Kant_Ethics

Kant Ethics INTRODUCTION: In this paper I will attempt to overview Kantian Ethics and by doing so explain why I believe that Knat’s theories are best suited for making business decisions. 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) presents a criterion of moral obligation, which he calls the categorical imperative. Kant’s account of morality fits squarely into the deontological (Deontology is the study of duty) tradition. Kant’s writings indicate that he was aware of the moral traditions that went before him, such as virtue theory which bases morality on good character traits, and consequential accounts which base morality solely on the consequences of actions. In all of his ethical writings, Kant rejects these traditional theories of morality and argues instead that moral actions are based on a “supreme principle of morality” which is objective, rational, and freely chosen: the categorical imperative. Kant’s Ethics: Kant is the primary proponent in history of deontological ethics. On Kant’s view, the sole feature that gives an action moral worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the action, but the motive that is behind the action. The categorical imperative is Kant’s famous statement of this duty: “Act only according to the maxim by which you can moral, law, kant, imperative, action, morality, categorical, maxim, kant’s, actions, duty, same, rational, nature, must, means, worth, upon, shopkeeper, merely, end, cannot, act, universal, time, test, should, principle, particular, imperatives, good, first, conditional, conception, behind