Religious Education

Ethics 4
Today

 Looking back
 Learning objectives
 Kantian ethics
 24/7
Looking back

 What is Jeremy Bentham’s ethical philosophy?

 What is John Stuart Mill’s ethical philosophy?
 What are the (dis)advantages of utilitarianism?
 How does hedonistic calculus work?
Learning objectives

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to…

 Explain what deontology means
 Understand the strengths and weaknesses of deontology
 Connect deontology to Kant’s ethical philosophy
 Explain Kant’s categorical imperatives
 Apply the categorical imperatives to different ethical situations
Kant

 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is considered one of the most important European

philosophers
 Kant’s philosophy is part of the Enlightenment
 Kant defined the Enlightenment as follows: “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des
Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit.”
 “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage.”
 Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance.
Kant

Important background information on Kant:

 His health was extremely poor, which means he was unable to leave the
house.
 All his information on the world came from books or through (invited) guests 
one-sided and distant
 Kant was a physicist: he was looking for the laws and principles of the world
around us.
 From this same point of view he approached ethics: he was looking for universal
principles and rules
 Kant

 Kant described the categorical

imperative
 Categorical: universal, it applies
to everyone and every situation
 Imperative: a rule, something you
have to do
Kant

This categorical imperative consists of two principles:

1. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will
that it should become a universal law without contradiction.”
Always act in such a way that you would be willing for it to become a general law
that everyone else should do in the same situation.

Video
Kant

2. “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or
in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at
the same time as an end.”
People should always be treated as valuable (as an end in themselves) and should
not be used in order to achieve something else. They should never be tricked,
manipulated or bullied into things.
Deontology

 Deontology  duty ethics

 An action is morally right when the motivation for the action is right
 For Kant, this motivation is always the duty to do the right thing (in other
words: that which complies with the categorical imperative)
 If you do something because it makes you feel better, you have the wrong
motivation
 Duty should not feel good
Criticism

 Many (modern) philosophers find Kant’s ethics too detached

 For example: Martha Nussbaum
Suppose you’re in hospital for a prolonged period of time. Only one classmate
cares to visit you and no one else. This classmate visits you every week. After
one such visit you ask this classmate: why do you visit me? Your classmate
answers: because it is my duty. How would you feel?
 There are two patient in the waiting room
at the hospital. Both patients suffer from a
new and deadly virus, which is highly
contageous. They will both die if they are
Deontology or not treated, but there is only one dose of
consequentialism? the cure available.
 What should you do according to
Bentham?
 What should you do according to Kant?
 1. 486-487 duty ethics

Duty ethics 2. 487 Kant’s approach to ethics

24/7: 3. 488 Kant’s approach to ethics

summarize your 4. 489 Kant’s approach to ethics

excerpt in 7 5. 489-490 value and dignity

keywords and 6. 490 The importance of motives (1st paragraph)

present in no 7. 490 The importance of motives (2nd paragraph)

more than 24 8. 491 Criticisms of Kant

seconds 9. 492-493 Conflicts of duty

10. 493 Moral coldness