|
|
|
|
|
kant
|
|
|
In my essay I will defend the idea that; I agree with the statement, “Kant’s view of morality is of no use to someone concerned with ethical problems in everyday life because if you are clever enough, you can find a universaliable maxim to back up any action you might want to take.” My first argument is, if the person is clever enough, he can find the errors of Kant’s moral test and use it in his favor. My second argument is, morality has nothing to do with tests, one way might be that it can be decided by the help of Kant`s principle of Categorical Imperatives which is; treat people as how you want to be treated in return First of all I want to give a short summary of Kant’s moral view and his test by universalizing the circumstance to decide whether the act is moral or not. Since specific interests, circumstances and consequences can’t be considered; the moral ‘law’ must be a general formula that is applicable in all situations. Rather than commanding specific actions, it must express the principle that actions should be taken with motives, without consideration of consequences, and of respect to the law. The test that meets these criteria is the following: we should act in such a way that we could want the maxim (the reason of an action we take) of our action to become a universal law. As Kant claimed, “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.” (p.30) It is almost impossible to find examples of totally moral actions. Nearly, every action we observe can be taken for some interest or motivation other than morality. But on the other hand, moral principles come from reason not from experience. According to Kant, then the main principle of morality must be a moral law and it must be guiding us to the right action in application to every possible set of circumstances. So the only relevant feature of the moral law is its generality, the fact that it has the formal property of universalizability, by virtue of which it can be applied at all times to every moral agent. Universalizability is the applicability of a moral rule to all similarly situated individuals. According to Kant, universalizability is a distinguishing feature of moral judgements. In Kant’s test for realizing whether the act is moral or not, we make our maxim for an action generalized, as I mentioned before. That means we think as a universal law which everyone in the same situation do the same thing. I will give some examples which Kant’s test gives us the right result about morality. For instance to decide whether to lie when you are in trouble is a moral act or not, we can use Kant’s test.
|
|
|
|
Still Can't Find What Your Looking For? Then Try a Essay Search!
|
