desire, emotion, goal or obligation. After excising our freedom and good will then duty is left to follow, as duty is what makes the good will good. It is important that duty can be done for its own sake , our motives need to be pure. To act morally is to do one's duty, and one's duty is to obey the moral law. Kant
The conscious decision is good in itself because the decision was not inclined by any desire but the duty to do what is intrinsically good. The volition will always have an intrinsic good, no matter what the inclination is. Kant claims that an inclination for an action cannot be respected as good, because it is not connected to the principle of good will, only the effect of the action. The notion of duty, “the necessity of acting from respect for law” (P.2), plays an important role in Kant’s moral philosophy. The action of duty must exclude the influence of inclination so it may only be influenced by the objectivity of the law and therefore subjectively respected by us as good.
“Compare and Contrast intuitionism and Emotivism” Both Intuitionism and Emotivism are meta-ethical concepts to explain the terms “good” and “bad” without being caught in the naturalistic fallacy described by GE Moore. Moore’s theory states that good cannot be categorised in any physical manner as theories – but instead “good” can not be defined in terms of anything but itself, and following this through to a moral theory we can conclude “that neither science nor religion can establish the basic principles of morality.” Intuitionism holds that there are objective moral truths, but rather than reasoning or deducing these truths, they are self evident to the “mature” mind. Moore contends that just as we know there is a world out there, we know objective moral truths – they are just common sense or intuition. These truths are universal and beyond human experience and reasoning, and from them we gain our sense of what is “good” and what is “bad”. Moore would say we can see these self evident truths when, in an argument, we are reduced to “it’s just wrong,” they require no further explanation, proof or justification.
Immanuel Kant puts forward an argument from deontological ethics and therefore is an ethical theory considered solely on duty and obligations, where one has an unchanging moral obligation to abide by a set of defined principles. Thus the ends of any action do not justify the means, i.e. if someone were to do their moral duties, then it would not matter if it had negative consequences. Thus, rules come above all else according to Kant. Kant argues that only one fact is undisputable, and that simply is that there is a moral law in existence, which then leads to the existence of God.
Morality does not come directly from God. This is the idea behind the Autonomy thesis. This option says that an act is either immoral or moral based on things apart from the commands of God. Actions are right or wrong in and of themselves regardless of God’s commands. The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God.
Categorical Imperative vs. Utility Kant’s categorical imperative gives precedence to morality over happiness. It is the absolute command of moral law and a duty bound action, void of any other purpose or condition, good in itself—proposing what one ought to do. It commands that a particular course of action is required, regardless of any willed end. It is the fulfillment of one’s duty to necessary truths that gives an act moral worth, regardless of its consequences. The basic formulation of the categorical imperative states: “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.
Those who oppose cognitivists are called non cognitivists and they believe that when someone makes a moral statement they are not describing the world, but they are merely expressing their feelings and opinions, they believe that moral statements are not objective therefore they cannot be verified as true or false. In this essay I will be discussing the multiple branches of cognitive theories and non cognitive theories in order to answer the Janus-like question whether or not moral statements truly hold objective meaning. Ethical naturalism is just one branch of a cognitive theory in which naturalists believe that ethical statements are the same as non-ethical ones, meaning they are all factual and can
Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society. Mill believed indivduality is what it is to be human and anything that takes away your indivuduality is wrong. Mill state in his book On Liberty “Whatever crushes indivduality is despotism.” Despostism is the idea of dictatorship so Mill is saying that anything that stops our indivduality for example religion is controlling us and not allowing us to be free, which is wrong. Althought we are free we must consider others, this means that we can use our freedom however we must make sure we are not spoiling the freedom of others. This is supported by Paul Kurtz who states humans have the right “to satisfy their tastes” but however they shold not “impose their values on others.” For example you may want to murder someone with your free will however if you go ahead and commit the crime you are negatively effecting others in society and this is wrong.
Explain Moral Relativism Moral Relativism argues the claim that there are no universally valid rules for all people at all times, thus implying there are no intrinsic rights and wrongs. This results in Morality being relative to the individual, to their culture and their age group. In contrary Moral Absolutism is the antonym to the theory that morality is relative. Kant for example was not a moral relativist; he held the belief that we had ‘categorical imperatives’ which were always right. He believed as Absolutists believe today , we should be able to apply moral rules to everyone without making allowances for different people or circumstance , thus suggesting laws should be ‘universalisable’ .
The argument that supports this idea the most is the fatalism argument - the idea that everything is predetermined before we are born and our actions do not affect this. This theory is referred to as hard determinism If this is true, then the claim that we do not have free will seems fairly convincing. However there are more ways of looking at determinism through soft determinism and libertarianism. Broadly speaking, determinism is the position that every event could not have had another outcome, and therefore any decisions that we make as humans do not impact this ultimate outcome. This clearly is supportive of the title statement as if true, then all outcomes are already decided and therefore our decisions are similarly already decided by some sort of greater power.