Emmanuel Kant's Ethics

As we discussed in class on Monday night, Kant's main argument in the first section was dedicated to developing his belief that a rational beings have the capacity to reason and through this reason comes a beings ability to know what is right or wrong. Also, Kant revealed that a beings also have an inherent desire to keep themselves save physically and strive for happiness. Yet, these desires or needs can be fulfilled with pure instinct and that reason does not need to be used in order to reach those goals. More specifically Kant says, "The highest purposes of each individual are presumably self-preservation and the attainment of happiness." "The fact that reason serves purposes that are higher than individual survival and private happiness." This tells us the reason for Kant explaining that people who strive to live a life of reason are less happy than those striving for intrinsic happiness, while those who are striving for happiness view reason with contempt.

Then, the second part of the first section outlines Kant's views on actions as it relates to his concept of Duty. Duty to Kant is the specific obligation of a good will. He argues that there are four actions. Starting with, acting contrary to duty which is seen as immoral. Second, acting according to duty with the purpose of fulfilling an immediate inclination and acting according to duty with the purposes of fulfilling a secondary inclination, which are both seen as not purely moral. Then there is acting according to duty contrary to all inclinations which is the only truly moral act. Kant's moral law is based on this idea of non-contradiction, in order for an act to be good it must be good in itself.

"The one thing in the world that is unambiguously good is the good will." The good will is intrinsically good to Kant whether the results of the actions bring a positive outcome. This means for example attempting to save someone's life for the pure feeling of duty to this person with no intrinsic goal for you or to use that person as a means. Now even if the person should unfortunately die due to natures plan and you did all you could then the result is negative in the person is now dead but you still preformed a good will. The ultimate moral standard is good will. Another example would be one given by Kant, "A philanthropic act is done by a person who has no true desire or inclination to be philanthropic.