Download Kantian Ethics Kant was a deontologist – actions are right and

Kantian Ethics
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Kant was a deontologist – actions are right and wrong in themselves.
He does not worry about consequences or circumstances in his moral thinking: if something is wrong it
is wrong in all situations, regardless of the outcome.
The Moral Law –
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Kant held that there is an objective moral law and that we knew this law through our reason.
Moral rules exist and these rules are binding.
We know the moral law without reference to consequences.
Ethical statements are ‘a priori synthetic’ – they are knowable through reason, no sensation or
experience, and may or may not be true.
Non-ethical statements are either a priori analytic – necessarily true and knowable without experience
or, a posteriori synthetic – possibly true and to be validated through experience.
Duty and Good Will–
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Kant’s theory is deontological because it is based on duty.
The highest form of good is good will.
To have good will is to do your duty.
To do your duty is to perform actions that are morally required, and to avoid actions that are morally
forbidden.
To act morally is to do your duty.
Your duty is to obey the moral law.
We should not allow ourselves to be side-tracked by our emotions or inclination.
It is not our duty to do things we are unable to do. The fact that we ought to do something implies that
the act is possible. ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’. If someone says they ‘ought to do something’ they are implying
they ‘can do something’.
So moral statements are prescriptive – they prescribe an action.
To perform an action based on the consequences is an act of self-interest and is not a morally good
action e.g. whilst to tell the truth is a good action, to tell the truth because it is in our best interest to do
so is not a morally good action. Motive is extremely important for Kant. We cannot do our duty because
of the consequences if we want to be good moral agents – we must do it for duty itself.
Duty is good in itself.
Key example – [highlights a negative of Kantian theory] if a murderer was pursuing a friend who was
hiding in your house and the murderer asked you if they were there, according to Kant it is your duty to
be honest so you must tell them they are there. This would likely lead to your friend being murdered. But
to lie to prevent this would be morally wrong because you are acting based on consequence and not
obeying you duty to tell the truth.
Point for discussion – is doing your duty regardless of the consequences truly acting morally? Consider the friend
murderer example along with other hypothetical situations.