Free Twelve Questions On Kantian Ethics Critical Thinking Sample

1. Kant means that a good will is only good “without limitation” and good “in itself” when we purse a good not for its outcomes, what will come out of it, but for the good for its own sake. 2. The reasons why virtues like courage, are not good in themselves is that we pursue these virtues to obtain other goods. A soldier acts courageously to be a good soldier, and an obese person practices self-control to lose weight, for example. Pleasure cannot be a good in itself for we pursue pleasure as an external good that is always dependent on other goods. 3. The reason happiness or not pleasure is not the value of practical reason because it does not serve well as a consistent guide for why an individual should act according to the moral law. If a person gives money to the homeless person because it makes him happy, then this cannot be applied as a universal law of how one should act, for what if that person does not feel like helping the homeless man? Happiness is a state of being and not the basis for the duty to pursue the moral law for the sake of the moral law. 4. The supreme principle of morality is the rational dictates of reason. Kant argues that to determine how one should act in any given situation should be based on reason alone and not on the affectations of the heart. 5. A maxim is the basis for why I choose to act a certain way, and any maxim can be evaluated according to the principle of the categorical imperatives. One maxim Kant argues for is to think for oneself and to be an autonomous person not driven by affect. A good example of my maxim is always to act in a way that causes no harm and to leave the world the way we found it. 6. A hypothetical imperative like “If you wish to have a clean room, mop the floor every week”. The categorical imperative is based on how we follow through with a maxim of how one should act in every given situation. 7. For example, one version is the maxim is only to act in such a way that at the same time should be conceived as a universal law. In other words, if I act in such a way, it should serve the basis for how everyone ought to act. Another version of the categorical imperative is to always treat the other as an end, and not as a means to an end. Telling the truth is based on the categorical imperative, because if everyone lied, there would be no basis for telling the truth. Truth telling is a universal law that everyone ought to follow by duty and not by an motivation to better oneself. 8. Kant argues that moral judgments are only grounded by a priori moral judgments because they are based on reason and are immutable. 9. The categorical imperative is a relational judgment for it is based on how I ought to act in relation to how others would act if they act just like me. 10. It is morally wrong to go against one’s developmental aptitude because it would be saying that no one ought to develop their talents. It is different from suicide and the obligation to protect life because it deals with not just our life, but with others. The two are commensurable but separate. 11. The people who belong to the kingdom of ends are rational actors who base their moral actions on the rational prescriptions of the moral law. 12. So it does not matter if you are a grumpy person or an insufferable bore, moral worth has nothing to do with virtue or personality traits, so the best person is the one who follows the duty in line with the moral law regardless of how they appear to others.