Comparing Kant's Grounding And John Stuart Mill

In Immanuel Kant’s book, Grounding, and John Stuart Mill’s book, Utilitarianism, both philosophers have expressed their opinion regarding moral philosophy, and, more specifically, the importance and problems associated with moral philosophy. Kant believes that everyone has the innate ability to reason morally, but are driven away from moral reasoning by our desire for happiness. In contrast, Mill believes that people do not have the innate ability to reason morally, and therefore arises an issue if people will ever obtain the ability to reason morally. In the following paper, I will expand on both Kant’s and Mill’s supposed problems with moral philosophy, then offer my opinion as to why Mill’s problem is more significant and offers the best …show more content…
Unlike Kant, Mill believes that the problem starts at the roots of an individual’s ability to reason morally. Meanwhile, Kant’s problem is built off of the assumption that the person has acquired the ability to reason morally, which is not always the case. The problem only applies to the people that have successfully acquired the knowledge to reason morally. In contrast, Mill’s problem applies to a broader spectrum of people, and therefore is more significant. Regarding the problem that Mill is proposing, the people have no ability to distinguish if their actions are good or bad. This means that when they do something morally wrong, they will have no internal guilt about their action. Meanwhile, in Kant’s situation, the person would feel the guilt from choosing the immoral action, which may deter them from choosing the immoral when faced with a choice in the future. In Mill’s case, there is no guilt associated with choosing the immoral thing, and therefore the immoral thing will be chosen more often since people tend to act in self-interest when nothing is deterring them from it. With this being said, it is easy to see that the effects of Mill’s problem would be more