PHIL 333 Lecture 7: PHIL 333 - Moral Theory Primer
Document Summary
Phil 333: week 2-3: natural law theory. Principle of right conduct: an action is right if and only if (and because) it does not violate a list of intrinsic (human) goods. Aquinas: human life, human procreation, human knowledge, human sociability: the task for the natural law theorist is to explain why these goods are intrinsically good, and why violating them constitutes a moral wrong, kantian moral theory (kantianism) Kant believed that morality was a product of reason. Moral requirements (moral duties) are actually requirements of reason (rational duties) Since we are rational beings, we are under moral requirements. For kant, the idea that moral requirements are rational requirements tells us something important about what moral requirements look like: They must be requirements that no rational person could reasonably reject. So, by simply thinking about the idea of a moral duty, or a moral or categorical imperative, kant thought that the moral law reveals itself to reason.
