Kantian Ethics

hello and welcome to philosophy 5 the channel where we discuss and debate different philosophical ideas today we're going to be focusing on some ethics and looking into the works of Immanuel Kant Kantian ethics falls under deontological ethics are you familiar with this yes the young comes from the Greek word duty this branch of ethics bandage duty higher than anything else it says we should always follow a set of moral principles no matter what the situation is or what the outcome will be yes exactly can argue that the only good was good will unlike utilitarianism can did not believe the term good was linked to happiness because what might make some people happy could be an evil act also Kant did not agree that good was dependent on an outcome because the particular outcome might have been brought about by evil acts the only good was goodwill so what does can't consider to be goodwill good question so goodwill to Kant was for rational beings to follow their duty and act in accordance with moral law can saw human beings as rational beings which possessed reason thought it's this ability that allows people to follow their duty and act towards moral law so what exactly does can mean by moral law according to Kant the central construct of moral law is the categorical imperative now an imperative is something you must do you have two types of imperatives categorical and hypothetical a hypothetical imperative is something you must do in order to achieve something else if you want to be on time you must leave now if you want to stop your hunger you must eat food a categorical imperative is something you must always do no matter what the situation is no matter what you want to achieve or what your desires are categorical imperatives are universal laws and once we as rational beings must always follow okay but how does can't determine what our categorical imperatives are can has three ways of formulating categorical imperatives the first was playing upon the idea of universe ability can states act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law by this he means you should only act whereby you would want everyone else in the world to act in the same way and by that basis you should refrain from doing things that you would not want everyone else to do I see so Kant would argue that an act is permissible if you're willing for that action to be universalized if you are not then this cannot be moral law if your actions would cause contradictions in your wheel when universalized then these are actions that you should not do let's look at the example of lying if you're in a situation where you're about to lie ask yourself what would happen if everyone lied all the time if flying was permissible for everyone in the world truth would become meaningless no one could be trusted it will result in chaos no rational person would want this type of world so we conclude that you should never lie it now becomes our duty and we should always obey this no matter what yes I understand or consider the person who walks to the park to look at the beautiful flowers one day they may want to pick some flowers to take home if they ask themselves what if everyone who came to the park picked some flowers then there would be no more flowers left in the park and there will be no beautiful view so picking flowers cannot be morally permissible the second formulation of the categorical imperative is to treat humanity as an end in itself and never simply as a means so if I can a rational or reasonable being should never be used by someone else to fulfill another end rather they should be considered ends themselves they should be treated as people let's consider the slave owner forcing many people to build a giant building the building is the end and the people are being used as a means they are being forced against their will to build this would violate moral law should not be permissible I agree and finally the third formulation is known as the kingdom of ends can imagine the hypothetical kingdom of perfect rational moral beings can urged all people to see themselves as a member or lawmaker of the kingdom events and actors know your actions will be approved by this kingdom of rational beings I see so there you have the categorical imperative for moral law only act in a way that you will to be universal never treat human beings as a means to an end and always acts as though you remember of the kingdom of ends so human beings to be acting through goodwill means they are following their duty of the categorical imperative and all beings should follow this Duty at all times and no matter what if we all do that we will eventually create the states of peace and harmony very interesting theory I can see a lot of positive reasons to adopt the Kantian ethics approach to morality we do have clear-cut laws to follow so it's straightforward to grasp and live by exactly it also applies to all humans and all humans are treated equally as parts of the categorical imperative yes but there are also some big ethical problems within this theory what are they well kans theory is so focused on duty it completely disregards the outcome of the situation yes but we've seen the problems of ethical theories when you solely focus on the outcome of situations we saw this with utilitarianism it can lead to the most morally depraved actions become impermissible I agree we shouldn't be completely focused on outcome on the other hand we shouldn't completely dismiss outcome in favor of duty because if we do this can lead to morally questionable situations like what okay let's use the Lying scenario you used before we are bound by the duty to never lie we thought about making lying universally permitted and this contradicted our rational will let's say you're at work and a former employee who is fired the day before storms into the office with an axe they are looking for the boss who fired them as they want to kill them this person then confronts you and asks is the boss in the office in this situation you are bound by duty to never lie you must then tell the Axman the truth knowing that your boss is going to be murdered according to Kant the moral choice is to tell the truth even though in this situation the moral choice will lead to murder yes I see what you mean also what happens when two duties conflict let's suppose that I have a moral duty to keep promises and I was have a moral duty to help people who are suffering let's suppose I promised to take my friends to the cinema as I'm on my way to take them to the cinema I noticed someone on the floor needed medical assistance do I fulfill my promise of duty take my friend to the cinema and leave the person on the floor to die or do I fulfill my duty of helping a suffering person and break my promise to take my friend to the cinema interesting point so Gansey and ethics does not help in these moral dilemmas well could we not grade our goodwill and we'd fulfilled the duties which exercise the most goodwill per action so in the case of the promise we can see that saving the life is a better actor than going to the cinema so we can break the promise in that situation or in the case of the Axman we can see that lying in order to save a life it's a better exercise of goodwill yes but that's effectively goes against the concept of the categorical imperative because then our duties are no longer categorical and they can be broken when we think it's the morally justifiable thing to do this will slowly lead us to a utilitarian approach to ethics or we are now concerned with the consequence of each situation and not the duty each action then relies on the good we believe it will generate and Duty would eventually become meaningless yes I see the problem and finally the idea of Duty and a way to act in all situations is unrealistic no two situations are exactly the same so in that case no two actions can be exactly the same during action X and situation a may be rights but doing action X and situation B may be wrong just because it is wrong in one situation does not mean it's wrong in all situations it seems can give us a blanket ban to actions that could be conceived of as wrong in one situation even if they are right in other situations every situation is unique and so moral actions cannot be absolute good point well that's all the time we have for now thank you for watching we hope you enjoyed the vibe don't forget to Like share and subscribe look forward to seeing y'all soon

Channel: Philosophy Vibe

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Keywords: Philosophy, Vibe, Philosophy Vibe, Kant, Emmanuak Kant, Kantian Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Moral Philosophy, Categorical Imperative, Hypothetical Imperative, Kingdom of Ends, Moral Law, Good Will, Utilitarianism, Deontolgical Ethics, Duty, Revision, A Level, AS Level, OCR, AQA, Edexcel

Id: ZOoJ9Cq3oKM

Length: 8min 25sec (505 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 10 2017