1 / 14

Social Ethics continued

Social Ethics continued. Immanuel Kant John Rawls. Immanuel Kant. Expanding on Individual Morality, “Duties To One’s Self,” Kant explores our duties to others For Kant, our own happiness and “good,” brought about by Self-Duty, must be qualified by an Other-Duty to remain pure.

heidi
Télécharger la présentation

Social Ethics continued

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Social Ethics continued Immanuel Kant John Rawls

  2. Immanuel Kant • Expanding on Individual Morality, “Duties To One’s Self,” Kant explores our duties to others • For Kant, our own happiness and “good,” brought about by Self-Duty, must be qualified by an Other-Duty to remain pure

  3. Duty Grounded In Reason • Kant’s Other-Duty is Noconsequentialist, that is, it has nothing to do with results, only with the actions themselves • Moral Law is universal and binding: it applies to all things • Humans, as rational beings, are capable of acting in accordance with this law, and so we must: this is our Other-Duty

  4. The Categorical Imperative 1 • “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” • Moral laws should operate as rules that cannot be contradicted and that apply to everyone

  5. Categorical Imperative 1, cont. • For example, “Never help others, but always be helped by them” doesn’t work, because of its logical inconsistency • A moral rule, or “maxim,” has to be logical in order to be acceptable as a guiding principle: Reason is the Rule

  6. Categorical Imperative 2 • “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.” • We can never exploit others for our own ends: there must be a respect for the humanity of the all

  7. Formalistic Criteria • Universality: it applies in all events • Rationality: it must be reasonable • Consistency: it must be consistent in all cases • Reversibility: it must be reversible in all cases • Prescriptivity: it must prescribe or condemn • Impartiality: it must apply to all people, and • Unconditionality: we can’t avoid morality just because we want to - it is binding

  8. John Rawls (1921- 2002) • American philosopher born in Baltimore, Maryland • Studied at Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1950 • Rejected Utilitarianism for a system of his own creation: A Theory of Justice

  9. Social Contract Theory • Rawls based his ideas on the Social Contract notions of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant • The idea is that we all live and function together based on unspoken agreements which make this possible

  10. The Identity of Interests • In society, social cooperation allows for a better life for all than would be possible for any single person surviving through their own efforts • These are all defined and adopted according to an agreement about the meaning of “justice”

  11. The Original Position • Rawls’ basic concept states that, in a hypothetical Original Position of humanity, we exist behind a Veil of Ignorance which keeps us from knowing who we will be and what will become of us when we exit the Original Position and enter the world

  12. The Original Position, cont. • Rawls explores this idea in order to determine which principles of justice and equality we would all agree to from within the Original Position: not knowing where we’ll land, what can we all agree to about how we should organize society?

  13. Equal Liberty & Difference • Two principles derive from the OP: • Equal Liberty: one should have as much freedom as is possible which doesn’t impinge on another’s freedom; and • Difference: difference leads to some necessary inequalities, which are acceptable only in that they serve society as a whole

  14. The Maximin Solution • Rawls thus arrives at his Maximin Solution: that choice among choices with the best possible “worst outcome” is the correct choice in a situation • We should maximize results for those who are minimally advantaged

More Related