PHILOS 4 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Adaptive Learning, Water Skiing, Heavy Object
Document Summary
Kantian morality instructs us to never treat another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; therefore, if i stay with my mother, i will treat her as an end, not as a means. But by the same token, ii will be treating those who are fighting on my behalf as a means. Conversely, if i join those who are fighting, i will treat them as an end, and, in so doing, risk treating my mother as a means. Kant states that freedom wills itself and the freedom of others. But he believes that the formal and the universal are adequate to constitute a morality. We, to the contrary, believe that principles that are too abstract fail to define action. Consider again the case of the student: in the name of what what inviolable moral maxim could he possibility have decided, with perfect peace of mind, whether he should abandon or remain with his mother.
