Immanuel Kant And John Stuart Mill - 1206 Words

Big decisions are life changing and everyone makes them. The decision of what to do after high school. Or whether a person should marry their current companion. These decisions are the crossroads of a person’s life. Jim’s decision is a little different. He face a moral dilemma which affects the indigenous people of South America. According to moral relativism, every person has a different moral perspective of different issues. Therefore, if every person has a different belief of morality, there is no right answer to dilemmas only different opinions. Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill are philosophers with two different views on a person’s moral conscious. Kant believes morality is a duty that people should hold above their own happiness.†¦show more content†¦Even though Jim wants to help and would gain happiness by saving the lives of the indigenous people in South America, according to Kant’s principles it would not be morally good. By following duty, a person utilizes reason to disregard their natural instincts of self-preservation and to attain happiness for themselves. Kant’s position of ethics is deontological, or duty based ethics. In the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant asserts the 3 propositions of duty. â€Å"For an action to have genuine moral worth, it must be done from duty,† (Kant 9). Which means that if Jim decides to either shoot a native or start a rebellion, he would not be performing those actions solely for assisting people in need, but also fulfilling his personal desire to help the natives. Therefore his action is not purely good. The second proposition, â€Å"An action that is done from duty doesn’t get its moral value from the purpose that’s to be achieved through it, but from the maxim that it involves,† (Kant 9). The value of Jim’s action isn’t judged based on its consequences, but his maxim, his personal agenda. Considering Jim could use his actions for personal pleasure in fulfilling a heroic fantasy. Not entirely for duty or for the law his actions are not pure. F inally proposition 3, â€Å"To have a duty is to be required to act in a certain way out of respect for law,† (Kant 10). According to proposition 3, the rules of moral law