Immanuel Kant: Duty and Reason Essay

The natural feation of an individual is said to depend on lots of f operationors. The value of these hazardions is weighed based on the different manoeuvre of views of benignants. Immanuel Kant, a philosopher, classifies the clean-living cost(predicate) of an action through the use of two concepts employment and reason. Acting based on barter and reason plenty be better understand by looking at these slicks from Kants point of view and by means of thoroughly analyzing the arguments presented to consider an acts chaste outlayy.Considering the case that a economize loves his wife because he loves her such that he has an argument to be faithful to her, Kants view for this example will be that this case has no incorrupt worth. For Kant, the foundation of goodity is affair. The factor that causes human to be moral beingnesss is their concern and the factor to be considered in determine the moral of an act is the someones will to come close his business. (www. ip f. edu, n. d. ) On the early(a) hand, a keep ups act to remain loyal to his wife as a liaison of handicraft, although he finds it decidedly unpleasant will be considered by Kant to bring on a moral worth.A moral action has a moral worth not because of the effect of the action itself save because of the value that the action done according to duty that was set by the fellowship. (Abbott, 1907) For Kant, the fact that the action is done only for duty alone is in itself makes the action to contain a moral worth. (Herman, 1981) It refers mainly to duty being implemented through the law that makes an action of moral worth. (www. philosophypages. com, n. d. )The moral worth of both(prenominal) cases potentiometer be better understood through differentiating performing in consistency with duty and playacting from duty. Acting in accordance with duty has no moral worth since it is simply an act that conforms to duty as guided by self-interest. Acting from duty, on the other hand , is an act that is done because the duty is requiring it. It means that actions will only gestate a moral worth if they are performed from duty while those actions that are taken as caused by self-interest that accords with duty for whatever reason, have no moral worth.In the example of a husband that loves his wife overdue to two reasons, we buns speculate that the early case, which is harming the wife because the husband has an inclination to love her is considered by Kant to be of no moral worth since the husband does not love his wife from duty. He erect loves the wife because it is his self-interest that motivates him to love her. In that appearance, he loves according to self-interest that just so happen to be in accord with loving from duty. Thus, he is loving his wife in accordance with duty and is thus it has no moral worth.For the second example of loving which is loving his wife because it is his duty as a husband even if he finds it unpleasant, this act has mor al worth for Kant because the act is done out of the need to follow duty. The husband loves his wife because it should be his action towards his wife as it is set by the laws and rule of the society. Even if he will not gain self-pleasure from it, he is still doing it because it is his duty as husband to love his wife. Thus, he is acting from duty and his act contains moral worth for Kant.Upon understanding Kants philosophy, I can say that he has a computable point on why he believed that the moral worth of an act is based on the duty that forces a person to commit such act. The good thing about his account of moral worth is that an act can be considered to have a moral worth if that is done without self-interest provided is done only as dictated by duty. His philosophy is good in a smell out because it can assess the moral worth of a person in terms of the responsibility that he should prolong and not only acting as a result of his own decision in order to gain pleasure from it.However, I resist with him. I believe that if an act is done whether for the sake of following your duty or the laws implemented by the society as based from their reasoning, an act can still have a moral worth depending overly on its effect on the society. For me, I conjecture that what Kant is trying to say is that the moral worth in different cases that we have to make a decision or an act lies on the will to follow the duty itself. It only means that the one of moral worth is the ability to follow duties or the rules and not the act itself.If we are doing something even if we can just derived pleasure or get something out of it, as long as we dont step on the rights of others and can contribute to our society, our acts can still have moral worth. In line with this, I can say that acting from duty is morally right as head as acting according to duty as long as our interests do not conflict with the violation of the rights of another people. I think that pursuing self-inter est that will lead to the good of other people, as in the case of Mother Teresa, is morally worth.The self-interest in that sense does not conflict with the violation of the rights of others, but instead, it leads to the good of the needy. Hence, it still has its moral worth. For example, a lifeguard is saving the lives of drowning people, even if he doesnt postulate too and what he is doing is just a burden for him has a moral worth. Also, a lifeguard that is saving the lives of drowning people and expecting in return that he will receive a word of thank you from the people that he saved still has a moral worth.This is because, I think, that no matter what motivates you to do an act as long as it can process others and does not bypass human rights, that act has a moral worth. In the case of a lifeguard, saving people as caused by duty and saving people as caused by an expectation to receive a word of thanks are both morally correct. It is because the fact that the lifeguard has saved a life no matter what is the reason that makes me considered it to have a moral worth.I also believe that morality is inhering depending on a persons bringing up, culture, experiences and way of thinking. unmatched act can be of moral value to a person but for some, may be the like act has little or no moral worth at all. That is, morality lies on for each one one of us and that the effect that it can make to ourselves and especially to our society will greatly dictates its moral worth. Different societies may evaluate the same act to have a different moral worth. A way to explain this is by looking at the case of Eskimos.For Eskimos, offering their wives to have sex with a invitee is a polite action as a way of entertaining a visitor. In their way, their act has a moral worth because they are acting from duty. However, if a wife from other country will ask his husband that she wants to have sex with their guest as a way of entertaining the guest, the action is resulting f rom self-interest and not from duty that is dictated by the culture. Thus, it does not have a moral worth. This explains that the value of moral worth is subjective to culture, and to the specific society itself.Thus, in conclusion, I can say that the first case of loving a wife that was mentioned, which is loving as motivated by inclination, has moral worth because he is still doing his responsibility or duty even if he really wants to do it as directed by his emotion. The second case, which is loving because that is dictated by duty, also contains a moral value, although lesser than the first one. For me, its moral worth is less than the first because he is not loving his wife whole heartedly but only loving her because he is required by his duty.I think that in general, Kants possibleness is good but is lacking in a certain verbalism that greatly affects the action of human, which is emotions. This is because aside from intellectual reasoning, we also have emotions and that the se emotions can also dictate us on how we are going to act. Whether we act from duty or we act in accordance with duty as directed by self-interest which is controlled by emotions, our action can both have moral worth. Thus, in summary Kant had contributed a view about the reason for ones act in terms of the legal opinion of the action.However, it is limited and there must be other factors to be considered in assessing the moral value of ones act, in which his theory must contain. Works Cited Abbott, T. K. (1907). Immanuel Kant Duty Is Prior to Happiness.Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Retrieved zero(prenominal)ember 22, 2007 from http//books. google. com/books? id=Y2oIobRXrWIC&pg=PA92&ots=lqnR0qrkHw&dq= On+the+Va lue+of+Acting+from+the+ motivation+of+Duty,&ei=wT9FR63gI4KktAPBgYXbBg&sig=Z8 QYGzRw_L9lc eC8Xkj1_JOZjKA Herman, Barbara, (1981). On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty.The Philosophical Review. Volume 90, No. 3 pp 359-382. Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http//links. jstor. org/sici? sici=0031- 8108(198107)90%3A3%3C359%3AOTVOAF%3E2. 0. CO%3B2- B www. ipfw. edu. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http//209. 85. 173. 104/search? q=cache_3cincyqJb0Jwww. ipfw. edu/phil/faculty/Esteve z/Kant. ppt+Duty+and+Reason-+immanuel+Kant&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us www. philosophypages. com. (n. d. ). Kant The Moral Order. Retrieved November 22, 2007 from http//www. philosophypages. com/hy/5i. htm.