PHIL 313 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Thomas Hobbes, John Rawls, Practical Reason
26 Jan 2018
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Humanity version- required to treat people as ends in themselves, and never as mere means. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another person, always as an end and never as a means only. The goal of morality must be something shared by every possible rational creature. This line of thinking avoids many of the philosophical issues associated with consequentialism and utilitarianism. If an action fails the categorical imperative, then it is always wrong. We have an absolute duty to tell the truth regardless of consequences. The only pure motive for acting is for the rightness of the principle, not for the goodness or badness of the consequences. In absolutism, there lies a conflict of duties. Sometimes we feel obligated to lie in order to keep a promise. Sometimes duty as a motive seems misplaced. A deontological solution to the problems that arise from kantian absolutism.
