ipl-logo

Comparing Kant And Mill's Murderer At The Door

1215 Words5 Pages

When we consider Kant, it appears to be evident that almost all who are acquainted with his compositions recall the single word "obligation”. On the case of Mill, we often relate his works to that of “utility”. Both of these philosophers debate on whether our moral code is subjective or objective and what we ought to do in situations that lead us into a two-way path. What if this path has us caught between lying to a murderer or allowing them into our homes only for the reason of homicide? In the “Murderer at the Door” thought experiment, we are caught between Kant and Mill, our two-way path, and deciding whether it would be morally right to invite the murderer in the house or lie to save the life of the victim. This paper will look at both Kant and Mill’s positions as well as …show more content…

Kant challenges the concept of deception through his ethical theory and whether or not it is a duty for us to abstain from lying in order to strengthen our society. According to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, every moral agent has a duty to impose a maxim on all of his or her wills. Kant believes that “moral law is truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are bound by the same moral law.” An example of a moral law, according to Kant, is that it is eternally immoral to tell a lie. Therefore, no one in the society has the “duty” to lie and should not break the moral code. However, what if we are faced with a murderer standing at our front door asking for a victim that could be hiding in our house. Kant expresses that acts are never right even when it accompanies an ideal result; therefore, he infers that lying to the perpetrator is not just even though it could save the victim’s life. On the off chance that Kant is right that ethical absolutes can't be damaged, then he keeps any escape clauses, self-serving special cases, and individual inclinations in the determination of our

Show More
Related
742 Words | 3 Pages

The moral permissibility of Julie and Mark’s act can also be determined through the moral theories of minimalism and maximalism. According to minimalism, morality is in “our relationships with others and, more precisely, of wrong done to others...and early on, we make a distinction between three different domains, morality, conventions and personal… [in this regard,] only crimes with victims are immoral” (Ogien, 2011, 44, 47). From a minimalism perspective, Julie and Mark’s act was not immoral. Contrastingly, maximalism, states that “some victimless crimes are immoral” (Ogien, 2011, 44).

Read More
1065 Words | 5 Pages

Based on "Annie's Box," -- a biography penned by Charles Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family-- "Creation" takes a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, Torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book "On the Origin of Species," which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology. "Creation" is a film about the way this disagreement played out in Darwin's marriage. Charles and Emma were married from 1830 until his death in 1882. They had 10 children, seven of whom survived to beget descendants who even today have reunions. They loved one another greatly.

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

Mill and Kant have opposite idea and they support different moral philosophies. Mill exactly suppose the idea of social thinking, namely he claims that everyone attach an importance to other human beings. However, Kant considers that selfishness reflect people’s characteristics, in other words, each person should pay attention to themselves not others, because the most important thing for them is themselves. Kant also highlight that people can only behave in a good manner, if they have good will. In other words, Kant attach an importance to people’s instinct or characteristics, Mill gives weight to promoting happiness and dissolution of the pain.

Read More
799 Words | 4 Pages

Final Draft Article--Torture Let’s first take a look at an overview about how ethics relate to both Mill and Kant when discussing torture, both having two completely different views. Kant uses moral reasoning, “categorical imperative”, which says that a person’s behavior should live up to moral laws. He states that moral laws are the truth of reason and that all rational people should oblige to the same moral law. He focuses on moral verses immoral actions, allowing us to make easier decisions that involve only bad and good. Kant does not however talk about decisions when faced with the opposite, for example, when faced with bad vs bad or good vs good.

Read More
752 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout criminal history, there have been various attempts to justify murder. In a widely controversial case, two English seamen, Dudley and Stephens, killed an innocent and helpless boy and subsequently devoured his body to preserve their own lives (“The Crown versus Dudley and Stephens”). This case raises an important moral issue: Is it morally right to kill an innocent person out of necessity for one’s own survival? Three moral theories – Mill’s Utilitarianism, Aquinas’ Natural Law Theory and Kant’s Deontological Theory – provide different arguments on the morality of Dudley and Stephen’s action. However, Kant’s Deontological Theory offers the most well-founded analysis because it absolutely precludes necessity as a reason for murder and cannibalism.

Read More
5612 Words | 23 Pages

accept suicide, indifference to the welfare of others, false promises, and the neglect of one’s talents, although both formulations are independent. This type of practical equivalent thesis is what I term the weak version of equivalence because at first glimpse there is no conceptual relation between the two formulations. However, Kant goes on to develop another version of equivalence noting a conceptual relation between the two formulations. By unpacking possible translations of the terms, the one formulation can be seen, although perhaps not at first consideration, as an explication of the other; this I refer to as the strong version of equivalence. This strong version is much closer to complementary Kantian ethics given the theoretical unity that emerges in the Groundwork, which practical equivalence does not achieve.

Read More
1385 Words | 6 Pages

Immanuel Kant and John Samuel Mill have various similarities and differences on how we see the world. Where both will have, different ideologies referring to the cases of rescue I and rescue II. Kant and Mill are similar in multiple ways where both recognize the moral rules where Kant calls them duties and Mill calls them subordinate principles. Both have the subordinate principles where not to lie, no to stealing, and deprive from liberty from others. Appealing the consequences of the derived duties, where Kant considers the consequence of Maxim to become a universal law of nature, Mill considers the consequence of kind action.

Read More
704 Words | 3 Pages

(Text.pg.116) Lies are morally wrong, for two reasons. First, lying corrupts the most important quality of being human: your ability to make free, rational choices is deprived of you the moment you tell a lie. Each lie you tell contradicts the part of you that gives you moral worth. Second, lies deprive others of their freedom to choose rationally. When your lie leads people to decide other than they would have had they known the truth, you have harmed their human dignity and autonomy.

Read More
1222 Words | 5 Pages

I hope to convince the reader that Kant’s Categorical Imperative is the better way to live a morally conscious life and more practical to follow as well. First I will briefly describe both Kant’s and Mill’s principles. Then I will go on to explain the advantages and disadvantages of both. Finally, I hope to provide a counterargument for some of Kant’s Categorical Imperatives downfalls. Kant states the Categorical Imperative as: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will and general natural law."

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

It was not until Mill’s late teens that he began to study Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarianism theory. “Reading Bentham satisfied Mill’s cravings for scientific precision and gave him a new way of looking at social intercourse” (Buchholz 97). Mill became so intrigued with Bentham that he decided to preach the Benthamite gospel in the Westminster Review, a publication started by his father and Jeremy Bentham. Mill’s views soon changed as he grew older. It is said that Mill had a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty because he took the Bentamite precision too far and actually forgot the ultimate goal of Utilitarianism in the first place, happiness.

Read More
638 Words | 3 Pages

I agree with Kant that lying is wrong. However, unlike Kant, I do believe there are exceptions that allow us to justify a lie when the greater good outweighs the wrongness from the lie. When I say greater good I do not necessarily mean the greater good for all, as in utilitarianism, but more the overall result from the lie is better than the overall result from not lying (e.g., a life is saved). So, I guess I prescribe to consequentialism here.

Read More
360 Words | 2 Pages

In James Rachels’s “What is Morality”, Rachels dissects the idea of a minimum conception and examines various moral dilemmas. His idea of minimum conception is not to narrow down morality, but to narrow down the aspects or “cores” of morality. Rachels believes that this can be used develop a universal morality that can apply to every situation. In second part of the article, Rachels presents three examples of real life moral dilemmas and two opposing views for each situation. This examples touch on the issue of euthanasia, but have different purposes and consequences.

Read More
497 Words | 2 Pages

Lying is allowable because it is up to each individual to choose what to believe and perceive as the truth. For example, Teresa lied about being busy so she wouldn 't go for, on a date.(2) Kant says that all lies are bad.(4) What I mean by this is that some people believe one thing and others believe different things. Another way to say this is some people choose to lie and some don 't like that.

Read More
1959 Words | 8 Pages

Additionally, by lying one is taking away choice from the murderer. Despite his bad intentions, the murderer is still considered part of the moral universe, thus his autonomy must be considered equally as important to everyone else's. Telling the murderer the location of the victim also does not explicitly infringe on the autonomy of the victim as well. His autonomy is not impacted by choosing to disclose whether or not he is in the basement - he is just as able to hide, run, or make another decision regardless of whether or not one lies to the murderer. Therefore, it can be concluded that telling the murderer the location of the victim is actually the most moral choice because it does not erode the autonomy of anyone involved and follows the guidelines of

Read More
1288 Words | 6 Pages

Where are there are no rights, there are no duties. To tell the truth is a duty: but it remains a duty only in respect to one who has a right to the truth. However, no one has a right to a truth which injures others ( Kant, Immanuel). The question of whether or not lying ever proves acceptable constitutes as a gray area. An idea proposed by Immanuel Kant, are you to lie to a murderer?

Read More

More about Comparing Kant And Mill's Murderer At The Door

Related Topics

Open Document