Morality

Morality

Introduction

The moral philosophy of 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant is still the focus many intellectual debates. According to Kant, the motives are controlled by reasons and one cannot think of anything without some kind of justification and qualification. Kant distinguishes human actions into two categories or types; actions that are motivated by duty and those that are motivated by “good will”. In the first case, a person's man acts in this world, are based on rational morality, where the person does what he or she thinks is good, without having any personal interest behind it. In the second case, according to Kant, a person acts in order to achieve another goal, even when it comes to an apparent moral action (Kant, 1785). It means a person does something good out of his or her personal interest. This paper aims at discussing the dominant features of Kant's moral philosophy, while attempting to identify any shortcomings in his theory.

Discussion

The Kantian morality is not related to theology, with experience, with the social need or even with some goal to be achieved by a person. Kant's writings are quite strict about the principle that should drive man in his actions, and his approach excludes any motivation that is not based on reason. The philosopher rigorously defends what he considers indeed a moral action, excluding the role of pure actions that most of us would applaud with emotions.

Thus, the philosopher expresses himself about his desired principle that should guide the morality when he talks about the prospects of moral philosophy as being pure from any external influence and especially it should be cleared of anything that cannot be judged ethically. This assertion of Kant clearly demonstrates that Kant wants the moral philosophy to be based upon reason alone, without any type of mixing with any other element, which is not rational (King, 1992).

For Kant, the sources of moral philosophy were based on fundamentals misconceptions. The quest for moral perfection, according to him, should not be understood as a basis of legitimate ethical actions. This way, Kant believes, the motivation behind an action would not be the concept of reason, but the motivation would come from one's own moral and spiritual development thereby making the action as a means to achieve a goal, which is opposed by Kant (King, 1992).

The philosopher is of the view that each supposedly moral action motivated by something ...