Kant
Until Emmanuel Kant, God, primarily the western Religion of Christianity's concept of God, was of an elevated stature over humans when concerning the issue of morality. This however was to be questioned due to this philosophers works on this subject. All philosophers preceding him also tried to solve and define this mystical thing called moral good. For Kant this journey had a side benefit. He discovered that it was all more impressive to be good as a human than God itself. For a human to do the right or moral thing means that a decision must be made; to side with the duality within each person, to be moral or follow the animalistic nature of inclination. This inclination is the desire, primarily, to be happy. To be moral means adhering to codes of goodness and selflessness. This might involve running into a burning building to rescue a child. This doesn't make one happy, because one doesn't say, "I could die or I could live" This seems ludicrous, that one would chose the good of one over the good of another, and not chose yourself. But this is what elevates us above the rest of the life on the planet, that we will chose to serve the laws of morality and justice, while putting aside one's own happine
Kant is trying to say that an action must be purely only done for the purpose of doing that action, without any other motive or reason for doing it. Charity is a good example of this. People often give to charity because it is good to help others, but they also get to feel good and show off to their friends with little medals of plaques. This destroys the good of the original moral reason for doing that action. God on the other hand has no such decision to make. God only knows morality. There is no weighing or balancing of conflicting agendas, be it morality or desire. God's decision is all the less impressive because morality is the only option. "The categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without any reference to any other end." This contradiction is caused by a series of things which Kant outlines and discusses in his discussion of the Metaphysical. A few of these components are: a priori, a posteori, maxim, will, and law. These are simply words for the parts that make up a decision, and it is important to understand their relation ship to the imperatives, or reasons for an action. The three imperatives are: 1. skill, how something is carried out, 2. Hypothetical, suggestions of what will make one happy, desires, 3. Moral, this is simply the
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 893
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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