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Mill Versus Kant

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John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant were two philosophers who focused on the concept of ethics, “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior” (Ethics). Mill was born in London, United Kingdom on May 20, 1806 and lived his life as a philosopher, author, scholar, and economist until his death on May 8, 1873. Kant was before Mill’s time, born on April 22, 1724 and was a well known philosopher before his death on February 12, 1804, just over two years before Mill’s birth. In particular, the two philosophers focused on how to determine what is morally right when faced with a situation. However, they used very different theories in order to conclude moral obligation in different circumstances. For instance, given the following scenario: …show more content…

Instead, Kant’s deontological theory focuses purely on the motives of the individual, in this case Jim. Kant believed that an action was truly morally right only if the person’s motives behind it were completely free of self-interest. That basically means that the person decided to go forth with the action only because it was the morally right thing to do. Therefore, in Jim’s situation, I believe that Kant would deem Jim’s decision to kill one Indian in order to save the other nineteen morally right. The reason for this is because Jim’s conscience would lead him to kill in order to save others and not for violent or sadistic reasons. Because Jim’s motives are pure, his choice to commit murder would be morally right in this specific situation. This would also relate to the first version of the Categorical Imperative, which states that one should “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law,” because it would not be rational for everyone to commit the maxim, which in this case is commit murder (Kant). Logically thinking, society could not operate properly if everyone were also killing and murdering, hence why Jim’s decision to kill in order to prevent more killings coincides with the first Categorical Imperative. The second version of the Categorical …show more content…

Mill and Kant’s theories are no different, as they have been victim of several criticisms. For instance, regarding Mill and his theory of utilitarianism, many have said that there is difficulty is trying to weigh the consequences of an action to determine the amount of pain and happiness it will cause. It is unclear how exactly one is to tell what the costs of the action are, as well as who exactly is affected and how far into the future one should look regarding the effect of the action. When it comes to Kant’s theory of deontology and duty, many complain of having great difficulty in even trying to interpret his work. It is impossible to accurately critique something that is so open to interpretation that no one can agree on what it

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