Kantian Ethics

Question 0

What is a hypothetical imperative?

Answer 0

It is concerned with our desires, if we want X then we ought to do Y. It applies for non-moral acts.

Question 1

What is an imperative?

Answer 1

A command which you ought to do all the time.

Question 2

What is a categorical imperative?

Answer 2

We have certain obligations which we must follow regardless of situations or desires.

Question 3

Categorical imperative: Principle of universal law

Answer 3

What we propose to do must be able to be applied to all people ad all society, for it to be morally valid, the agent must not carry out the act unless he or she believes that, in the same situation all people can carry out the same act.

Question 4

Kant quote about principle of universal law

Answer 4

“There is only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

Question 5

Categorical imperative: treat humans as an end in themselves.

Answer 5

We shouldn’t use humans for our own desires, we should value humans as people and not as objects for our own gain.

Question 6

Kant quote about principle of humans as ends in themselves

Answer 6

“So act that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other human, never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end”.

Question 7

Categorical imperative: principle of Act as if you live in a kingdom of Ends

Answer 7

We need to imagine ourselves making laws in a kingdom of people who are ends in themselves.

Question 8

Kant quote about Kingdom of ends

Answer 8

“So act as if you were through your maxim a law-making member of s Kingdom of ends”.

Question 9

The three parts of Kant’s new system

Answer 9

The critique of pure reason - 1781, critique of practical reason - 1788, critique of judgement - 1793.

Question 10

How is human knowledge limited?

Answer 10

Our sense experience and and knowledge is subjective.

Question 11

Human being and the phenomenal world

Answer 11

We are trapped within the phenomenal world of time and space. Practical and pure reason cannot take us into the noumenal world.

Question 12

How was Kant’s world view Platonic?

Answer 12

He saw reality in terms beyond any possible experience. Prized truth that human beings have.

Question 13

A priori

Answer 13

Judgements are independent of sensory experience. They apply universally and may not be consistent with experience.

Question 14

A posteriori

Answer 14

Dependent on sensory experience and so are contingent.

Question 15

Analytic judgements

Answer 15

Those whose predicates are contained in their subjects. All analytic judgements are known a priori, but not all a priori judgements are known analytically true.

Question 16

Synthetic judgements

Answer 16

Those whose predicates are wholly distinct from their subjects and thus informative. All posteriori judgements are synthetic, but not all synthetic judgements are a posteriori.

Question 17

Kant and analytical, a posteriori judgements

Answer 17

They do not arise, since there is no need to appeal to existence.

Question 18

Kant and synthetic, a posteriori judgements

Answer 18

They are common every day knowledge based on experience.

Question 19

Kant and synthetic, a priori judgements

Answer 19

They are the only possibility for providing new information that is necessarily true.

Question 20

Good will: universal will

Answer 20

Humans have the potential to be rational. Only when they act on the basis of universal will are they fully human and good.

Question 21

Good will: Free character

Answer 21

Human beings care about others, we are social and emotional.

Question 22

Good will: instincts

Answer 22

We are animals with instincts. Those are positive and essential to life. But we fall short of the potential to be rational and free.

Question 23

Freedom

Answer 23

Essential part of being human. Goodness comes from being fully human, having a free rational character.

Question 24

Duty

Answer 24

A human who does not do their duty is less than human; it is our duty to fulfil human nature, to be free and rational.

Question 25

Equality

Answer 25

All human beings are intrinsically valuable. People are not more valuable because we know or like them, or vice versa.

Question 26

Happiness

Answer 26

The only way of justifying moral behaviour is with reference to some greater good, which comes from people deferring their own interests. The existence of eternal life is necessary in a fair universe.

Question 27

Radical evil

Answer 27

We are free is an inevitable assumption, evil is innate in humans

Question 28

Radical evil - metaphysical trust

Answer 28

There is a deep sense of metaphysical trust - ‘moral striving is seen as a totality , we discover fairness in the universe’

Question 29

Kant and belief in God

Answer 29

He believed God existed as a crucial part of the universe and believed in God as otherwise the universe would be

Question 30

Goethe quote about radical evil

Answer 30

“Kant had criminally smeared his philosophies cloak with the shameful stain of radical evil”.

Question 31

When does radical evil occur?

Answer 31

When human bed freely choose an evil maxim.

Question 32

Moral regeneration, what two contradictory things does he claim?

Answer 32

Once an individual succumbs to radical evil, then regeneration cannot occur.
“At the same time it must be possible to overcome evil since it occurs in man”.

Question 33

Radical evil and moral regeneration

Answer 33

Radical evil corrupts human beings so that they cannot regenerate themselves.

Question 34

Kant quote on moral regeneration corruption

Answer 34

“…a man is corrupt in they very ground of his maxims how can he possibly bring about this by his own powers and of himself become a good man?”