Analysis Of Immanuel Kant's Thesis For Ethics

How can Ethics Compel us to do Good? In Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant attempts to establish a valid basis for ethics. Specifically, he wants to develop an ethical system that has compelling power. He views the traditional, happiness-based ethics as insufficient because they lack compelling power, meaning that they do not have the power to curtail our actions. His solution is that people should be guided by the moral law, which can be discovered by pure reason alone, and which says that any action should be judged by whether or not it could serve as a principle in a universal law. However, I argue that Kant’s proposed ethical system fails in two ways. First, it lacks the compelling power that Kant thinks it has. Second, if the moral law is accessible via reason alone, then different cultures should not come up with the radically different ethical systems that they have come up with over history. Kant wants to establish an true basis for ethics. The traditional basis for ethics has been what’s called “happiness-based ethics.” However, Kant views happiness-based ethics as an

It certainly seems to be the case that happiness-based ethics do not have any compelling power. After all, different people have all sorts of different opinions about what they think will make them happy. Some people would agree that the “higher desires” of Augustine and Aristotle (being just, virtuous, honest, and so on) will ultimately make you happy. On the other hand, other people resort to the typical “sin and debauchery” lifestyle because they genuinely think that kind of lifestyle will maximize their happiness. I happen to agree with these Augustine and Aristotle that living a life of traditional virtue will ultimately maximize happiness. But as long as that ethical system is a happiness-based ethic, it will always lack compelling power because the person can always simply say, “I don’t want