Complications Of Kantian Ethics Vs. Utilitarianism

The spring to the river of morality has been sought after in western philosophy since Moses delivered the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Sinai, while many thinkers are content with deriving decency from the divine others searched for a secular set of ethical standards. Vast amounts of time and effort have gone into attempting to solve this dilemma, with many theories and many variations of theories permeating the libraries of humanity, two schools of thought stand out amongst the rest in contemporary discussions of morality, Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant was a Prussian philosopher during the enlightenment who attempted to decouple morality from religion, believing that rational thought could be a source of ethics in and of …show more content…
Through an in-depth exploration of both ethical theories, and considering the implications of exercising these ideas in various circumstances it can be demonstrated that Kantian ethics are the most compelling as they adequately handle ethical dilemmas while protecting the rights of all parties. Kantian ethics are deontological in nature, meaning that the morality of an action is based on its adherence to a rule or set of rules prescribed by an authority. The bond that deontological ethics has on its practitioner is often referred to as an obligation, or a duty. There are other deontological ethical theories such as 'divine command theory ' which postulates that God is the authority that prescribes the sets of rules for morality. As mentioned in the introductory, Kant seeks to break away from a dependence on the super natural for decency, to achieve this one must provide a suitable replacement for God. Kantian 's propose that reason and rational thought can be harnessed as a source of secular ethical principles. This assertion is based on assumptions. Firstly rational agents are agents that respond to reason, Kant defines reason