Kantian Morality Kant's theory of morality seems to function as the most feasible in determining one's duty in a moral situation. The basis for his theory is perhaps the most noble of any-- acting morally because doing so is morally right. His ideas, no matter how occasionally vague or overly rigid, work easily and efficiently in most situations. Some exceptions do exist, but the strength of those exceptions may be somewhat diminished by looking at the way the actual situations are presented and the way in which they are handled. But despite these exceptions, the process Kant describes of converting maxims to universal laws to test their moral permissibility serves, in general, as a useful guide to and system of ethics and morality.
The Kantian Theory of Ethics hinges upon the concept of the Categorical Imperative, or the process of universalization. Kant describes taking a possible action, a maxim, and testing whether it is morally permissible for a person to act in that manner by seeing if it would be morally permissible for all people in all times to act in that same manner.
English: , Prussian philosopher. Português: , fil...
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English: Immanuel Kant Deutsch: Immanuel KantThus, Kant says that an action is morally permissible in one instance if the action is universally permissible in all instances. In fact, parts of the theory even say that it is one's moral duty to act on these universalizable maxims, and that people should only act on those maxims that can be universalized.
The stability of Kant's theory rests not only on the fact that it is completely objective-- every action is definitely either morally permissible or not-- but also on the fact that the theory is non-consequentialist. Kant truly does not look to the consequences of an action to see whether the action is morally permissible, but rather to...