Kant

Essay One:

Immanuel Kant was a deontologists from Germany in the eithteenth century. He believed that the only test of whether a decision is right or wrong is whether it could be applied to everyone. Would it be all right for everyone to do what you are doing? If not, your decision is wrong. It would be wrong, for example, to make a promise with the intention of breaking it because if everyone did that, no one would believe anyone's promises. In ethics, Kant tried to show that doing one's duty consisted in following only those principles that one would accept as applying equally to all.

Kant objects most of all to the principle that one's own happiness can be the ground of morality. He rejects this possibility because well-being is not always proportionate to virtuous behavior. By this I mean that one manÐ"*s well being is not always universal to all. Most significantly, Kant renounces happiness as the principle of morality because it obliterates the specific difference between virtue and vices.

Universality is the form of a moral law whereby all rational beings are subject to the same condition as the basis of morality. Kant argues that there can be principles for action that do not admit of exceptions, and that this occurs through practical reason. In other words, the possibility for morality does not hinge on the empirical world, but rather is a feature of the nature of the entity that is the ground for morality. Since all rational beings have reason, the good rational being is one who obeys a universal moral law. This is to act according to an objective standard which is independent of personal desires and ends. According to Kant, the moral law appears as a command to humans because they do not have a will that is invariably determined by practical reason. Although the will of an imperfect rational being has the capacity to act according to rational principles, its reason does not have full control over the inclinations.

Kant does think that happiness partly constitutes the highest good, but only when it is in proportion to morality. He asserts that the highest good is a combination of happiness and morality. Aristotle is not concerned, as is Kant, that the goal of happiness will ultimately corrupt human innocence, and hence that this goal precludes a sense of moral development. Perhaps their difference is best summarized in stating that, for Kant, one ought to be deserving of happiness rather than motivated to be happy.

The significance of the principle of autonomy lies in the suggestion that it can be the supreme principle of morality. Kant argues that this can be shown by an analysis of the concepts of morality. Therefore, moral actions are thought to be exhibited only through this principle. Kant is not saying, however, that only morally good actions are free actions.

KantÐ"*s view on morality and happiness, I believe are adequate for everybody. Kant believes that every man and woman are entitled to happiness, but without harming others. Everybody is obligated to creating a better world. Society in general needs to help each other and then themselves. MillÐ"*s view of Ð"'do what feels goodÐ"" is not adequate for anyone. Every action must be done in a ethical matter, no matter the circumstance.

Essay Two: Kant believes that, reason thinks of all cognition as belonging to a unified and organized system. Reason is our faculty of making inferences and of identifying the grounds behind every truth. It allows us to move from the particular and contingent to the global and universal. Each cause, and each cause's cause, and each additional ascending cause must itself have a cause. Reason generates this hierarchy that combines to provide the mind with a conception of a whole system of nature. Kant believes that it is part of the function of reason to strive for a complete, determinate understanding of the natural world. But our analysis of theoretical reason has made it clear that we can never have knowledge of the totality of things because we cannot have the requisite sensations of the totality, hence one of the necessary conditions of knowledge is not met. Reason's structure pushes us to accept certain ideas of reason that allow completion of its striving for unity.

Kant argues that the proper function of reason is to produce the highest good which cannot be the Aristotelian or Mills highest good, i.e., happiness. In fact, the cultivation of reason to produce the highest good can reduce happiness to less than nothing. This statement reveals the crux of the issue.

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