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Kant`s Believes On Moral Law

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For your paper, first explain the main concepts of Kant`s theory, especially the related ideas of respect and dignity. Explain why Kant proposes the categorical imperative as the only way to test the validity of our moral actions. (Note: for this assignment you do not need to analyze the four possible maxims as covered in the document on the kinds of imperatives.) ...

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For ages humanity is looking for the principles that would guide the human behavior. Some searched for the answer for that question in religion, some into the rigid principles of the working life, yet some tried to find an answer by engaging in hedonistic behavior. Theologians and philosophers, being the "mirrors" of the ideas and concepts of their times, consequently, devised structures that would explain human behavior. 

Moral issues became the cornerstone of today's philosophical debates. Adherents of the utilitarianism believed that the action is morally right only when the consequences of the action bring are judged as "good" or "positive". This theory is very popular and is widely used to rationalize peoples' behavior. A lot of questions arise when thinking over this principle. What about this ethical dilemma: " To save hostages, police officer must kill the terrorist"?

On the one hand, the proposed course of action is clearly beneficial. At the expense of one human life, many other human lives would be saved. On the other hand, however, if one should take the position of the terrorist, such action would not be "right". Regardless of the circumstances that prompted this person to endanger other people's lives, he or she would not want own life to be taken away.

Social Darwinism explained the moral decisions that humans make by making analogies to the world of animals. They argued that humans are a form of a sophisticated animal, and that rules governing their social life would work in the world of humans as well. Therefore, such phenomena as natural selection and primary instincts govern human behavior. But humans are not animals, many argued. If we are mere beasts, than why do we sometimes feel upset when we know that we did the right thing?

Referring to the dilemma above, the family of the terrorist would say that the cop's actions were not right. The terrorist himself had his or her own "right" subjective reasons to do what he intended to do? Inevitably, such reasoning would be end up in with the conclusion that everything is relative in this world, including ethics. 

Adversaries of this view believed that regardless their upbringing and geographical locations, there are some universal principles that govern peoples' behavior. In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics are such expressions as "Duty for duty's sake," "Virtue is its own reward," and "Let justice be done though the heavens fall."

By contrast, theological ethics holds that the basic standard of morality is precisely the value of what an action brings into being, as used by utilitarianists. Deontological theories have been termed formalistic because their central principle lies in the conformity of an action to some rule or law.

The first great philosopher to define deontological principles was Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century German founder of critical philosophy, whose ethics were much influenced by Christianity as well as by the Rationalism of the Enlightenment. Kant held that nothing is good without qualification except a good will, which is one that wills to act in accord with the moral law and out of respect for that law, rather than out of natural inclinations. He saw the moral law as a categorical imperative -i.e., an unconditional command--and believed that its content could be established by human reason alone. 

Reason begins with the principle "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Kant's critics, however, have questioned his view that all duties can be derived from this purely formal principle and have argued that, in his preoccupation with rational consistency, he neglected the concrete content of moral obligation...
  

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