Immanuel Kant was a deontologist who believed that reason was the final authority for morality, not the consequences of one’s actions as believed by the utilitarians. In other words, all actions would be undertaken with a sense of duty that has been dictated by reason. Kant recognized two types of imperatives by which we act: the Hypothetical Imperative, which stipulates an instrumental action to a goal/result/end; and the Categorical Imperative, which stipulates that the actions we take are irrespective of one’s desires/goals/ends but are bound by duty. The ‘Inquiring Murderer’ is one example of how Kant shows that we should use the Categorical Imperative (CI) to obtain an answer according to his version of morality. We must lie to be a moral person, sending our friend to their impending death.
From this Moore claimed that it is impossible to derive an ‘is from an ought’. This criticism became known as the naturalistic fallacy. In addition to this G.E Moore claimed that naturalism was not able to stand up to the open question argument. ethical naturalism claims to be based on moral facts, it would therefore seem logical that these facts should stand up to scrutiny. Yet, if we observe that pleasure is good, we should be able to ask is good pleasure.
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. This seems a fairly logical conclusion, in order to justify what we do we look at it in basic terms, but such a process could not take place indefinitely without coming to a base truth which could not be broken down further. It’s the classic “it just is” situation in an argument, where the statement cannot be further simplified nor justified. The problem however is agreeing on what these basic moral truths are. Moore and WD Ross a fellow intuitionist agreed that pleasure, knowledge and virtue are all intrinsically good, and pain, ignorance and vice are intrinsically bad.
Since we know evil and suffering is a necessary bi-product of human life, we must acknowledge that evil does exist. This proves problematic as it then brings into question the traditional theist’s view of God. However, no traditional theist would accept Hume’s conclusions because it denies God of His perfection. There are ways of sidestepping this issue such as, atheism, deism and polytheism, but none are accepted by traditional theists, and are therefore not a true solution to the problem. A theodicy is seen as a true solution as it defends God’s nature in the face of evil and suffering.
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.
The wise Immanuel Kant in his quote said that humans should be treated as an “end in itself.” One might read this and wonder exactly what Kant try’s to portray in these words. One will never Frist r truly get what he was trying to convey in his thesis. It is important to note first that the term ends is in reference to ends and means. This is important because we must understand the context of what Kant t meant by “end in itself.” Ends refer to people or much better a rational person that is capable of judiciously thinking in the progress of their wellbeing. This said the term “means” is in reference to things, “things” such as objects.
He said morality was innate; a part of us (a priori), and it was our moral duty to carry it out for good, which must lead to God. Accordingly Kant says good actions should be universalisable and free, so basically when making our ethical decisions we should ask ourselves a simple question "What if everybody did that?" if the answer is no, then the categorical imperative tells us that the action is wrong. So if I cheated on my AS-level exam to pass and be successful in the future, this would be my maxim, however I would not want others to do the same and therefore this action would be wrong according to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. My cheating pre-supposes that most people do not cheat even though they have the same reasons to cheat as I have.
Natural Moral Law is a theory that is explained by Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. It states that there is a natural order to our world that should be followed. It was originated in the philosophy of Aristotle and then developed by Aquinas. Natural Law is an absolute theory of ethics but it is not rooted in duty but in our human nature and our search for genuine happiness and fulfilment. Aquinas considered that by using our reason to reflect on our human nature we could discover our specific end purpose.
The Naturalistic Fallacy is one of the main criticisms of Ethical Naturalism and would therefore suggest that ethical language is meaningless as it cannot be correctly defined, given that one cannot derive any moral statements from natural facts. Moore believed there are moral properties, so ethical language is not completely devoid of meaning but it is limited as ‘good’ is a non-natural property which cannot be
Categorical imperatives leave no room for ifs, they are absolutes, however morality is a concept that is relative to human beings, is it a concept of our mind? Can we ever know the answer to my previous question? Kant believes that there is just one maxim that each action embodies, so we can test the morality of the act by looking if we can universalise the maxim, however there are so many variables of those maxims that may lead to a given action, some of these may be able to universalise, some won't be, and that in itself is a flaw of Kant's categorical imperative. Kant stated himself: "One should only act on a principle that one can will to be universal law". This is how that quote works: If we decide to lie, we imagine what would happen if everybody lied, lying itself would become normal, and the concept of truth (and lying itself) would disappear.