Kants Theory Of Morality

4 Pages 1119 Words

Kant’s moral theories focused much more on that of reason and less on emotion…in fact he completely denied the role of emotion in ethics. The basis of Kant’s theories of morals and ethics lies on the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative divides into three parts which break down his theories. The first part is “an imperative that Kant expresses as requiring that a person must never perform and act unless he or she can consistently will that the maxim or principal that motivates the action could become a universal law.” (p 56) By this he means that what is wrong for you to do onto to others must be wrong for everyone, there can be no exceptions and everyone must abide by these “universal laws”. These are the moral rules that must be followed by everyone alike if they have any desire to act in a rational way. No where in this is emotion included. What are included however rationality and good judgment and decision making. Kant did not feel that emotions played a role in ethics anywhere; it is strictly what people should do to remain rational and maintain moral behavior. This is something that should come naturally for everyone and is simplistic enough for everyone to understand and obey.
The second formulation of the categorical imperative states that “one must act so as to treat people as ends in themselves, never mealy as means.” (p 57) This formulation goes hand in hand with the first part and introduced the idea of being fair. What this means is that if we get over on people because we can use them and they can be our means to succeed in whatever we are attempting than it is not a good universal law unless we wish the same treatment upon ourselves. He believed that we should not use other people to get our ends fulfilled because everyone is rational and everyone has hopes and desires but to use another would be unfair and would in no way coincide with the beliefs of universal laws for all pe...