In class on Wednesday, we talked about the difference between moral actions. The examples we used were:
1. Giving donuts to the homeless, some of them being diabetic and dying from the donuts. Does that make the intention of helping the poor a bad or immoral action?
2. Going into a convenience store with a loaded gun with every intention of robbing and murdering, but instead shooting the robber that was already in the store when you got there. Does that make the outcome of the situation good even if the intentions were bad?
In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant argues that in order for an action to qualify as moral, it must be done for the sake of being moral and for no other reason, or ulterior motive. He also states that a moral action is defined by the initial intentions, not what the action produced. The second principle I mentioned applies to the above examples. Giving donuts to the homeless would be defined, in Kant’s terms, as moral because the intentions were moral only for the sake of being moral. On the other hand, the second example would not be defined as moral in Kant’s eyes because the intentions were not moral.
I would agree with Kant’s ideas in these two examples because it seems to make quite a bit of sense. I’m sure there is an example someone can think of, where it might make Kant’s principles controversial, but for these examples, his ideas fit. Can anyone think of an instance when it would be difficult to decide if the action is moral or immoral by Kant’s definition?
I can't think of any examples. I think it's right to separate our will from a consequence, though that's much easier said than done. We see it in movies all the time, where some tried to do the right thing but someone died or got hurt and they then have to live with that crippling guilt while everyone around them assures them that it's not their fault. You hear it a lot like, "I could have saved them" or "I should have known". Things like that. But we, the audience, though they blame themselves, never blame them because they weren't trying to hurt anyone. Survivor's guilt is another example, I think, of where we faultily blame ourselves for things that were outside of our control.
ReplyDeleteI think Kant is right in the sense that as long as our input was good, whatever variables turned it bad does not mean that our initial input wasn't good.