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Professor Speaks
Philosophy 10100
December 9, 2017
What Defines a Right Action?
Many different philosophers have debated what constitutes a “right action.” Some have argued that it is the action that brings about the best consequences or that which God has decreed to be the right action. I define the right action as Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, did. He said that you should “act only on the maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Kant). More simply, one should act in a way that they would want everyone to act that way.
The strongest argument for Kant’s principle is that actions we naturally deem to be acceptable follow through this maxim, while many that we instinctually see …show more content…
Start with this question: Is an action moral because God commands it or does God command an action because it is morally right? They cannot both be true. A divine command theorist would argue that actions are moral because God commands them. How does God decide what is moral and what is not? God must have a reason for choosing what He does. What would those rules be, other than that they are the moral law? If God issues these commands because they are moral law, then God tells us to act a certain way because it is morally right. However, this means that God can’t change these rules, even if he willed them to be different. This would make DCT false because moral law wouldn’t necessarily be God’s …show more content…
Kant’s principle is kind of like the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would wish they do unto you. It would be hard to make a rule for every possible situation that could occur, so we must look towards a categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative is a good one and it’s one that fairly consistently will guide someone through life. Of course, if we were to make the consequences large enough – like saving a nuclear bomb destroying a city of 10 million people by killing one person in that city – we could find a situation where Kant’s philosophy would seem completely wrong. These types of situations don’t come up often, however, so one shouldn’t be too concerned about them. In terms of rules to live one’s life by, however, I think that Kant’s principle shows a valuable way to think about our daily actions to make sure we are living a moral
Professor Speaks
Philosophy 10100
December 9, 2017
What Defines a Right Action?
Many different philosophers have debated what constitutes a “right action.” Some have argued that it is the action that brings about the best consequences or that which God has decreed to be the right action. I define the right action as Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, did. He said that you should “act only on the maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Kant). More simply, one should act in a way that they would want everyone to act that way.
The strongest argument for Kant’s principle is that actions we naturally deem to be acceptable follow through this maxim, while many that we instinctually see …show more content…
Start with this question: Is an action moral because God commands it or does God command an action because it is morally right? They cannot both be true. A divine command theorist would argue that actions are moral because God commands them. How does God decide what is moral and what is not? God must have a reason for choosing what He does. What would those rules be, other than that they are the moral law? If God issues these commands because they are moral law, then God tells us to act a certain way because it is morally right. However, this means that God can’t change these rules, even if he willed them to be different. This would make DCT false because moral law wouldn’t necessarily be God’s …show more content…
Kant’s principle is kind of like the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would wish they do unto you. It would be hard to make a rule for every possible situation that could occur, so we must look towards a categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative is a good one and it’s one that fairly consistently will guide someone through life. Of course, if we were to make the consequences large enough – like saving a nuclear bomb destroying a city of 10 million people by killing one person in that city – we could find a situation where Kant’s philosophy would seem completely wrong. These types of situations don’t come up often, however, so one shouldn’t be too concerned about them. In terms of rules to live one’s life by, however, I think that Kant’s principle shows a valuable way to think about our daily actions to make sure we are living a moral