PHIL 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Ethics
10 Sep 2016
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In fact, kant teaches that his ethical system should not be derived from anything except pure reason: should not be mixed with anthropology, theology, physics, etc. The core of his system: when we act on our will in accordance with duty which is understood by reason, we are acting morally. Kant distinguishes three type of moral imperatives: hypothetical, assertoric (pragmatic) and categorical. We will deal only the categorical imerative. The categorical imperative (ci) is the highest form of moral imperative (not that we talk about only one categorical imperative which takes many forms). it is an unconditioned imperative. To say that a moral principle is a categorical imperative means to say that a perfectly rational agent will necessarily follow it, without any other conditions. For example, i should do this because it is the prudent to do. Or, i should do this because this is the useful thing to do. Or, i should do this because it will make me happy.
