Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had an interesting ethical system for reasoning. It is
based on a belief that the reason is the final authority for morality. In
Kant’s eyes reason is directly correlated with morals and ideals. Actions of
any sort, he believed, must be undertaken from a sense of duty dictated by
reason, and no action performed for appropriateness or solely in obedience to
law or custom can be regarded as moral. A moral act is an act done for the
"right" reasons. Kant would argue that to make a promise for the wrong
reason is not moral you might as well not make the promise. You must have a duty
code inside of you or it will not come through in your actions otherwise. Our
reasoning ability will always allow us to know what our duty is. Kant described
two types of common commands given by reason: the hypothetical imperative, which
dictates a given course of action to reach a specific end; and the categorical
imperative, which dictates a course of action that must be followed because of
its rightness and necessity. The categorical imperative is the basis of morality
and was stated by Kant in these words: "Act as if the maxim of your action
were to become through your will and general natural law." Therefore,
before proceeding to act, you must decide what rule you would be following if
you were to act, whether you are willing for that rule to be followed by
everyone all over. If you are willing to universalize the act, it must be moral;
if you are not, then the act is morally impermissible. Kant believes that moral
rules have no exceptions. Therefore, it is wrong to kill in all situations, even
those of self-defense. This belief comes from the Universal Law theory. Since we
would never want murder to become a universal law, then it must be not moral in
all situations. Kant believes killing could never be universal, therefore it is
wrong in each and every situation. There are never any extenuating
circumstances, such as self-defense. The act is either wrong or right, based on
his universality law. For example, giving money to a beggar just to get him to
leave you alone would be judged not moral by Kant because it was done for the
wrong reason. With Kant’s belief in mind; if the consequence of immoral
behavior were dealt with in a legal structure, people would be prosecuted for
EVERYTHING since there are no extenuating circumstances. Kant's categorical
imperative is a tri-dynamic statement of philosophical thought:(1) "So act
that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle
establishing universal law."(2) "Act so as to treat humanity, whether
in your own person in that of another, always as an end and never as a means
only.'(3) "Act according to the maxims if a universally legislative member
of a merely potential kingdom of ends." In other words, Kant argues that
particular action requires conscious thought of the rule governing the action.
Whether if everyone should follow that rule, and if the rule is acceptable for
universal action, it should be adopted. If the rule is unacceptable, then it
should be rejected. In order to understand whether or not an action follows
Kant's "categorical imperative," we must prescribe those norms that we
wish to be universal laws. These norms are created through value judgments based
on issues of justice between persons or groups (nations, etc.) of persons.
Kant's theories discuss the ethical questions that determine impartial
consideration of conflicting interest in issues of justice. Kant also states
that because we must believe that all things develop to their fullest capacity,
then we can theorize in summary, through cognitive processes we can create
communities, based on moral (ethical) action towards every person, thereby
creating universal ethics throughout the community or "republic". With
that in mind, it appears that Kant makes statements that assume all people
within like "republics" can achieve a level of cognition equal to one
another, for without that equanimity of cognition and judgment, then the
conflict issues cannot be rationalized through creation of universal law. The
statement that all people can achieve a similar level of cognition seems
preposterous in our modern world cognition in the sense of like thought. Because
we need the principles of Kant's categorically designed thought and action to
have universal acceptance; we must be willing to accept the undesirable
psychological deviants within the "republic." If we can't accept that
a person’s cognition is capable of universability, then we must dominate that
person by removing them from the republic. This in itself contradicts Kant's
theory because in order to end domination, we must yield to and follow our
cognitive thought and this cannot be done because the deviant doesn't achieve
the same level of cognition as the rest of the republic. This example seems to
point out a flaw in Kant’s reasoning and his belief of achieving similar or
same ethical norms to follow. We must make the judgment on whether or not
universal ethics is possible. I believe that a bit of universability exists in
certain social mores and norms throughout the world; don't kill your neighbor,
be kind to animals, incest is wrong, etc. yet, individual perception of the
world by people prevents the possibility of an all-encompassing universal code
of ethics. Furthermore, we have no way, to prove that our principles based on
perception can be rationally applied. Because of this inability to prove
rational application of perception and thus moral principle based on that
perception, we are unable to demonstrate the rational justification of any
universal principle or ethic. Application of the principles is central to
creating universal ethics, yet it seems that we cannot prove rational
application of the principles and thus fall short of gaining universal consensus
on what those should be. To Kant, these principles can be made applicable
through his transcendental arguments, but there remains the fact that he agreed
sensory (and thus transcendental) experience couldn’t be accepted as empirical
givens. This leaves the sensory or transcendental experience open to
interpretation. Empirical evidence creates responses that can be repealed time
and again with identical or nearly identical results. Kant does make arguments
for empirical thought in his, "The Postulates of Empirical Thought"
Section of the book Critique of Pure Reason, but his questions of an event
"what became of that?" and "What brought that about?" fail
to argue concisely about real and logical possibilities. Because of his lack of
definite statement, Kant fails to prove through his empirical thought arguments
that empirical thought or action can be universal. Kant followed his book,
Critique of Pure Reason, with Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which
he argues at length on moral judgment, practical reasoning and the like. Without
having read the book in its entirety, it seems that Kant provides example upon
example on the possibility of universal ethics. People attempt to describe good
based on virtuous thought. Virtuous thought supposes that a virtuous person has
a fairly explicit conception of what is called happiness. Kant’s perception
skews the person's thought because each person perceives an event (whatever the
event may be) differently. It is this difference in what people perceive that
creates opposing viewpoints on "good" whether virtuous or not. Any
attempt to provide a universal ethic to the community is impeded by the
community itself. Not only was it an impossible task in Kant's time, but it is
still impossible today.