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Mill Kant And Universal Law

797 Words4 Pages

The philosophical theories of Mill, Kant, and Aristotle all have strong and weak arguments. This causes some controversy of who is closest to the truth. Each theory has its own popularity in different circles of society. However I, like many others tend to agree with Kant’s theory of Categorical Imperative and Universal law. I believe these are the strongest most concrete arguments out of all of those in other theories. Kant states that one is a good or bad person depending on the intentions or motivations behind their actions rather then the outcome of those actions. I agree with this statement because many times ones actions do not play out like we planned and that is ok as longest we tried. The consequences of someone’s actions are not isolated …show more content…

This universal law states, “Act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time and without contradiction will to be a universal law”. The meaning of this to me is similar to that saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. For example, if you are married and find someone else other than you spouse attractive and you question your self if perusing something with this other person behind your spouses back is acceptable, then you must ask yourself if everyone perused some other person behind their spouses back (including your own spouse) would this be ok? Since this would lead to a contradiction to marriage as a monogamy and therefore make all marriages void, then the answer is no. Therefore, you person something behind your spouses back with another person is morally wrong. Mill would analyze it differently by looking at the outcomes of this situation however; you can’t know the outcome of the situation unless you peruse it in the first place. Therefore a utilitarian perspective cannot lead you to a decision. On the other hand Aristotle would agree with Kant in saying that cheating is wrong but he would focus on the virtue of the …show more content…

People are all ends on their own and using anyone is wrong especially if it’s for personal gain. This is immoral because it is like disrespect to the dignity of the other person and they are being treated as if they were objects. Mill as a utilitarian seeks to maximize utility; even if that utility comes from another human being as longest the consequences are good. An example of this would be to let a one person dies in order to save ten people. This is acceptable under Mill’s theory because ten people’s lives are more important than one. In Kant’s view all lives have the same value and it wouldn’t be morally acceptable to use one persons life for the other ten. Aristotle’s perspective would be to find the mean of both

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