Evaluation of Kant

Question 1

Strength: use

Answer 1

Principle of universal law seems to provide a useful principle in making moral decisions. It bears some similarities to the golden rule of religion ‘Treat others how you would wish them to treat you.” Treats each person equally and stops us making ourselves a special case.

Question 2

Strength: bias

Answer 2

Kantian ethics is impartial and less prone to personal bias, Does not use emotion

Question 3

Strength: equality

Answer 3

Kantian ethics respects the intrinsic value of persons. This enables a concept of rights to be used. This is a favourable contrast with theories like utilitarianism where persons are only instrumentally valuable and the idea of rights is nonsense on stilts

Question 4

Weakness: outcome matters

Answer 4

Intuitively it seems that the outcome does matter. Although we may have told the truth to the murderer seeking the whereabouts of his victim, we would feel guilty if our honesty led to their death. This suggests that Kant is wrong to ignore the outcome.

Question 5

Weakness: abstract and ideal

Answer 5

Too abstract and theoretical; offers perfect solutions based on a hypothetical kingdom of ends, yet it cannot cope with a real world where emotion and immorality occurs. Also does not fare to well where we have to choose the lesser of two evils

Question 6

Weakness: should do

Answer 6

Kantian ethics is better at showing things we ought not to do rather than showing what we should do.
There are number of strange maxims that could be universalised and do not treat persons as means to an end

Question 7

Thomas Nagel

Answer 7

says that Kant’s theory ignores the situation that the person is in when they are making this decision, so this ignores the circumstances that the moral action is being performed in.