When Immanuel Kant was alive, he
came up with the Kantian Ethics. According to Kant, the moral law is a
categorical imperative. The categorical imperative says the only moral actions
are those consistent with the moral standards that we would want everyone else
to follow. He believed that we should promote autonomy. Kant cares about
whether or not the intention of a specific action is morally good or not.
Opposed to Utilitarianism, actions are only right if they promote happiness
while minimizing or decreasing pain at the same time. It is difficult to aim for perfection while
helping other people because we are supposed to take care of ourselves before
we can take care of others. Kant wants us to believe in self-perfection and to
provide good actions to not only others, but ourselves as well. Kant argued
that lying is always wrong. He says lying sets a double standard because you
expect others to tell the truth when you are lying.
For Utilitarians, morality tells us
to maximize happiness. Actions are right to the extent that they promote
happiness and wrong to the extent that they promote unhappiness. According to
utilitarianism, we should consider the consequences for everyone who is
affected by an action and weigh them equally. Also, not to privilege your own
happiness over the happiness of others. Mill’s response to The Doctrine of the
Swine Objection states that there are two types of pleasures or pains that are
qualitatively different, bodily and intellectual. He also says only humans
beings are capable of intellectual pleasure and pain. Humans prefer bodily
pleasure and pain rather than intellectual.
I think the Utilitarians have a more
plausible theory because it is hard to strive for self-perfection in a world
people think differently and promote different actions. It makes the most sense
to do things that makes people recognize that you are a good person. When Kant
talks about lying is always wrong, I believe there is a flaw in that. It does
not hurt to tell a small lie, whether good or bad. Everybody tells a lie,
whether to promote happiness in ones life or to hide the truth for as long as
possible. Humans are hedonistic because everybody seeks pleasure whether bodily
or intellectually. More humans seek bodily pleasure rather than intellectual pleasure.
Barbara
All actions
providing happiness are morally good.
All actions
helping others provide happiness.
Therefore, all
actions providing happiness are morally good.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I like your name. More importantly, I want to say that you speak of autonomy but you do not go on to explain what it is. You should write your paper as if we were students who have never taken a philosophy class before, and will need interpretation to understand. I also want to say that you jump around on topics a lot. I think that it will be helpful if you create "leading sentences" that helps connect the past talked about to the new topic. When you said above, "opposed to Utilitarianism," what you are really saying is opposite to Utilitarianism, but you then go on to explaining what Utilitarianism is. What you should've said was "Opposed to Kantian ethics..." When comparing or contrasting different things within a paper, although there are many ways to do it, you should start by introducing what you are going to be talking about in your introduction paragraph. You then use the other body paragraphs to explain your claims with examples and citations. Lasty, I think your Barbara argument is good.