Any truly complete ethics must address a number of concerns. These concerns include moral perception, moral choice, moral judgment, moral justification and moral system. While a number of theorists have addressed these aspects of ethics, the ideas and theories advanced by Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill seem to offer the most complete and affirmative approaches to these concerns.
For any ethics to exist, there must be some type of moral perception present in individuals and in entire societies. John Stuart Mill found that almost all human beings had the ability to distinguish between so-called higher and lower pleasures (Warburton, 1995). Anyone who experienced true intellectual pleasures was, in his view, aware that these kinds of pleasures were more satisfying than other pleasures such as those associated with eating, drinking, listening to music, or interacting socially and physically with others. This in turn led to perception of degrees of what Mill called "pleasure" or
happiness," which in turn led to the perception that the kinds of experiences on had offered varying levels of satisfaction. Further, this recognition helped the individual recognize the differences between experiences that had a "good" rather than a "bad" effect รป the foundation on which moral perception was then built (Warburton, 1995).
Moral choice, as understood by Kant, was based in part on man's ability to use his reason and in part on man's understanding of how others should be treated (Solomon & Higgins, 1995). Kant was convinced that people have the power to "will" or the freedom to make choices regarding their actions and behaviors. He felt that the law which human reason constructs for itself is the moral law and we demonstrate our freedom when we act in accord with this moral law (Solomon & Higgins, 1995). Thus, from Kant's perspective, it is man's free will supported by his reason that leads to making moral choices.
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