Taylor Whitlock
Philosophy 213
11-16-15
Paper 3 Both Mill and Kant agree that deception is generally wrong. According to Mill, there are no universally valid moral principles. He would say that different people are subject to different moral principles, depending on the principles accepted by their society. If a society accepts a principle, then it makes actions based on the principle okay. For example, Mill would say that killing in the mafia is okay. Kant, unlike Mill, believed that certain types of actions were absolutely prohibited, even in cases where the action would bring about more happiness than the alternative. According to Kant, there are two questions that we must ask ourselves before we decide to complete an action. This first is if you can rationally will that everyone act as you want to act? If the …show more content…
We need to carefully consider which situations permit lying by weighing up the conflicting utilities involved. Rule utilitarianism may argue that the rule ‘don’t lie’ will, if everyone followed it, create more happiness than a rule that permitted lying. However, Mill states that never lying will lead to harm in certain situations. It is very difficult to put such a rule into words, since the situations in which telling the truth will lead to more harm than good are both varied and rare. Kant claims that lying is always wrong, no matter what. He is probably the most well‐known defender of an absolute prohibition against lying in the history of Western philosophy. If you lie, you are following the maxim to tell a lie when you want to. If everyone told lies whenever they wanted to, people would stop believing each other. All trust would be lost. Since you can deceive someone with a lie only if they believe you, the maxim cannot be universalized, therefor lying is always
Philosophy 213
11-16-15
Paper 3 Both Mill and Kant agree that deception is generally wrong. According to Mill, there are no universally valid moral principles. He would say that different people are subject to different moral principles, depending on the principles accepted by their society. If a society accepts a principle, then it makes actions based on the principle okay. For example, Mill would say that killing in the mafia is okay. Kant, unlike Mill, believed that certain types of actions were absolutely prohibited, even in cases where the action would bring about more happiness than the alternative. According to Kant, there are two questions that we must ask ourselves before we decide to complete an action. This first is if you can rationally will that everyone act as you want to act? If the …show more content…
We need to carefully consider which situations permit lying by weighing up the conflicting utilities involved. Rule utilitarianism may argue that the rule ‘don’t lie’ will, if everyone followed it, create more happiness than a rule that permitted lying. However, Mill states that never lying will lead to harm in certain situations. It is very difficult to put such a rule into words, since the situations in which telling the truth will lead to more harm than good are both varied and rare. Kant claims that lying is always wrong, no matter what. He is probably the most well‐known defender of an absolute prohibition against lying in the history of Western philosophy. If you lie, you are following the maxim to tell a lie when you want to. If everyone told lies whenever they wanted to, people would stop believing each other. All trust would be lost. Since you can deceive someone with a lie only if they believe you, the maxim cannot be universalized, therefor lying is always