To summarize the case of study, which is about the research development and safety for a mid-sized chemical refinery discovers a 5,000 gallon tanks of toxic chemicals. Which has be drained 20 years ago, but has been left to rust for a long time and high probability it has rusted and leaked into the ground. The problem is if the chemicals leeched into the ground, 25 miles away is a Navajo reservation that drinks from the local reservoir. Also there are no government funds to help clean the mess, and it would take some years before the company has the appropriate funds to clean it up.
The choices I have is, A) quit your job, but keep quiet about the problem or, B) keep your job but whistle-blow. Both these outcomes do not have any favorable
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First putting down the basic of Kant theory is without look at any consequences of the outcome by choosing the plan even if I knew the tanks where leaking. The theory would not agree to this because Kant stats that the action should be good, which plan A is not saying anything is morally wrong to do. My reason is that Kant theory also stats that humans should not be harmed. Humanity as an end, never as merely a means, which simply means that human or not, hurting them is wrong morally. If I continue to keep quite I let the Navajo people continue to suffer this goes against Kant theory also by doing nothing is another problem. The maxim for this plan would be not try and hurt anyone because of the …show more content…
Does it go with Kant theory? I would agree that it does for one main reason would be because of telling the truth about the leaking of the tanks is a sense of duty to help others who are in need. The whole point of Kant’s theory is based around the idea of helping, and plan B has the concept of being a good samaritan. By choosing to help the Navajo people without looking at the consequences, but the action of what I am doing agrees with Kant. Also my sense of moral worth is another key feature of Kant’s theory because of my sense of duty to help, motivates my desire to do the right thing, in which the action of doing it feel morally right. Even if I caused a lot of damages to others, my sense of justification towards the action I did would feel like valued. What would the maxim be for this plan? That any serious problems should be reported to the proper
Kantianism is named after a German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who lived in 1724-1804. According to Kant, the only thing that is good is good will; moreover, the good will builds the whole structure of the society. Kantianism is based on the intent of the action or person’s intention which are the predominant attributes of the good will. The basic principle of Kantianism theory depicts the idea of universal truths. It explains that a moral rule must be universal. Also, it describes that people should be treated with respect. Moreover, it explains the credibility of an action why it is right or wrong and convinces the user with logical reasons. Kant proposed the Categorical Imperative, which describes a set up to explain, “What makes a moral rule appropriate?” One version of the Categorical Imperative states that it is wrong for a person to use himself or another person uniquely as a means to an end. Most of the time it is easier to use the second version of the Categorical Imperative to analyze a moral problem from a Kantian point of view. For example, in the case of Jean, misusing the responsibilities of someone else’s duty. It was wrong for Jean to treat the profession of the doctor as a means to an end. Jean deceived the profession of the doctors with the goal of getting benefit to save his nephew. It was wrong for jean to misuse his responsibilities rather than to think that he can find a way to look for a doctor. We can also look at this scenario using the first version of the Categorical Imperative. Jean wanted to save his nephew Pierre. A proposed moral rule might be, “Take a decision in his hands to save his nephew.” However, if everyone followed the same rule, it will diminish the sense of duty, responsibility, and the respect of the profession. If everyone will act the same way in this type of situation and try to misuse his or her professional responsibilities, then there will
(Mark Dimmock) Kantian ethics is not the focus of the consequence but, rather focusing on completing the duty. Here is where Kantian Ethics can be seen in Harrison Bergeron. Kantian ethics has two branches the branch of Natural rights and Contract rights. Natural rights are the ones we are born with and contract rights are the ones society agrees upon. In “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Harrison acted morally unethical because he broke the contract rights the government set up and distorted the life of the people by the way they
Kant’s idea of the hypothetical imperative is, the idea of what someone wants and how they should achieve that want or what they need to do in order to get what they want. The categorical imperative on the other hand is Kant's idea of what must be followed regardless of our own personal interests. When using both of these types of imperatives to analyse the gun control issue, the ideas must be viewed separately. A hypothetical imperative in this situation could be if a person wants to own a gun then they have to make the conscious decision to be responsible with that gun. The individual knows that in order not to be in trouble or have their freedoms taken away they have to exercise responsibility. The categorical imperative that could be applied to the situation is the idea that humans should not kill one another, this idea of not killing someone is an absolute law. The categorical imperatives determine whether something is right or something is wrong for instance killing someone is inherently wrong so Kant believes that no one should do that. This incorporates the idea of Goodwill meaning that down to everyone's fundamental core people are naturally good willed and will do the right thing. If they don't do right the right thing then they are justifying that everyone is allowed to kill and there is nothing wrong with that. Todd Calder Professor of philosophy for the University of Victoria, analyzes Kant’s ideas of imperatives and associates them with degrees of wrongness. Todd described that Kant implied, varying degrees of wrongness when he was thinking of his theories, the degree of wrongness is fitting the crime with punishment. Todd states, “Kant believes that one reason we should mete out punishment according the principle of retribution is that only then will punishment be in proportion to the inner wickedness of the criminal.”(Calder 232) This
In this paper, I will argue that Kant provides us with a plausible account of morality. To demonstrate that, I will initially offer a main criticism of Kantian moral theory, through explaining Bernard Williams’ charge against it. I will look at his indulgent of the Kantian theory, and then clarify whether I find it objectionable. The second part, I will try to defend Kant’s theory.
Many great philosophers have attempted to tackle the issue of ethics and, consequently, have come up with various ethical theories in order to define ethical and moral situations. In this paper, I will be summarizing a scene from the 2004, Academy Award winning film, Crash, and further analyzing it in terms of the ethical theories of Immanuel Kant. In terms of this scene, I will be arguing that Kant’s ethical theory provides a satisfactory analysis of its ethicality.
...l sources of utility or consequences, but about his moral identity and integrity. Jim is presented with a situation that challenges to who he is, and not just simply what he should do. Granted, is tricky to decide on the “right” action in this case because by not partaking in the deal, Jim is staying true to his personal moral beliefs; yet he is still left with the burden of knowing that all twenty of the Indians would be killed without his interference. One could also argue that Jim would only be contributing to the problem if he too committed such acts against these innocent people and it is his duty as a moral being to not partake. It seems that Kant’s theory passes the standard of internal support and explanatory power. This is because his principles are able to fit with considered moral beliefs and are able to help individuals identify a right and wrong action.
Everyone has duties to do things which are morally correct rather than to do things morally wrong or incorrect. Consequences are not the determinant whether an action is right or wrong but instead the action itself is the determinant whether it is right or wrong. Using the case as an example of this belief would be the fact that after shooting the intruder they are dead. No matter if they were intruding, the action itself was to grab the pistol and commit a violent act. Taking away any of the outside circumstances such as protecting your family, you still in fact murdered and killed someone. Kant’s theories recognize duties that are mostly prohibitions for example “do not lie, do not murder.” (Kant) By committing the murder in order to save your family you have now went against the deontologist rules that state do not murder. They believe in no intentional killings. Even if it does benefit the majority as a whole it is still not morally right in their theory. In Kant’s theory a killing is the action and the only exception to killing another being is if it was accidental or if you were defending yourself. Why this case is so tricky is because technically you were not defending yourself you were protecting your family because the intruder had no idea that you were in the house and also the killing is in no way accidental, because you intentionally grabbed the pistol to kill the intruder.
In the end, I believe that Kantianism is still a valuable guide to behavior. The theory wants humanity to do the right thing, whatever the right thing might be, and if it brings satisfaction, then it is a bonus but satisfaction cannot be the premise of doing an action. However, Kantianism also has its flaws on what someone should do in a given situation and ultimately, causing the theory to self-contridict. As any theory, it is a good guideline but it should never dictated one's life.
Kant’s moral theory is an action that must be done with a sense of duty if it is to have moral worth. Kant states that life is not all about happiness, nonetheless, it is also about being intent because what Kant does is that he tries to produce happiness to the majority of the community that he is in. Kant’s moral theory has nothing to execute with Kant overall because he believes that an act is moral not by the consequences that occurred from the event, however by the intention that was behind the whole phenomenon. Nothing is good except the good will or the will to obey
Overall, I think that Kant’s first proposition to morality is a good one, it makes sense that our actions should have moral worth because we do them because they are in accordance to duty and we feel we have a duty to even if they go against our desires. I believe the sympathetic person’s actions do not have a moral worth since they do kind things from the natural qualities that they possess of kindness and compassion. People should be encouraged to help their fellow citizens and have such qualities, but doing so does not have moral worth unless it is from the motive of duty, if not it is just in accordance with duty.
Kantians believe that we should avoid treating others as mere means.(877) In other words we should not make false promises, physically force a person to do what we want, use threats, or take advantage of someone’s desperate situation and make unjust offers.(877-878) These are examples of treating people as mere means because these people will not have the opportunity to make a reasonable choice for themselves. Either because they don’t have the complete information, their wellbeing is on the line, or simply because there is no just offer on the table. We are also to treat others as an end in themselves(878), meaning that we have to respect their autonomy, and their freedom to make choices for themselves. But according to O’Neil it’s not enough to treat others as an end in themselves. In her duty of beneficence she argues that we cannot treat others as end in themselves if they have limited rationality or autonomy (878-879). She derives her idea from Kant’s idea of imperfect duty which aims to promote helping others to reach their potential.(). Therefor based on these principles it makes sense for us to help reduce world famine, because the people affected by this issues are very venerable, and their autonomy is undermined. The only way to ensure that they are treated as rational human beings is if we helped them. It’s important to
...n different ways to achieve an end. However, I believe that Kant’s theory is most likely correct because it includes everyone and not just what makes an individual happy. Although, Kant’s views are a bit extreme when it comes to rules, we all have to have rules to live by we cannot just go out and do what makes us happy. I do like the “Golden Rule” better mainly because that is what my great-grandmother us to tell me all the time and it is a good rule to live by.
So now that we have an understanding of Kantian ethics, let’s take that lens and look through it at the VW scandal. One of the key arbitrators of the scandal was the engineer that designed the cheat program, James Laing. You may believe that because VW 's will and duty align in creating the emissions test and Kantian theory doesn 't consider the consequences a factor did James and VW act wrongly? Looking through our hypothetical lens with a Kantian perspective the answer is a resounding yes they did act wrongly. Why VW and James acted wrongly comes from the mere means
However, in my opinion, Kantian ethics is a slightly better ethical theory than consequentialism for several reasons. Primarily, the theory of consequentialism compels us in measuring the benefits and harm that could result from our action while Kantian ethics does not. Just as in the case of the “Footbridge Dilemma”, Kant’s approach to ethics does not require us to give value to the lives of the five workers and the innocent man and choose the act that would result in the greatest net benefit. Second, instead of considering the consequences, Kantian ethics focuses on the intent of our action, which means, “the morality of actions depends entirely on what is within our control” (Landau, 2015, p.164). Finally, Kant’s view deemed actions “that sometimes make … the best consequences [as] wrong” (Hurka, 2014, p. 135). This means that acts of killing and stealing, no matter how much optimific results they bring, are immoral under Kantian ethics. However, despite the strengths of Kant’s view over consequentialism, it is undisputable that “Kantian theory is not without its own problems, and many of those are neatly addressed by consequentialism” (Landau, 2015,
Over the course of this essay, I will present the reader with information on Kant’s Deontology, including, but not limited to, explaining how Immanuel Kant discerns what is morally right and morally wrong. I will then apply these criterion to case number two, and attempt to accurately portray what Kant’s Deontology dictates is the morally correct response. Following this determination, I will show the reader that although Kant’s moral reasoning will lead us to a definitive answer, we should not be so quick to accept it. Interestingly enough, he seems to lead us to what would generally be the correct answer, but perhaps not in the given circumstance and not for the right reason.