In both Immanuel Kants Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism, the authors give several strong, well structured arguments on the composition of ethics.

Authors Avatar by volatility (student)

On Kant and Mill’s Ethics

In both Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, the authors give several strong, well structured arguments on the composition of ethics. Largely, their works help to draw focus to two different explanations of what makes an action morally just as opposed to morally unjust through essentially opposite viewpoints. Despite a key difference between their philosophies, Kant and Mill contribute to an overall picture of the historical ethical argument.

 Chronologically, the first major philosopher, Immanuel Kant, presents an argument that is based upon solely “a priori” knowledge, or rather knowledge that does not come from experience. Kant explains that because we are all rational beings, we are able to separate ourselves from our current human condition and use our own ability to reason to see a broad picture of what is morally acceptable to others. Similarly, Kant finds that the only thing which is good without limitation is a good will; that is, it is the intention of an action that determines the moral validity of any claim, not the effects both foreseen and actual. Kant connects this idea of morality to the claim that humans should act out of duty instead of just what is according to duty. The difference between these two ideas, Kant argues, is that “according to duty” is acting in the right way only because of the negative consequences associated with not performing a morally correct action whereas “from duty” refers to the concept of doing something solely because it is the right choice to make in a given situation. Rephrased, Kant calls these two choices the categorical imperative (from duty), which is completely unconditional in its call for action, and the hypothetical imperative (according to duty), which has one or more conditions that have to be satisfied for an action to be initiated. Further elaborating on this subject, Kant postulates two different forms of the categorical imperative; the first says that one should only act in accordance with a maxim that he or she wills to be a universal law (often known as the concept of universalization), while the second states that others should be treated only as an end, not merely as a means to an end. Overall, both of these versions of the categorical imperative state a similar message in that they basically add up to be a modified version of the Golden Rule. That is, “one should act onto others as anyone would do as anyone would do onto oneself” (Lecture 1/23 to 1/30).

Join now!

In practice, many of Kant’s ideas can be easily applied to real world situations; however, in contrast, a variety of situations arise where his theories can be jeopardized. For instance, the concept of a good intention can be explained without much difficulty. Suppose that you are walking in the city, and you see a child in front of a speeding bus. Your intention is to push the child out of the way of the bus, but even though you tried to save his or her life, you were not fast enough. Despite this, it was your intention that was pure, ...

This is a preview of the whole essay