Examples Of Morality In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

“We are the good guys, we are carrying the fire.” Said the man to his son in one of my favorite books; The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. This post apocalyptic novel tells a tale of a father and his child wandering a road trying to survive in a desolate world. I value this piece of literature above most fictitious books because McCarthy shows that morality is not socially constructed, but rather is within each person and it’s humanity 's duty to make sure the flame never goes out. McCarthy’s portrayal of morality and humanity is analogous to the infamous philosopher: Immanuel Kant. Kant revolutionized philosophy in the late 18th century writing 3 critiques of reason, ethics, and autonomy. In conjunction with his critiques, Kant developed a deontological argument which states; “we are subject to moral judgement because we are able to deliberate and give reasons for our actions.” The key word in quotation is reason which Kant devotes an entire critique to explicating. After his critique was published, there was a “copernican revolution” in regards to the philosophy of understanding reason. Kant synthesized empirical and rational reasoning into one theory stating that knowledge is constrained to the empirical world, but using our …show more content…
Pursuing the highest form of good fulfills meaning for living.
Therefore: God (the ultimate good) must exist for morality to have meaning. I believe one can make a defense that morality is constructed from each individual 's desire to pursue what is universally good. An example of this is an individual who wins the lottery and can buy alcohol and drugs to satisfy his desires, but decides to donate his winnings to charity after coming to a logical conclusion that that action was good. On the contrary Kant would say if that man donated to charity because he knew he would receive public recognition or acknowledgement from a cute girl, he would not be ‘on the road’ as McCarthy puts