A priori

violation of the Categorical Imperative 1. I will explore Kant’s argument through his deontological moral theories found within Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals beginning with the moral norm - the “Categorical Imperative”, the “synthetic a priori position” 2, and its Formulations of Universal Law, End in Itself, Autonomy, and The Kingdom of Ends. I will then go on to assess Mill, Hegel and Schopenhauer’s critical approach to Kant, followed by my opinion as to whether his argument is…

moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else” (Mackie, “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong” L.494), this is Mackie’s argument from queerness. Simply put, the argument is such that, a “synthetic a priori” claim, would by definition be understood through reason alone. This would be a truthful term in the same way a mathematical term is truthful. The rules of reason would dictate that 2+2=4, but the rules of reason can draw no parallel between…

Pencil Me In For The Zombie Apocalypse Legends of the risen dead have come from most of the world’s cultures in order to encourage fear or hope-based obedience. However, countries like England, Germany, and America have begun to use such concepts to entertain the masses through books and movies that depict the life one would experience during and after a zombie apocalypse. The zombies typically seen in movies come in three categories; zombies raised specifically to serve a master, zombies…

Epistemology is the study of knowledge in regards to its limits and validity, knowledge in the sense of the facts, information and skills that humans can acquire. The basis of this human knowledge has been repeatedly studied throughout the history of philosophy. When analyzing Descartes’ Meditations of First Philosophy and Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, it is evident that they have both similarities and differences when it comes to their assessments on the foundation of human…

Deavers’ primary thesis is that “outsourcing is the result of a complex change in the cost boundaries facing firms as they choose between inside and outside production. The question of what happens to wages is one to which there is not a simple a priori answer.” Instead, Deavers introduces four fundamental changes that have recently occurred in the labor market that drive companies to outsource. He suggests that rapid technological…

In Existentialism and Human Emotions, Sartre addresses specific charges against existential thought, defends existentialism, and situates his own ethics of existential thought among other thinkers. Sartre begins addressing the charge that existential thought is in the same ethical realm as nihilism, meaning that if there is no transcendent meaning or objective standard then there is no inherent meaning in the world and, in result, that nothing matters. Sartre explains this nihilistic view of…

Kant and Hobbes had totally different understanding of the issue of morality. This disparity was informed by their varying thought systems. Kant took a more rationalistic view of morality, while Hobbes was more empirical in this regard. However, both proceeded from a subjective point. That is to say that they took a person centered approach to issues of morality. The aim of this study is to compare Hobbes and Kant with regard to their understanding of the foundations of morality. It also seeks…

The famous discussion of nature vs. nurture was somewhat interrupted by the realization that both aspects, genetics and environment, have important input in individuals. By combining the studies of genetics and psychology it is possible to correlate results from the fields and search for possible, and hopefully specific, genes involved in the expression of certain traits. For instance, Poulin et al (2011) explored the relationship between receptor genes of oxytocin and vasopressin and prediction…

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes questions the trustworthiness of his beliefs, doubting what he believes as true. He reflects on the falsehoods he believed during his lifetime and motions to remove those foundations in order to build a new foreground of knowledge. Descartes found a way to build a new foundation for necessary truths (innate ideas that cannot be false) by reconstructing the ideas he previously known. Instead of initially throwing out everything he previously knew,…

Virtue, or that which is often considered “ethical” in quality or nature of character, has continually evolved since its early conception. Yet it continues to be a recurring issue in modern philosophical discourse due to it’s correlation with the idea of “morality”. Society holds us accountable to live by honorable and “moral” standards, for if you were to renounce a life of morality you would be deemed an outcast or shunned from society. However, one cannot live a “moral” lifestyle without…