Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Morality and Philosophy

1. The most important contribution to the understanding of morality expressed by Immanuel Kant in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals is that morality cannot exist separate from a free will. This is as much as saying that an individual who behaves in a manner consistent with moral behavior, who nonetheless is not behaving freely and consciously, cannot be said to be truly behaving morally. In other words, a robot could be programmed to behave in a way which corresponded to moral behavior, but it could hardly be considered a moral entity. Similarly, a human being could be coerced or frightened into behaving in a way resembling moral behavior, but he or she could not be truly called a moral being. This contribution is important because it places individual responsibility at the top of all moral considerations.

This idea is so important because it includes the notion of rationality. In other words, it could be said that all creatures are free, including animals. But what differentiates human beings from animals. To human beings, animals appear to be captives of their physical natures. They do not reason, from our point of view, before they act. They do not weigh options and consequences, but merely follow their programmed instincts. They are, indeed, not free, from the human perspective. Freedom, to Kant, requires rationality. The human being, for morality to mean anything in personal as well as communal terms, must be thought and action connected to both freedom and rationality. Morality, freedom of the will, and rationality, are all connected intimately to Kant. Similarly, the basic idea of the connection between freedom and morality extends from the individual to the entire human race. Kant's moral imperative requires that the individual act as if his behavior were going to be emulated by all other human beings. Again, this gives a sense of tremendous worth to the actions of the individual and requires that he or she engage...

Page 1 of 5 Next >

More on Morality and Philosophy...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Morality and Philosophy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 18:52, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709199.html