Kant's Deontological Ethics Analysis

Kant’s theories are based around Deontological ethics which revolves around our duties. His categorical imperatives are composed of three different formulations, but I am only going to be focusing on the first two for this paper. These theories, in my opinion, are too demanding of us and irrational. You cannot categorize everything as he did because it’s an unreliable method. Kant sees everything in black and white and the world is too complex to be divided into that, there is a lot of grey area to be accounted for as well. We are complex beings with the ability to rationalize and to analyze us with these formulations seems kind of outlandish. I think there needs to be more room for error. The outcome of these principles will not always be …show more content…
Kant states, “Act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.” Every philosopher has a different idea of what an end in itself is, Kant thinks that having a rational nature is an end in itself. He thinks it’s immoral to treat others as a mere means. People are not disposable like garbage is once we are done with them. They have value too just like ourselves and they deserve to be treated with respect or as Kant says, they have absolute value. However, treating someone as a mean or an end is unavoidable since we do this often everyday whether we do it on purpose or not. Does that make me an irrational person? No, I think we are still moral and rational beings even if we use somebody as a mere means and do not inflict any harm on them. In most cases, it benefits them as …show more content…
I do not believe every end that is possible in the situations are a good judge of character. The alternatives someone might be faced with could both be fucked up morally in anybody’s view, but Kant says one of those is right as long as you are treating it as an end and not as a mean. In that case then, you aren’t doing anything wrong. Say there are two people, X and Y. Y desires to do something morally wrong but X steps in and stops Y. In that case, X is just using Y as a mere means since Y does not agree to X stopping it. Based on Kant’s theories, X is in the wrong which is foolish. X was only trying to help Y out, yet they’re not moral for doing so. Therefore, Kant’s second formulation is inconsistent since it’s not an accurate judge on someone’s