Immanuel Kant's Explanation Of Kantian Ethics

Immanuel Kant was a German Philosopher who came up with his own version of ethics, referred to as Kantian Ethics. Kant believed that the immoral part of someone’s actions lied within that person’s intentions. This is different from Utilitarianism where Jeremy Bentham believed that the morality of someone’s actions lied in their effects.
Kant saw the limits of the two questions “What if everyone did that?” and “How would you like it I did that to you?” as a test for moral rightness. Kant said these two questions posed serious problems. Kant believed that the first question, “What if everyone did that?” is really a question of if everyone did something then the world would be immoral. For example, if everyone did not pay their taxes then …show more content…
In this example the test works, however, in some examples the test fails. Suppose that everyone decided to become celibate. Humans would die out, this does not prove that celibacy is immoral so it does not pass the test.
The second question, “How would you like it if I did that to you?” has the problem of the answer being based on that person's desires. Another problem comes in with the fanatic. A fanatic is someone who believes so much in their cause that they are willing to die for his or her cause or kill others for their cause. The most common example of a fanatic is the Nazis that found out that they are Jewish so they go into the gas chamber to kill themselves because they believe that all Jewish people must die. Kant came up with his own test that was similar to these questions, but added a part to make it a more successful test in his opinion. Kant’s test is the Principle of Universalizability.
The Principle of Universalizability is what Kant thought told people if an act is