Friday, September 26, 2014
The two must coincide to right
In today's lecture an interesting topic arose in what Kant believes to contain moral value. Kant believed that an action done from duty has its moral worth if the action done follows a formal principle. To many that is an obvious statement, but to take such a simple yet abstract concept and give it guidelines that make sense in even today's society is remarkable. It is even MORE remarkable that Kant came up with so many years ago. Kant believed that there is an objective principle which is a principle that any RATIONAL person would deem to be true. On the other hand Kant describes what subjective principle is, which is nothing more than the principles a person follows to produce an action. The hardest part for me to grab about this concept is that there is no right subjective principle. That relies solely on the agent. However, the objective principle remains constant and does not change no matter what the moral agent does.
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Kant was a very influential philosopher and I agree that it is remarkable for him to come up with the ideas he had in the 18th century. As far as subjective principles go, if I understood correctly, they are supposed to end in taking away some kind of experience (which means it does rely on the agent). There is no "right" subjective principle because it ends in what you want to take away from a situation. On the other hand, objective principles are not produced by action or altered by relations with things other than us. I believe that Kant's ideas are definitely applicable in society nowadays.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely relate with your astonishment. It was a major philosophical achievement to logically provide a proof for a moral standard, and Kant shows his skill by making the assertion in such a concise manner. Personally though I found it more surprising that such an accomplishment had not been made sooner. The topic of moral has been one of the most important topics for human society, so it's shocking and almost depressing that it took us so long to provide an answer that didn't employ esoteric arguments.
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