Immanuel Kant

Kantian and utilitarianism are both ethical systems which originate from the normative side of ethics that focuses on how people should act. These theories facilitate in the process of reaching a conclusion on appropriate actions that would be considered as morally right or best. They guide knowledge to a conclusions when situations are complicated and require an attention to details that involve difficult decisions. As Kantian and utilitarianism sit at polar ends of the normative ethics…

Immanuel Kant is a well know German philosopher who is considered to be the central figure to modern philosophy. In 1785, one of his famous works, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, was first published. This text is split up into three section, and within the second section is Kant’s well known moral theory. This theory states that everything in nature works according to laws and in order for a law to be a moral law, it must be a universal law. These laws apply to all rational beings,…

Paul D. Cottingham Fr. Kurt Messick Epistemology September 13, 2014 Kant’s and Hume’s epistemology Immanuel Kant and David Hume were notable philosophers within the modern era, each with their own respective ideology and philosophy; Kant was influenced by rationalism, crafted a theory after the Copernican Revolution explaining the role of human reason in obtaining knowledge, whereas Hume, who was influenced by skepticism, put an end to pure reason and an end to the Enlightenment Era. In the…

In chapter three of Human Kindness and The Smell of Warm Croissants, philosopher Ruwen Ogien describes a thought experiment involving a surgeon, a healthy young man and five patients who need to undergo a transplant. In this scenario, the surgeon is presented with two courses of action, either kill a healthy young man to save the lives of the five patients or to let the five patients die. The purpose of this essay is to expound how two different moral theories would decide which course of action…

they live in. Some choose to stay strong with their head held high while others show weakness and defeat by giving in. Having good morals can drastically affect the life that you choose to live. Making the right decisions is completely up to you. Immanuel Kant once said “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” This means that having good morals does not result in happiness but being worthy of…

supported by Churchman (1971) who reported on the various philosophical perspectives of a Delphi study (Tapio et al., 2011, p.1626). They have categorised these perspectives according to the following philosophies of John Locke, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, George Hegel and Edgar Singer (Hammer and Boggs, 2011, p.254-256). In addition, Mitroff and Turoff (1975) have also emphasised…

Kant’s Categorical Imperative: this is the modern deontological ethics introduced by Immanuel Kant in late 18th century. Immanuel defined categorical imperative as any proposition that declares some action to be necessary, but hypothetical imperative would compel action in some circumstances. A categorical imperative would announce a complete, unconditional…

In Antigone, by Jean Anouilh, the character Antigone best represents the ethical idea of the ethic of duty. The ethic of duty, according to Immanuel Kant, is that “we recognize our duty to behave morally toward all humanity and act accordingly,” (Ethical Ideas 292). This means that no matter what, people find a way to treat others right. Throughout the play, she continues to want to go bury her brother since she knows that is what is right. No matter how many times her Uncle Creon tried to talk…

In this paper, I will argue that people who should be considered to be altruistic are those who act magnanimously to those outside of their family or general social group. I will use examples such as kin selection, animal altruism, and arguments against psychological egoism to assist in proving my thesis to be true. I will also address a counter argument made by some psychological egoists who believe that due to most people feeling pleasure while doing good things for others, that there are no…

Philosophy: in ancient times it was the driving force of people’s beliefs on how they should go about their everyday lives. Today, it is the backbone of many Theist’s and even Atheist’s beliefs, or lack thereof. For example, Christianity’s Ten Commandments “thou shalt not steal, [and] thou shalt not kill” (Bible, Exodus 20:1-17) has many things in common with Deontology, which is the stance that something is either right or wrong and the right thing should be done no matter the circumstance. On…