Kant and Reasons
Kant and Mill’s ideas of morality are vastly different with reasoning being one of the largest aspects of this difference. Mill clearly believes that only the consequences should be taken into account when deciphering the morality of an action while reasons are a large part in Kant’s categorical imperative theory. One specific act Kant writes about is suicide. He states that it is immoral to kill yourself because if you do it, you are doing it out of “self-love” to stop the pain and suffering you are experiencing in your life. But according to Kant, self-love is the inclination to preserve life, contradicting the inclination to stop life because of self-love, therefore, this action would be immoral. Through this example, Kant illustrates how reasons decide what is moral and what is immoral.
If this were Mill, he would probably agree with Kant that it was immoral, but not in the same way. According to Mill, the morality of an action is based solely on its outcome. If the overall happiness was calculated, or if past experiences were used, we would conclude that killing yourself is immoral because it decreases overall happiness. Your happiness would be neutralized, but all of the people who love you would be greatly dissatisfied, therefore, making suicide immoral.
Even though both philosophers would probably agree on the fact that suicide is not the right thing to do, they would have some disagreement on how they arrived at this conclusion. This example demonstrates how different Mill and Kant’s ideas really are.
The Categorical Imperative
On Wednesday Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative was defined and discussed. It states an action is only moral if it can be willed into using universal law by using the categorical imperative. It is kind of a formula to find out what is right and what is wrong. But, in contradiction to Mill, he believes that there are NO exceptions to this rule. If you use this formula, and the answer is that it is immoral, there are no instances in which it can be labeled as a moral action. This is very different than Mill’s statements, which seem to always have exception. So which one is right?
The example I will use is one we have brought up in class a few times: The man who kills his daughter because she is in constant pain and a miraculous recovery is impossible. The maxim would be that to (a) spare the girls pain and suffering, you must (b) kill the girl. Could this be willed into universal law?
If this was universal law, euthanasia would be practiced whenever someone was terminally ill and there was no possibility of recovery. It would be very much accepted, as opposed to how it is viewed today. Although, whenever someone became seriously ill, there would be no hope at all, and that person would immediately be put to death. I think that euthanasia could be willed into universal law, no matter how uncomfortable one may feel when thinking about it now, and therefore, according to Kant, making the father’s action of killing his daughter a moral action.
I’m not sure if I got this right, but I am hoping that I have somewhat of a decent understanding of this concept.
Kant and Good Will
On Tuesday, Kant was introduced and his idea that what makes an action moral is if it is done out of good will, contrary to Mill’s idea that states that an action is moral if it increases overall happiness. Kant believes that good will is the most important characteristic a person can have and that fulfilling your duty is the most moral thing you can possibly do. When you do something with no alternative motives other than to do what is right, you are being moral. The topic of giving to charity was discussed thoroughly I somewhat agree with Kant, but not completely.
I believe that giving to charity out of duty without receiving any compensation whatsoever, whether it be financial or emotional, it is the most noble thing to do. However, just because you do receive compensation, that should not make your action void of any moral substance, especially if your primary reason for giving to charity is because of duty. It is still the right thing to do and you are still fulfilling your duty, but you just so happen to be getting something out of it. I think that Kant is partially right, but there is no way that the only actions that are moral are the ones performed coldly without any satisfaction coming from them.
Calculations take too much time
On Thursday, the objection that the calculations of overall happiness when dealing with utilitarianism take too long was brought up. If we have to take into account everybody’s happiness that will be affected before we make a moral decision, it will take forever, and we will completely miss the oppurtunity to make that decision. Mill responds by saying that calculations are not always necessary because we can base these decisions on similar past experiences. This is where most rules come from. After learning that something decreases overall happiness, one makes it a rule to NOT do that thing, such as hitting, stealing, and lying.
I believe that this is a difficult point to be made because no two situations are exactly the same. We of course know not to kill because we have seen it cause a lot of grief and pain, but what about the example Rachels brings up of the father who killed his daughter because she had a horrible disease that caused her pain every second of her life? The father did not learn from what he knew of murder. If this father wanted to look to the past to find a moral perspective on this situation, he would have to look to a murder with similar reasons, which means that utilitarianism has to take reasons into account, and not just consequences of an action.
Is utilitarianism too high of a standard?
Today in class we discussed the objection to utilitarianism which states that it is too high a standard for the population. The objectors believe that people will not always base their decisions on the common good of society, which Mill actually agrees with. He says that we hardly ever have to make decisions based on morality anyway, and when we do have to, even if we do not perform an action just because it is moral, but it still increases overall happiness, it is acceptable. He also responds to the argument by saying that it is a problem with all of morality, and not just utilitarianism. Mill uses this excuse repetatively and I think hurts his argument. To me, by saying this, he is admitting that utilitarianism has the same problems as the rest of all moral theories, so why should we follow it? His job is to persuade us to see that utilitarianism is the most logical morality to follow, but he is not doing his job right. He is supposed to sell it, but instead, he is saying “You have a choice of all of these products, and honestly, mine isn’t much better than the rest of them, but you should still pick mine because I said so.” At the start of reading Mill I thought he was a pretty smart guy but I’m starting to believe that he doesn’t do such a great job of supporting his arguments.
Expediency
The argument between expediency and morality that Mill brings up is a difficult one. Is lying acceptable in certain situations as long as it increases overall happiness? The two very different examples we discussed were the boy in high school claiming that his mother was really his girlfriend to avoid ridicule and the German citizens telling the Nazis that they were not hiding any Jews while the Frank family was living in their business’ annex. Both increase happiness, so according to utilitarianism, that would make lying moral at times, right?
Mill says that lying makes you liable to keep lying, therefore unraveling our social fabric and causing distrust in society. I disagree with this. I do not think that lying causes a domino effect, but I believe it is immoral. I agree with what Professor Gorges said today: lying is always immoral, but it is sometimes necessary. In the case of Ann Frank, it is necessary for her friends to save a family from death, and in turn, necessary to lie by telling the Nazis that they are not hiding anyone. However, in the boy’s case, the lie is not stopping any other drastically immoral actions besides derision, so it is not necessary.
I think that a lie can never be labeled as moral, but sometimes a lie must be told to prevent a tragedy from happening.
The Ethicist-Utility Judgment
According to Randy Cohen, using one’s personal connections to achieve a goal is an immoral action, contrary to the opinion of a true utilitarianist. In the specific case of Michael Grimaldi and his wife, the problem’s solution increased happiness, which proves that it was moral, no matter what the means. They faced two choices; to be unhappy with the rest of their neighbors without using a relationship to their advantage, or to increase everybody’s happiness by making a phone call with the power they had. After notifying the utility company, instead of waiting with a potentially dangerous utility pole in their yard, the couple used their personal advantages to fix it. To utilitarianism, who cares how they did it? All that matters is the outcome. And by using their advantage, they did improve happiness, which makes their actions moral. Cohen is obviously not speaking with a utilitarianist voice.
Pleasures
I agree with Mill in that there are many more pleasures we as humans feel than what pigs feel. We discussed in class carnal pleasures, such as food, sex, and sleep, intellectual pleasures such as reading and learning, and spiritual pleasures, such as love, achieving a goal, and friendship. However, I disagree with Mill when he says that people enjoy intellectual and spiritual pleasures more than carnal pleasures. I think that it is very difficult to rate how each activity makes you feel because they are all very different and even though they all increase happiness, they do so in different ways. The feeling of happiness one experiences after eating chocolate cake is very different than the feeling of learning more about philosophy.
I believe the main difference between these pleasures is time. Carnal pleasures give you instant gratification while others require hard work at times. Some people do not enjoy working hard to be happy. Most people would rather have a delicious snack and put on the TV after they get home from a long day at work rather than reading about any of Mills ideas, except maybe our professor. Although, the time and work someone puts into a friendship, marriage, or even understanding our textbook can be much more gratifying than taking a nap. So the question is, is it more satisfying to acquire happiness instantaneously, or does putting effort into it make it more rewarding?
The Problem of Evil
For the past six years I have been a strong believer in the Problem of Evil without ever knowing the formal name of it. After experiencing a tragic loss at a young age, I almost immediately resented being brought up Catholic and having the idea that a perfect God is watching over us shoved down my throat. I strongly believe that if this God that I was taught about in religion classes and mass actually existed, he would never allow all the suffering and pain that so many people experience. I think that if he did exist, we would only experience heaven. Why wouldn’t God just eliminate this “middle man” we call life on Earth and send us straight to paradise? This causes me to reject the idea that there is an all-loving, all-powerful God.
However, I am not an atheist. I do believe that there is something out there, but saying that he is all-loving and all-powerful is too concrete for me. How can I assume what is out there? I believe that there is a totally abstract God that we cannot understand because we are mere humans. Because of experiencing a lot of intense pain throughout my life, I do not believe in an all-loving, all-powerful God, but I do believe that there is some version of God that I will never understand as I am living on Earth.
Divine Command Theory
Rachels asks, “Is conduct right because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it is right?” I think that the later is true. As we discussed in class, it is very easy to say that each of us has grown up in a bias society and it is difficult to go back in time and imagine murder being moral in God’s code of conduct, but I highly doubt that God just tossed a coin to decide if murder would be considered good or bad. The Ten Commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill,” because it is immoral to impart pain upon another living being, not just because God says so.
Another reason I do not agree with the Divine Command Theory, but find slightly confusing is in the case of an atheist. Does the theory imply that atheists are immoral or unable to have values? Or does it say that even though someone may not believe in god, they can still practice morality by follow these rules, even though they disagree with where this code of conduct comes from. I believe that religion and morality are independent, therefore no matter what someones stand on religion is, they can be the most moral person they can be.
