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Kantianism - Coggle Diagram
Kantianism
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Deotology
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Deontologists believe that there are actions that are always wrong and should never be carried out - lying and murder. It is our duty to abstain from such actions even if they produce good consequences or not.
Kant argued that the moral rightness of an action should be determined by the intentions of motives of an act.
Both Deontological and Consequentialist approaches can contrast with Virtue Ethics. Supporters of Virtue Ethics (Aristotle) believe that by concentrating of the character of the person who performs the act, outlining which virtues they typically have rather than what actions they perform pr what motives they have.
Aristotle contends, the virtuous person may have no conscious motives and that they may be used to acting correctly so they do it instinctively
Duty vs Inclination
Kant was keen to emphasise the distinction between acting from duty and acting from inclination. People who act from inclination do so simply because of their natures. We must guard against automatically praising such people because our inclinations are outwith our control.
Acting from duty is doing so because you know it is the right thing to do - the shopkeeper might hate people and it might pain them to provide excellent service and have grudges against customers. If these were true then they might serve to make their good will more apparent. They are doing the right thing, not because it would benefit them, but because they feel they ought to - acting out of respect of the moral law
Kant argues that it is possible for two people to perform identical acts yet for only one of them to be morally praiseworthy
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Kant's system requires that we should only be praised for those things we have freely and consciously chosen to do so.
Kant gives the example of a shopkeeper who always gives his customers the correct change. If the shopkeeper is acting this way because they don't want to lose custom, or they might be frightened of going to prison for fraud if they are discovered, then these are not moral motives and are merely prudent ones. The shopkeeper might gain pleasure from being honest or takes pride in providing first rate customer service but Kant still says these motives still aren't conspicuoulsy good.
You could have a whole street of shopkeepers who always give you the correct change and still not know which are examples of good and which are not
This contrasts with the Utilitarians who would say that, so long as the acts and their consequences are identical, they must be equally morally praiseworthy.
The Good Will
Kant argues that a 'good will' is the only thing unquestionable good but not because of what it achieves
He argues that any other candidates, such as courage, power or intelligence, can always be used in service of evil, e.g. burglars can be courageous and tyrant can be cunningly intelligent.
The goodness of an act does not come from its consequences but from something intrinsic to the act itself
Even if someone were a moral imbecile, and all their intended good action resulted in the opposite, Kant would justify that as long as they had good intentions, we can guarantee that their act is a morally good one