Kant and Mill on Duty

Kant (1724-18O4) is commonly thought to have been the greatest philosopher in the history of modern philosophy (Schacht 221). A popular lecturer at the university in Konigsberg, located in the Soviet Union, his influence has been enormous though most of his great works were written after he was fifty years old. Since his death, a great deal of Western philosophy has been viewed as an attempt to come to terms with him, either by challenging his contentions on various issues, or by developing aspects of his philosophy in various ways.

Aristotle, Hume and Rousseau all gave feeling an important place in the conceptions of morality. How we felt about something would dictate what course of action we took, how we viewed our duty to someone or something. Kant preferred to look at "duty" from a different point of view. What if our feelings conflicted, so that they directed us one way but sense of duty another (Solomon 497)? In analyzing this dilemma, Kant rejected all attempts to base morality on feelings of any kind. Instead he wrote in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysicals of Morals. "Morality must be based s

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econsider the consequences as well as the "will" of an action and to consider particular circumstances of any action in an attempt to determine what is morally right (Solomon 512). Mill (1806-1873), a student of his father, philosopher James Mills, and heavily influenced by Jeremy Bentham, was considered by many to be a Renaissance man. He was a man of enormous ambivalence and inconsistency, thus mirroring the hesitations of his time as it stood between two worlds and on the edge of the initial development of social sciences such as sociology and anthropology (Mazlish 55). In the end, his father proved to be a prototype of the Utilitarian character: self-made, manly, independent, rationally controlled (especially in the areas of sex and work), not giving way to feelings of any kind (especially love) and so on (Mazlish 56). Mills was a somewhat different creed. He had been created by his father and wrestled all his life to form himself; he vas proud of his feminine qualities; he was prepared to be dependent on others, such as his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, while asserting his intellectual independence, and he was desirous of fusing feelings and rationality in the service of humanity (Mazlish 56). The basis of utilitarianis
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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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