CHAPTER 6 - Deontological Ethics Flashcards
The historical origin of this particular moral theory can be traced back to the
early beginning of human civilization,
early beginning of human civilization,
“at a time when the_____ of the chief, or the king, [or God or any other recognized authority for that matter was given unconditionally and without invitation to appeal on the basis of_________”
word
consequences
the commands or edict of the ones in authority and power are something that are taken and obeyed without any further____ or ____
question or objection
Once the commands and orders are given and handed out from above, everyone below is expected to follow unconditionally and “without any______.”
qualification
is something absolute or categorical.
Obedience
one is not expected to pose any question but is asked to take the command as it is given.
No ___ and no ___.
No IF and No BUT
“It just tells [one] what [one] must do or not do”
Deontological Ethics
Thus, the____ of the king, the president, the ruler, the lord, the boss, the CEO, the State, the Party, the master, or the chieftain, is the law
word
This kind of theory is sometimes called Deontological (from the____ root word _____ or ____meaning “to be obligated.” or simply “duty’
Greek
“dein” or “deon”
In this kind of theory or philosophy, an act or conduct is considered good or right, thus justified morally, not by showing that it has good and beneficial consequences or effects but by virtue of its being an action that emanates from a sense of duty or moral obligation.
Deontological Theory
Due to its central emphasis on the significance and value of duty or obligation as the main motivation or intention in human actions, this theory in ethics has also come to be known in philosophy as ______ or ______.
Deontological theory or Deontological ethics
Deontological or simply______, recognizes only those actions that are done out of pure duty as the ones having moral worth.
Everything else does not give an act any moral value or ethical significance.
Duty ethics
avid defender of Deontological theory in modern times
the great______ philosopher
Immanuel Kant
German
philosopher whose remarkable contributions to the history of philosophical thought put him on the same level with the greatest of the greats among the world’s foremost thinkers.
Immanuel Kant
is recognized as the most important
philosopher who has ever lived.
The entirety of his philosophic
corpus, in the words of an author, is “brilliant, profound, rich, complex, and fascinating”
Kant
no other thinker has contributed as many important and brilliant ideas to the philosophical study of ethics as_____.
Kant
____ claims that what makes an act right/good and wrong/bad does not depend on its results or consequences since all these are simply beyond one’s control–hence a matter of luck or accident.
Kant
for him, morality, as the sole and exclusive domain of rational beings, should be something of which one should have total control.
Kant
If one is indeed fully accountable of his action and conduct, then____ or ____ should be taken out of the equation.
chance or luck
guides human actions at all times and in all situations.
maxim
the center of Kant’s ethical philosophy is his primary emphasis on the importance of____ and the unqualified rational nature of moral principles.
Such a philosophy is indeed “a strict, hardheaded, and uncompromising view of morality”
reason
At the very outset of his (Kant’s) brilliant philosophical work, ______________ (published in 1785),
Grounding for the Meraphysics of Morals
Grounding for the Meraphysics of Morals
Kant writes: “Nothing…can be called good without qualification except a_____.”
good will
Having a_______, or rather acting in _______ means doing an act with the right intentions or motives, in accordance with the right maxims or principles, doing one’s duty or obligation for its own sake (“Duty for duty’s sake”) rather than for personal gain or self-interest.
good will
In Kant, morality is primarily, if not solely, a matter of ____ or ____and not a matter of what one can gain or achieve in acting.
motive or intention
If one’s____ in doing an act is good and noble, regardless of its consequences or results (even if they are not beneficial to you), then it’s good and thus your conduct is morally praise-worthy. You ought to be congratulated for doing “the right thing.
As far as the ethics of Kant is concerned, that’s all that matters.
motive
A_______ is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition, that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favor of any inclination, nay, even of the sum total of all inclinations.
good will
the worth of an action lies on the _______ rather than the external effects that one can derive from the act.
inner motive
heart of Kant’s ethics
-doing the good because it’s good,
nothing more and nothing less.
Kant’s ethics is an ethics that is primarily based on_____.
The_____ is good if it does its duty out of pure reverence to the moral law.
good will
(who awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumbers) who held that we act primarily on inclination
David Hume
Duty over Inclination
(doing the thing that one feels like doing, and thus no obligation exists)
inclination
Duty over Inclination
He believes that “a person is only acting morally only when he suppresses his/her feelings and inclinations and does that which he/she is obliged to do”
Kant
Duty over Inclination
Hence, if one’s reason for acting is simply out from one’s ____ or ____ and as such no demand or obligation is present (for one is just acting on what one finds pleasant and beneficial), one cannot be said to be performing a moral action:
taste or inclination/feeling
Duty over Inclination
The only act that is worthy to be called moral is an act that is done not out of inclination but one that is done out of_____
——————————————————
“Doing one’s ____ is doing something that one is not inclined or willing to do, but that he/she does because he/she recognizes that he/she ought to do it; an obligation exists and he/she must fulfill it”
duty
Duty over Inclination
“[o]ur duties cannot consist simply in following rules that promote pleasure and the avoidance of pain as the utilitarians claim, since that would make right actions depend upon_____, on how well they satisfied our desires”
consequences
Duty is Superior to Happiness
For Kant, as we said, the rightness or wrongness of an act is not determined by its outcomes or results but by its ________
________________________________________
“lying is morally wrong not because it results in the experience of pain instead of pleasure [say, we will be scolded by our parents and will be grounded for a week] but because it is wrong in itself regardless of the consequences. The same goes true for breaking a promise, cheating and the like”
intrinsic property
Duty is Superior to Happiness
According to Kant, “anytime [we do a certain act] voluntarily, [we] operate under some kind of___, rule or directive”
maxim
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
A____ is one which is the guiding reason or principle for acting under a particular situation.
________________________________________
_______are most likely to come [only] to people’s attention and to be made_____ when they are asked to justify their behaviors to others or when….they are asked to justify their actions to themselves”
maxim
“[i]mplicit maxims
explicit
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
____ are part and parcel of our daily conduct and behavior, whether we are aware of them or not.
_____is a personal and subjective guiding principle on which we act or behave as contrary to an objective and external principle or rule upon which we should act.
maxim
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
__________ many believed, is where Kant makes his greatest and lasting contribution to ethical thought.
categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
Kant introduces the concept of______, which holds that we must universalize our moral judgments.
It states that we must apply the judgments we make to everyone, without exception..
universalization
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
tells us that it is morally wrong to act on a maxim that we could not will to be a universal law.
Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
What has to be universalized is not the act per se but the maxim of the act.
The main point here is the very motive of action.
Categorical Imperative
Kant’s ________ is expressed in a number of different ways, but undisputedly, the most popular formulation is:
Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
essence of morality lies in acting on the basis of an impersonal principle that is valid for every person, including oneself
Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
_____that cannot be universalized or applied to all without exception on a consistent basis are immoral,
Maxims
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
is essentially a sort of a test of which actions are said to be permissible or justifiable.
categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
“In applying the______ test to
specific situations, if a particular act fails this test, then it is said to be wrong or immoral, hence not permissible or morally forbidden”
universality
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
It is then wrong or immoral to behave in ways that you could not reasonably and honestly be willing to have everyone else act
Categorical Imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
holds true for everyone in this world and even outside of it. This is morality’s supreme and ultimate
principle.
categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative: The Universalizability Principle
famous Kantian formulation of the categorical imperative concerns respect for the dignity of persons? oftentimes referred to as simply the _____ or _____
Principle of Ends
or
Principle of Humanity.
For Kant every human being has a supreme worth and profound dignity due to the fact that he is a rational agent.
This means that because of the ability to think one is able to decide what particular goals to pursue and generally what one wants to do with his life.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
One’s essential dignity therefore mainly lies on the person’s capacity to determine his own _____ or ____ as a self-directed and conscious being.
destiny or end
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
as a self-conscious and self-determining creature, the person as an end can never be subjected to any form of ______ and _____as if he is just any other object that can be used to serve some other ends rather than as an end in himself.
manipulation and exploitation
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
Kant asks “if there were a categorical imperative, what would its end be? Who does it serve? Since every action has an end and since the categorical imperative is binding on everyone, its end must be given by reason alone and so equally valid for all rational beings”
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
The answer for Kant is that
“all rational beings exist as ends in themselves. As end in themselves, human beings have value that is absolute and unconditional”
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
________are the ends or the goals by which the categorical imperative serves.
human persons
° So act so as to treat humanity whether in your own person or that of any other always as an end and never as a means only.
second formulation
Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
First/ most popular formulation
we are not mere objects.
We have unconditioned worth and so must treat all such value-givers as valuable in themselves - as end, not merely means.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
persons with absolute and unconditional dignity and value, everyone should be treated with utmost respect.
Persons are not ____ or ____that are to be used to further one’s interests.
instruments or tools
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
We cannot use_____ to achieve our own goals and happiness.
As we have just said, by virtue of their rationality, people can decide for themselves.
They can direct their own
actions and thus determine their own destiny.
people
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
people’s worth Is something_____.
They are valuable in themselves and deserve our esteem and respect.
intrinsic
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
Unlike things or objects that only have conditional value and worth (since they only have value because people endowed them with such, and if people stop desiring them, they will be worthless),_____ then are the source of all conditional value.
people
nobody then can give human beings their worth as persons, nor can this be taken away without destroying their very identities.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
is something that is intrinsic in us.
It makes us who we are.
You take it away and the person simply ceases to be.
Human dignity
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
This particular principle may seem, at first glance, to be impractical to apply in our dealings with others in daily affairs. It seems that we cannot help but treat others as means in several ways and in many instances.
Like for instance, in riding a jeepney to school, are we not using the other (the driver) to serve our end (to reach our destination)? Or even on the part of the driver, is he not using us only as a means to get what he wants (money from us)?
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
This implies that even in a seemingly impersonal transaction, such as riding on a jeepney and thinking only for ourselves (as we are only interested for the services that the driver provides for us),
“we can easily imagine Kant admonishing us never to act rudely so as to treat the other merely as a thing through whom we can only get what we want”
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
this second formulation of Kant of the categorical imperative is that he explicitly insists we should also treat our own very selves with respect just like the way we treat others.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
Kant teaches us that we all have the moral obligation to ourselves and not just to others. It is for this reason that Kant himself strongly considers killing oneself (suicide) as wrong and thus morally impermissible.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
Kant shows that morality does not only concern others but also ourselves.
The personal dimension of morality is
oftentimes forgotten in other ethical theories (such as in Utilitarianism) that give emphasis only on the social aspect. In Kant, as we have just mentioned, morality covers both the personal as well as the social domains of human existence.
The Principle of Humanity (Respect for Persons)
“for without personal_____, morality becomes an impossibility”
autonomy
The Autonomy of the Will (Kingdom of Ends)
The action in this sense becomes_______ simply because it is done without any external incentives or rewards that may come out of it (thus, the act is done purely for duty and nothing else).
autonomous
The Autonomy of the Will (Kingdom of Ends)
we can speak truly of the will (being the seat of choices where one’s motives or intentions emanate) as _____
autonomous
The Autonomy of the Will (Kingdom of Ends)
“When as autonomous and rational moral agents) we do things following universally valid rules and principles that we have laid down for ourselves, we become part in what Kant calls as the “_____”
kingdom of ends”
The Autonomy of the Will (Kingdom of Ends)
kind of an ideal moral universe in which respect for the intrinsic worth and value of all persons is exercised by everyone”
kingdom of ends”
The Autonomy of the Will (Kingdom of Ends)
in this noble realm, eyerybody treats everyone as end in themselves. No one uses anyone to serve or further his or her ends.
Kingdom of Ends
In this kingdom of ends, everyone is_____.
Each one’s dignity is glorified.
Every person is a noble and valuable subject who is always cherished and is never possessed.
equal
