Kant's Universal Law Essay

Decent Essays
Using the gifts to one family member and not the other family member is a good way to help define Kant’s universal law. Giving a person a gift just because you gave another person a gift is clearly a universal law or it should be especially when it comes to family members. When I was growing up I fell victim to people believing that providing gifts to one family and not the other family member is and should not be a universal law. My oldest brother’s birthday is 10 days before mine and when we had birthday parties for him everyone would bring him a gift then my birthday would come around and guess what no gift and no

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    In this paper, I will discuss Kant’s moral reasoning, both broadly and in terms of a case study, and elaborate on some issues with Kantian ethics. The core of Kant’s ideas on morality is his statement that "nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will". He defines this good will as “the will which acts from freedom and respect for the moral law”, meaning that one must choose by their own volition to pursue morality. Kant believes the only purely good thing is this idea of good will. In saying this, Kant draws a line between good will and traits like happiness, wealth, and even health that are usually thought to be good.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To determine whether or not a rule is moral, categorical imperatives must be tested with three main components: universal law, respect for others, and autonomy. Universal law states that any maxim that one applies to oneself must be capable of being applied universally. Kant is quoted, “I ought never to act in such a way that I couldn’t also will that the maxim on which I act should be a universal law,” (2008). An example of this is borrowing money from a friend. If someone asked a friend to loan them some money but knew they could not ever repay their friend, is it ethical to make a personal exemption?…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Angelica Mariano- Paper 2 Kant “Let justice be done, though the world perish.” In the late eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant emerged as one of the leading philosophers of his time and focused on deontological ethics, which focused on the morality of actions. Kant developed his work entitled, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, in which he gives a clear understanding of moral principles. In this work, he developed the categorical imperative, which is suppose to provide a way for us to make moral judgements.…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kant believes that moral rules are not analytic but synthetic. They are not true just by the meaning of the words. We need to put something together (mental operation) just an operating of reason. For instance, for Kant killing people is wrong just by the definitions of the word but by reasoning. For example, if my car is red, I need to see it to know it.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Immanuel Kant’s impact on Western thought is undoubtedly profound. Being one of the most distinguished figures of the German Idealist movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Kant’s work has set a precedent that, to this day, deeply influences our understanding of ethical discussion, political philosophy, and human cognition. Kant’s multiple contributions still are subject of debate; although, it is his Categorical Imperative that gathers the most attention, discourse, and controversy. Being a reaction to the subjectivity of his era, the Categorical Imperative provides an objective and infallible guideline for universal moral behavior, that stipulates one’s actions should not be dependent on ulterior motives and in consideration that the act itself will become universally accepted, ergo, if one were to steal then one should also be accepting of…

    • 1360 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Divided Loyalties A 4 year old girl suffers from severe renal failure. She fails to thrive on dialysis, she needs a kidney transplantation soon or she will not survive. If the kidney can be transplant of a close relative that matches in tissue type the success rate of transplantation is 90%. If the tissue match is less close, even from a close relative the success rate is way less, like the same odds as for a poorly matched cadaver kidney.…

    • 2231 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kant’s belief on the right of punishment is grand and far reaching. To him, the right of punishment is a supreme power of the government. The government has only the right to punish those who have committed a crime; no punishment may be ordered “merely as a means for promoting another Good” of society or an individual (355). Punishing an innocent man breaches the principles of justice; only criminals (of both private and public crimes) are to be punished. Kant warns us that the Penal Law is a categorical imperative—it is unconditional and non-circumstantial.…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Universal Moral Rightness Amongst philosophers there is much debate over what makes an act right or wrong and whether or not that act has to be inherently wrong or is circumstantial. For an act to be right, must it be possible to will that everyone acts the same way in similar circumstances? According to Immanuel Kant, an 18th century Prussian philosopher, as well as many other deontological philosophers: yes. However, this moral interpretation can manifest conflicts and discrepancies of duty. Kant presented a universal and impartial moral code called the categorical imperative.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The categorical imperative gives a strong standard to the plan of rules pertinent to any business circumstances. In above scenario, individual special case was considered and manager adopted the quality rules to resolve situation along with the respect of people in the center. Kant underlines the total quality and respect of people. Numerous philosophers trusted that respect for the intrinsic worth and nobility of individuals is genuinely necessary today in business, in which innovation and computeristaion have a tendency to dehumanize individuals under the appearance of productivity. Kant stresses the significance of following up on the bases of right expectations.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Christmas Gifts In America

    • 1728 Words
    • 7 Pages

    To begin one must understand there many reasons people celebrate Christmas. Although the religious aspect of Christmas is a major reason it is celebrated, I will focus on the gift exchange aspect instead. One study of Christmas in America was performed and written by Theodore Caplow titled “Christmas Gifts and Kin Networks.” In the study Caplow found that most gifts shared on Christmas in an America town are either clothes (35%) or toys (10%) with many smaller percentages on other gifts. During his research Caplow stated, “Middletown people are expected to give a Christmas gift every year to their grandparents, parents, spouses, children, grandchildren, and to all siblings and siblings’ spouses with whom they have an…

    • 1728 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Philosophy’s goal is to find a theory that acts as a guideline on how we, as humans, should act. Before Kant’s theories, philosophers struggled to find a moral rule or principle on how we should act towards other humans. Nevertheless, Kant came up with the Principle of Humanity to act as a main principle on how we should treat humans. The Principle of Humanity states that humans should treat other beings as an end and never as a mere means. To understand this theory, we must understand what Kant means by treating someone as an end, and also what it means to treat another as a mere means.…

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kant's Moral Theory Essay

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Kant’s moral theory is based on the fact that one’s action should be governed by a maxim that follows the purity of the will; the idea that one’s actions should be based on a will that aligns with duty and not on the consequences of one’s actions. In the contrary, rule utilitarianism is based on the consequences of one’s actions and how it impacts the overall happiness of the individuals involved. The following paper focuses on the ideas of duty ethics and utilitarian ethics; and how these ideas can be implemented in the case of James Liang. Kant believes that an act is morally acceptable when such an act perfectly aligns with one’s duty. Furthermore, he believed that all rational beings are obligated by the demands of duty.…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “We could not prove freedom to be something actual in ourselves and in human nature. We saw merely that we must presuppose it if we want to think of a being as rational and as endowed with consciousness of its causality as regards actions” (Page 311). Immanuel Kant believed that freedom is a presupposition of morality. Kant was not concerned with the purity of your will for doing something, but rather with the derivation of moral principles from reason alone for example independently of experience. He focused on emphasized the importance of reason and the ration that comes with our moral principles.…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For many years, civilisation has relied on religion when deciding on what is right and wrong by endorsing morals and values that set societal standards and has since, been guiding our actions. Western civilisation has advanced from traditional methods of the past. As a result, our lives have different, contemporary aspects that must be dealt with accordingly. As our surroundings change we have to adapt and change to survive, thus we adopt new ideologies and practices that help us interpret our daily realities. These contemporary systems root their ethics in natural law which focuses on human behaviour, the government and international affairs.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the case of morals, philosophers are usually separated into one of two categories, those who consider actions ethical or not ethical based on their motives, and those who consider an action ethical or not ethical based on the consequences of these actions. Immanuel Kant is a deontologist as opposed to consequentialists, making him an advocate for the former category. Kant is of the opinion that we are held responsible for our actions because we possess the ability to consider and explain the things we do, so any moral judgment should be based on our reasons for doing things. We should of course always contemplate the consequences of our actions, but they are not entirely at the mercy of our reason. Reason is only accountable for the…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays