This week
in class we discussed Immanuel Kant and his theories. Kant emphasizes the good
will and how it manifests itself acting for the sake of duty alone. This brings
about his idea on the formal principle of duty, which states: an action done
from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose it attains or seeks to
attain, but from a formal principle or maxim. The Principle of doing one’s duty
whatever it may be. A maxim is a
principle on which we act, and there are two types of principles, the objective
and subjective. The objective principle is the principle on which we ought to
act, and the subjective is the principle on which we do act.
Now this
brings about what happens when there is a conflict of duties, which we
discovered in class happens often. According to Kant, whatever we choose to do
in this situation can be seen both as morally right and wrong. For instance on
the supposed right to lie, we know that it is wrong to lie but that it is right
to save a human’s life. In this case we may say that lying was morally right
because of the result of the lie keeping our friend alive, but you can’t use
the consequences or results to justify your decisions because there is no way
of knowing for sure all the possible outcomes. So we must admit that telling
the lie was immoral and wrong, but the fact that we saved our friend was moral
and right. This conflict of two separate duties shows that in every action or
principle there will always be a morally right or wrong choice, but in order to
make the right decision we must have to think rationally and with reason.
We are to perform actions in the sake of duty, not for our own self interest, but for duty alone. Your duty is the core of almost every action. This idea of conflict of duties is tough. It may be our duty to act in a certain way, but isn't it our duty to help those in need as well. The example in class I remember is how we ought to show up to class on time, but if our neighbor was dying and needed our help, wouldn't it be our duty to help the neighbor even if we were to show up late to class or not show up at all. I believe it was more morally right to help our neighbor than to forget the neighbor and show up to class. I know that our duty was to show up to class, but if we are talking about morally right and morally wrong, it seems that helping the dying neighbor would be morally right. It seems that it would be morally wrong not to help. You would be acting in your own self interest if you ignored the neighbor and went to your class. The class is something you woke up and intended to go to too. The neighbor incidence was not prepared, you had to chose YOUR class or your neighbors life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this, our actions are based upon our duty. But I also think that our actions are somewhat based on what is perceived as morally right. What come to mind when I think about this is a situation that happened to me my junior year of high school. I was driving to school in the winter on a very icy back road one morning. I was following a car that was in front of me. We went on a turn that has a drop off and the person driving in front of me slipped on a patch of ice and went off the road. A couple of guy that were following me and I got out of our cars to see if she was injured, but it was too far down of a drop to see. The drop off was close to twenty feet tall. We called for an ambulance and I ended up being very late to school. Even though I was late to school that day, I still was given a free pass because of my actions to help someone. I was late (which was morally wrong), but I was late because I was helping another person (which was morally right).
ReplyDeleteevery day we are presented with options on how our actions will play out. We do not know what the out comes will be like Kant says and thereby, we are acting out of duty like you said. It is morally right to try and help others for the sake of helping others not for compensation because of it. When we are presented with two options to a problem we should always pick the right and moral one. The problem comes when we are presented with two right options or two wrong ones and we must pick. This can make for a sticky situation. Just like the Ax Murderer situation we told in class. Sometimes it is right to lie. We are unaware of the consequences, but if we had good intentions then it is justifiable.
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