Notes on Kantian Ethics in accordance with the OCR Religious Studies specification. The notes provide information, scholars, ideas and quotes compiled from various resources from both within and outside of the curriculum.
Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) developed an ethical theory that is deontological and
based on the notion that humans have innate rationality. This rationality is what
allows humans to discover what the moral thing to do is, making Kant an act-
deontologist.
Duty
- we must use reason to discover our duty as this provides the basis for all
moral decisions
- actions should not be made out of emotions but duty for duty’s sake
- even if good will achieves no good outcome ‘it would shine like a jewel for
itself, as something having its full worth in itself.’ Kant
- issue of clashing duties: soldier who has a duty to fight for his country, but
also has a duty to stay at home and take care of his sick mother
- Kant argues there is no such thing as a clash of duty, it just means we haven’t
used our reason properly. There are perfect duties, where there is only way to
fulfil them, and imperfect duties where there are many routes to fulfil them
- WD Ross amended Kant’s idea of duty with the 6 prima facie duties that are
conditional and can be overridden if another duty conflicts with it
The Hypothetical Imperative
- concerned with the outcome of an action
- teleological thinking, intention doesn’t matter
The Categorical Imperative and its Three Formulations
1. Universal Maxims: every action should be able to be universalised
2. Treat People as Ends: every person has intrinsic value because of our
rationality, this means we have unconditional worth
3. Kingdom of Ends: morality must be considered within a community
dimension, so actions benefit everybody.
Issues
1. Essentially a teleological approach as Kant is considering the outcome of an
action to text its moral worth. ‘All he shows is that the consequences of
their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to
incur.’ Mill
2. Anscombe argues it is impossible to decipher which maxim represents the
action which makes it impossible to be tested. ‘universalizable maxims is
useless without stipulations as to what shall count as a relevant
description of an action.’
The Three Postulates
- these are three assumptions Kant makes to provide basis that ethics should
be based on reason
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