Kant also noted that people are aware of a moral law at work within them. He did not regard this consciousness as a vague feeling of something being right or wrong. Rather, this consciousness was a direct experience of something powerful; the Good Will. This is the purest thing we posses, it is our desire to want to do ‘good’. If we reason what ‘good’ is, act upon our reasoning and accept full responsibility for our actions we are moral. Kant believed that this is superior to happiness and the pleasures that Utilitarianism concerns itself with in this world and that we will instead be rewarded in another.
He said that moral statements are a priori synthetic; knowable before sense experience, but requires sense experience for verification. In his book Critique of Practical Reason, he wrote 'Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me'. From this quotation, it is clear that Kant believed morality was innate but that reason should determine moral law.
Kant called these rules of what was morally good or bad the Categorical Imperative and stated that everyone has a duty to carry these categorical imperatives out. The statement ‘duty should be done simply because it is duty’ means that Duty should be done for the sake of duty and not because of any consequences that might occur out of this duty. Kant stated that a person who commits moral act or follows a moral law because they use reason to come to conclusion that that the act or law is more moral than someone committing an act or following a law because they gain pleasure or to please God. He believed that if something was your moral duty and you must do it regardless of whether you want to or what the consequences are.
- 'Categorical Imperatives allow no room for compassion in the treatment of women wanting abortions'. Discuss
The categorical imperative is the idea that one should 'Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law'- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason. Only actions which can be universalt applied (expected to be done by everyone) and have a good effect are moral and it is our duty to carry out theses moral duties regardless of circumstances or outcome.
'Categorical Imperatives allow no room for compassion in the treatment of women wanting abortions' is absolutely correct, for many reasons. Firstly, one of the three principles of the categorical imperative is that each person has an intrinsic value; a value beyond price. This is because humans are rational beings, and can make decisions, based on their ability to reason this separates them from al life forms on this earth. As Kant believed that, as human life is so precious and unique, under no circumstances can the termination or such life ever be condoned and the preservation of human life is a priority, which exceeds everything in importance.
Kant wrote in his book Metaphysics of Morals, 'Act that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other human being, never merely as a means, but always as an end.' This means that a human being is the most significant factor in any moral equation. A human being can never be allowed to be the means by which a goal or purpose is achieved. In the case of an abortion, one human (the mother) is using another human (the unborn child) as a means by which she can terminate her pregnancy and regain her life. This is using one human as a means to a desired end, and is strictly counter to the rules of the categorical imperative. The importance of a human life is so great that no suffering, no matter what the circumstances may be to crate such suffering (for example the pregnancy being the result of a rape) can ever justify the killing of another life as it is unknown what benefits this life could possibly bring to an unknown number of people. The implications of this principle are that any activity that denies the individual dignity of a human being in order to achieve its end is undeniably wrong.
The idea of abortion and the termination of human life are contradictory to the absolute fundamental points of the categorical imperative- that human life is priceless, and that humans should never be treated as a means to an end, as they are an end in themselves. The action of an abortion is denying a human life of all dignity, value, and is certainly treating humanity as a means to the end of a childless life. Kant, and the categorical imperative therefore show absolutely no room for compassion in the treatment of women wanting abortions, as, even though, for example, the mother may not be a suitable parent, or the child's quality of life may be poor, under no circumstances, according to the principles of the categorical imperative, can compassion be allowed for women wishing to murder another human, denying them their worth, and using them as a means to an end.
