Ethical Differences

            Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804) was a respected German philosopher that was known for developing the Kantian ethic structure. His sense of virtues was based on the theory that is known as the Categorical Imperative. According to Kant, the Categorical Imperative represents the duty of human beings, which is to perfect ourselves, and to promote happiness onto others (Timmons 213). Kant believes that if humans cannot sufficiently follow the Categorical Imperative, then we do not respect humanity, or ourselves as ends. He explains that we should not use each other as only a mean, but as an end. Being an end is being something that you are respected for. But before we can accept each other as ends, we must first be able to perceive what is just, and what isn’t just—we must use our rationality to do this. With rationality undergone, we must learn to use our autonomy or “freedom” as individuals. With the ability autonomy we have to explore our ideas of what is rational,  and what isn’t rational.

            In opposition to the above stated, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a respected British philosopher who believed in ethical morals of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the belief that it is in everyone to pursue happiness as an aim, in life. Mill often rebuts against such claims that says for example, “the ‘Utilitarian’ view that life has no higher end—no better and nobler desire and pursuit—than pleasure they describe as utterly mean and grovelling, a doctrine worthy of only pigs” (Mill 5). Mill disputes this topic by expressing that if Utilitarian’s are considered pigs because of their belief of pleasure as an end, than every philosophical stature has to have pig-like qualities as well, for we are all humans, and if what’s considered the rule of life makes Utilitarian’s happy as pigs, must also make their equals (the opposing theories) happy as pigs. Secondly, Mill clearly explains that the moral virtues of Utilitarian’s—desires and pleasures free from pain—are what is evidently somewhere acclaimed in other “theories of morality.”

            Personally, I side more with Utilitarianism because it is true that Kantian ethics has in their doctrine the idea of happiness, or the idea of self-gratification, ultimately. One example is self-perfection. Timmons even says in an analysis of Kant’s moral ethics called “Kant’s System of Duties” that human beings do not need to go on promoting happiness within themselves because that is already an intrinsic human ability (213). Kantian ethics may sound as if it can be done easily, but learning 1) The duty of self-perfection 2) The duty to promote the happiness of others, can take quite some time, especially because we must first promote our own rationality and autonomy to then be capable of encouraging good traits onto others. What Mill most nearly means of utilitarianism is that when we are happy within, and for ourselves, we have the ability to be capacitated with enough knowledge of passing this confidence onto others. Kant’s moral ethics are demanding, in a way.

Barbara Argument

If The Golden Rule constitutes the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality

Then all agents of good act follow The Golden Rule

Therefore, all agents of the act are the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality